A Court of Mortal Love (ACOTAR Fanfic)

Chapter 32

I could see nothing as the pain ricocheted through the base of my skull, the feeling of immense heat began to spread across my face, and I groaned as I felt the doorframe digging into my spine.
    A ringing in my ears, then a deep muffled sound periodically interrupting its high pitch.
    A sudden, searing sensation of a pulsating pain, as if my right shoulder and most of my arm were aflame—a different kind of flame than the heat coming and going on my face.
    My lungs seized, then expanded with a sudden intake of air, and I heard myself gasp.
    I wasn't dead, I knew that much.
    I tried to open my eyes but the heat and light were too great. I made myself roll on the floor from my place against the wall.
    I began to crawl, but my hand slipped and my shoulder, which still burned with pain, crashed to the floor. I smelt the tinge of iron before I realised it was something slick, and on my cheek. Then I opened my eyes, slipping through the goo to find purchase, and the sudden dawn of knowledge brought with it a heaving gag that wrenched any remaining sound from my throat.
    Blood. The sentries' blood. The Fae who had bled me, now covering me with his gore, clinging to my skin in a final plea. I retched again, wondering if he wanted to be forgiven, wondering if I even could forgive as I scrambled away from his body.
    Then the sound pierced my ears, the ringing subsiding with the boom of a terrible roar and the flash of deadly heat upon my back. I whipped around, and saw him, talons out of his hands, midway between transforming from Fae to beast, slashing at Anathema.
    A burst of magic came from her hands, and she hollered, aiming her gaping mouth toward the doorway. I realised she was calling for help as Tamlin's arm was singed from the blast of her sheer power, even as he leapt forward to swipe at her again.
    But he missed, and with it, stumbled from the ferocity of the attempt, no blow back from the Lady to balance it in the middle. She seemed to grow as she sidestepped and he flew forward again, crashing into the floor.
    "You never fought Amarantha, Tamlin, what brings you to do such a foolish thing now?" She crooned, her voice like she was gurgling something thick and viscous in the back of her throat. "This girl is even less worth it than the last."
    He whipped his head around, and snarled at her.
    "Come, come, Tamlin. If you give up now, I will spare her. I will allow her to be sent far from here—maybe the Night Court, where she can marry someone there, just like your Feyre."
    "Feyre was never mine," He panted, his claws digging into the ground.
    "Because this one is, right?" The Lady said, taking a step around him from where he heaved for breaths on the floor. It filled me with dread how composed she seemed next to him. He couldn't fight her. Whatever magic she held—that burned and made light, that had killed Tamlin's sentry with a flash quicker than one could blink—it was too powerful for him.
    "She's your mate," The Lady purred, that same gurgling just barely there underneath her words. "And you wouldn't want her dead, I can see that now. But serve me, and I promise... I'll find a way to make her immortal. That means, one day you could be together. But right now, your time to have her is short. Too short. She'll be dead by the time you can give her the life you perhaps dream of giving her: a life of you controlling her."
    I searched Tamlin's face, but his eyes never once flashed to me. His teeth glinted in the low light of my father's room. A growl came from him, so deep and full, that it seemed to originate from within the walls.
    "Tamlin," The gurgle was definitely there, clearer now as she circled him more fully, facing me. "Come now. Listen to what I offer."
    I wish he would meet my eye, for at least then, there would be a chance of him reading what I so wished to convey. That I did not want immortality if it meant living out however many years waiting for his service to her to be complete. What love was there in that? In denying each other now in the hopes that we would one day reach a paradise together. I cared not for a paradise; I cared for him.
    And I wish he could know that—that life was not about his riches, his legacy, his importance, nor did it matter about control. I shrivelled as I thought of him accepting her offer in the hopes to control our fate; if he did, I knew I would be forced into the process of being reborn as an immortal Fae—just like Feyre's sisters. And hadn't he, Tamlin, played a hand in delivering her sisters to that fate, and once he realised that fate was theirs, merely watched as they were forced into it?
    My heart thundered loudly, the pain in my chest now dominating the fire that was my shoulder and my arm, or the pulsating ache within my skull.
    He would not meet my eye.
    He held my future, my very life in the words I could see stuck to his tongue.
    His gaze was fully on hers now, his back facing me, his knees and hands still on the ground before her.
    "That's it," She purred, and I noticed her hands had begun to glow with her magic—the threat of what would happen if he refused. She would kill him; maybe she would have tried extending her lust elsewhere on another of the High Lords. Tamlin was just the first choice, because he had proven to be the easiest before. He was disposable.
    "We will make her immortal, and you will service me in return. Help me rule, in all the ways I choose you can help me. I promise not to keep you for forever," The corner of her lips tugged upwards, her eyes flashing with pleasure.
    Then, he bowed his head, and I felt a sob lodge itself in my throat.
    Why had I loved him? Why had I allowed myself such foolish hope?
    I should have fled; I should have cared for myself without placing my hopes into a male—nor any man—
    "Ellaena."
    I blinked at the sound of my name carried on a deep baritone, one I was sure did not come from the ladies' lips.
    Then the next word from him was so quiet, I almost didn't hear.
    "Flee."