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She’s stepping carefully through the dense forestry, weaving between the snow-caked trees, light on her feet so as not to startle any dozing creatures or draw unwanted attention to herself—when a twig cracks explosively to her right.
Feyre's shoulders tense up near her ears, and she spins around, heart in her throat. There’s an enormous thud, and her eyes widen in alarm when she sees it’s not a simple twig at all—an entire branch has snapped cleanly from the trunk of a very old oak tree. It's just crashed to the ground in a flurry of broken ice and pine needles, and a small plume of white snowflakes now rises in the air in a gentle cloud, temporarily obscuring the shadows.
Such an impact has shaken the forest floor, and little woodland animals—the ones still awake at this hour—squeak and scurry frantically away from the source of the commotion. Forget subtlety; now everyone within half a mile knows her location.
Irritated by this disruption, Feyre huffs, but then her eyes are drawn to a lingering shadow several yards beyond the fallen branch. It is large and unmoving but vaguely ominous somehow, despite the wondrous cascade of fresh snowfall drifting soundlessly around her. There’s an air of menace about it that sends her back a step—an instinctive move to protect herself.
“H-hello?” Feyre calls, silently cursing the tremble in her voice even as the greeting falls from her lips. She's usually much more assertive than this, but here, all alone in the forest, in the middle of the night, the trees stretching like giant skeletons to the black sky above....
Do not speak to the things you see in the forest. Do not even look. Just run.
The long-ago warning echoes in her ears and sets her knees trembling. She already knows she’s made a grave mistake in announcing herself. If the mysterious figure hadn’t noticed her before, it certainly does now. There’s no point running—the snow will likely hinder a quick escape.
The shadows shift aside like a veil removed—and reveal a solitary man.
Feyre’s young heart nearly crashes to a halt in her chest. She’s only in her fifteenth year, but the loss of her mother and their father’s fortune, the unbelievable poverty and ensuing starvation, have taught her many things. One of them is the power of a man’s appearance. He may not be wealthy, or particularly skilled, but if he is attractive, if he is pleasing to the eye, he may move mountains.
This man could perhaps move all of the Mortal Lands—and Prythian, too.
She staggers at the sight of him, nearly losing her balance. The man is so very tall, and outrageously broad in the shoulders, like a warrior of old. A fine obsidian tunic covers his long, lean torso—in fact, he’s outfitted head to toe entirely in black. No wonder he seems to simply dissolve in and out of the night—this is a man unafraid of shadows, a man who belongs in darkness.
Except for his eyes. Those are a deep, wicked violet.
Unnerved, Feyre wets her lips. The man smiles—a curved blade of a line.
“Hello,” he says back, affably enough. “What brings you to the woods at this hour, young one?”
Helpless to resist, she draws a step closer. The man is so...beautiful, she can hardly wrap her head around it. “I—I like to wander sometimes. When I can’t sleep.”
His eyes lazily trail down the length of her body, absorbing the puffy winter coat, threadbare leggings, and too-large boots that belong to Elain. She’s wearing mittens with holes between the thumb and index finger, and her braid came partially undone many minutes ago. She’s likely a sight for sore eyes, but at least she has the cover of darkness to hide some of her flaws.
Yet now, in front of this man, Feyre feels unfairly exposed. She suspects he can see all of her defects quite clearly, despite the night's gloom. Though it does no good to wish, she can’t help but do so, and desperately, for Nesta’s sharp tongue and noble air, or for Elain‘s bright smiles and soft demeanor. To be older, stronger, more confident like them would aide her well now. To be beautiful. Like him.
But she has always been hopeless in that regard.
“What is your name?”
“Feyre.” It shoots unbidden from her mouth, but she realizes that she doesn’t care. She wants to tell him anything, everything, whatever it’ll take to hold his attention.
Enthralled, she steps closer still. His eyes are purple.
“Feyre.” The man rolls her name around in his mouth like a drop of honey, slow and thoughtful and delicious.
“...W-what’s yours?” she dares ask, fingers trembling at her sides, thankfully concealed by her mittens.
His eyes flash, and he moves—far more quickly than anything natural ought to. One moment he’s across the clearing, nearest the fallen branch, and the next he’s a dozen paces from where she stands, frozen in place like a deer caught unaware. Her breath catches at the smooth, alien movement, and for a second she struggles to breathe.
Who is he? What is he?
“...You may call me Rhys.”
She nods jerkily. “O-okay.”
Rhys, Rhys, Rhys. Feyre repeats the name to herself again and again until it’s branded on her mind. It is her new favorite word.
“I must tell you,” he says, lowering his voice as if sharing a secret, “I’m not fond of the distance between us, Feyre. Why don't you come closer?”
Why don’t you? she wonders then, thinking of his uncanny speed. Surely, if he’s that curious, he may be by her side in half the time it’ll take her to reach him.
He catches the flicker of indecision on her face and offers her a benign smile. “You’re safe with me, darling. I would never hurt a pretty girl like you.”
The words trigger a memory. Months ago, a rowdy pack of boys from her village were jailed for luring young women in with soft promises and vehement reassurances that they “just wanted to talk.” These boys would draw the women into the shadows of an alley, or some other obscure place, seduce them with charm and good humor, and then brutally rape them. This occurred half a dozen times before authorities put it to a stop.
We’re not going to hurt you. You’re safe with us. No need to worry. We are nice, upstanding men, you know.
Feyre turns on her heel and flees.
She makes it no more than two yards when a shadow appears in her path, large and looming like a monolith. Her foot connects with a stray twig, and she stumbles, desperately trying to veer away into the dense forestry. Strong hands catch her by the elbows and envelop her in what at first seems to be a hug. But then he tenses, and Feyre realizes his arms are more restraints than stabilizers.
“Let me go, please,” she whimpers, gasping in the frigid night air. Her heart is a runaway train, careening around her ribcage. She wants Elain, she wants her father—even Nesta would do.
But Rhys bats aside her protests like they’re nothing but irritating little moths, small and harmless. He lifts her off her feet, hugging her waist, and presses his cold lips to her cheek. His sigh sends wisps of stray hair fanning across her neck. She shivers and shuts her eyes.
“My appetite of late has been quite...ravenous,” he confesses in a soft whisper, his lips brushing along her jaw. Her muscles instinctively loosen, and she finds herself leaning into him. “I find I cannot concentrate for want of a warm female body. One beyond Amarantha's reach.”
Feyre squirms, trying desperately to break free. His words mean nothing—who is Amarantha? Out of all the women in the Mortal Lands, why has he been drawn to her? She's not yet fully grown, and certainly not experienced.
Well, no matter. She sees it now. His appearance is all wrong—misleading. He’s handsome, surely, but too sharp, too angled. His skin is slightly cooler than that of a normal human’s, and his body is hard like marble. He moves far too swiftly, and each movement is both controlled yet fluid. Everything about him screams other.
Most damning of all are the pointed tips of his ears. They tell her everything she needs to know about him.
“You’ll keep me warm, won’t you, Feyre darling?” he murmurs, pressing chaste kisses along the curve of her jaw, then down the line of her throat. “For a little while.”
The world tilts, and Feyre finds herself flat on her back in less time than it takes to blink. The night sky is nothing but a blanket of impenetrable black above her, hints of an eerie blue shining through the skeletal limbs of the trees in the light of the crescent moon. Her breath plumes above, in soft, erratic clouds, betraying her fear.
Rhys tilts his head and licks his lips. "But a little while is all I need."
She shouldn’t have left the house. Regret washes through her—a tsunami of it. What a stupid idea. What a brash, thoughtless idea. Meeting strange people—strange men, in particular—while she wanders at night has always been a frightening possibility, but Feyre assumed the risk was worth it. To escape that dreaded hovel of a house, where Elain has nothing to offer but weak smiles and half-hearted hugs, and Nesta simply scowls her way through life—both of them utterly useless to the Archeron family’s continued survival.
Feyre is the only person capable of taking care of the family. They have nothing left but each other—and her hunting bow. If they lose her, Nesta and Elain will starve. These long years since father's fortune was torn away have made clear that she is essential, she is needed, and yet she accepted the risk anyway.
But now—now she’s not so sure if the risk was worth anything at all. Not her life, certainly.
Rhys gazes down at her for a long moment. The moon is somewhere behind his head, and all she can see is his broad silhouette and the gleam of his purple eyes. Less charming now, more...sinister. A shudder runs through her body like a static charge. He’s very big, and a man through-and-through—older than Nesta, absolutely. Perhaps as many as thirty summers.
Rhys’ mouth curves as he examines her, trembling and wide-eyed, on the frozen ground. After another few seconds of intense contemplation, he lowers himself to the snowy forest floor, crouching on his knees, and gently guides apart her legs. She kicks, but it’s no use. He’s far too strong. With quick, nimble fingers, Rhys strips her of her leggings. Her bare bottom hits the icy forest floor, and she cries out at the white-hot burning that seems to spread across her skin like an infection. She shivers violently and tries to push his hands away, understanding that he could kill her with a simple flick of his wrist.
“You’re a flexible little thing, aren’t you?” he coos, tossing aside the shredded remnants of her leggings. His large hands cup the backs of her thighs and drag her closer. “That’ll do you good tonight.”
Feyre gasps a frightened whimper. This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen. Certainly not here on the frigid ground, in the middle of the night with no comforts. Where is the big bed? The warm glow of a lantern? The soft slide of skin on skin? Where is the romance?
She should’ve known better. When has the world ever been fair?
Besides, romance is Elain's fantasy. In Feyre's experience, cruelty and pain reign.
Rhys settles himself between her open legs with great care and sets his mouth to the hollow of her throat. She bends her knees and pushes at his hips, his calves, but his weight pins her flat—the most she can do is slap at his shoulders. She needn’t have bothered, for all the good it does. Her slaps have the same effect as butterfly wings against a boulder.
The mad fae—for fae he is, Feyre sees that clearly now—sucks on the skin of her neck, lips hot and insistent. They rove from her collarbone to just beneath her chin, and every so often he’ll sink his teeth into the tender flesh of her throat. Not so much a bite as a subtle reminder—You’re mine now, it says. You’ll take what I give you.
She cries out each time he clamps down with his teeth and tears through flesh, drawing beads of blood. Waves of pain lap at her conscious mind, threatening to drag her under. But Rhys doesn’t seem bothered—no, in fact, the sound of her pain clearly excites him. He grunts and begins to roll his hips in a rhythmic, circular motion. The rough material of his trousers rubs against the special spot between her open legs, and Feyre finds herself moving with him—mindlessly, helplessly. The rough friction makes her eyes roll back, and soon they’re grinding on each other, panting and clawing and pressing themselves tightly together.
Soft little whimpers escape her mouth as she feels a strange pressure start to form in her lower stomach. She recognizes it as the feeling she gets in the dead of night, nestled under blankets, whenever her clumsy fingers rub in just the right way. But this is far more intense, far more immediate. With him, the pleasure verges on pain.
“That’s a very good girl, Feyre,” Rhys sighs, cupping the back of her head. His lips touch the corners of her mouth, and he gently guides their lips together in a hard, breathless kiss. “You’ll be nice to me, won’t you? Keep those pretty legs spread for me?”
She swallows down the instinctive urge to please him—“Yes, of course I will!”—and pries her lips from his to bury her face in his shoulder. His hand snakes down and roughly tears down the waistband of his own trousers until the heavy heat of him presses to the bare skin of her thigh. He hooks her legs over his hips and nimbly adjusts their position so she’s pinned completely under him—arms trapped by her sides, no room to move save a few inches here and there. Nothing to see but him and the crescent moon beyond his head.
"I need you," Rhys whispers, wild-eyed. "I need you here and now and—" When he kisses her, the world tilts a second time. Her eyes slide shut, and the taste of him floods her mouth—cold winter and heat and something dark like chocolate or cherry.
Unable to resist him, Feyre moans into his mouth and clutches at the back of his tunic, crushing the material in two tight fists. He inhales sharply and slips his tongue between her lips, scouring her mouth, filling her with his taste. His hands are everywhere—forcing her hips still, cradling her face, tangling in her unbound hair. She squirms under him, feeling the fleshy head of his thick member prodding at her entrance. She’s already soaked—arousal drips down her thighs in sticky lines to puddle on the frost-crusted earth.
“I’ll make you mine,” he promises, breathing raggedly. “Just—I need one nice thing before I go back. One taste of innocence, of—goodness—“ Rhys kisses her again, harder now, rougher, molding their mouths together until she can hardly breathe through the pressure. He licks the inside of her mouth, murmuring something about drawn to you and can't stay away.
He suddenly grabs her by the neck and bites down on her bottom lip. She whines and twists, but his grip is relentless—instead of releasing her, Rhys simply tightens his hold until she feels the imprint of his thumbs on her windpipe. Fingers trembling, she pushes at his chest, but he doesn’t release her until he slowly licks up the column of her throat once, twice, three times, laying his tongue flat to cover her in his scent. This is claiming, she realizes with a dart of adrenaline. This is marking.
Rhys tilts his pelvis forward, hips flush to hers, and probes for a moment at her entrance. The head of his cock catches without much effort—she’s positively dripping now—and he slides through her wet folds with a reassuring murmur. Feyre whines again, eyes going wide with alarm as she feels the monster length of him. There’s absolutely no way he’ll fit inside her hole. She’s much too small, much too delicate to be filled by—
But Rhys is patient, and determined, and, as she's quickly coming to learn, relentless. He sheathes himself inch by excruciating inch, expanding her walls with his bulk, until he’s finally buried to the hilt. With a relieved sigh—perhaps, for a second, he too believed it might not work—Rhys kisses her tenderly on the mouth, sighing her name.
Speared by his cock, Feyre realizes that she doesn’t know what to do. He’s inside her now, and she feels much too full. Like her stomach's on the verge of an imminent rupture. There’s no escape, she understands that much, no way out of this situation but to give this man—this fae—what he wants. His kind is infinitely stronger than her own—far more intelligent, with stamina that far outlasts that of any normal man or woman. She won’t—can’t—be free until he allows it.
If he ever does.
Sometimes male fae become infatuated with human women and refuse to give them up. They will spirit these women away to their land, to Prythian, and use them as they see fit. Sex slaves, household servants, pleasure companions. Humans are always at the whim of the fae, but never more so when one falls in love.
Rhys presses a kiss to a tender spot just above her collarbone and starts to roll his hips again. This new sensation is electrifying—it was one thing to feel him against her when his trousers prevented a true connection, but now that he's buried deep inside her body, the pleasure has increased tenfold. A gasp explodes from her mouth before she can contain it, and her hips buck, pulling him deeper. His lips curve against her skin—with amusement, satisfaction—and he slowly begins to stroke in and out of her pussy. She grits her teeth together to suppress another moan.
Her silence must not sit well with him because Rhys lifts his head from her shoulder until they’re eye-to-eye again, and in the depths, nearly hidden by the captivating swirls of purple, she sees a hideous craving. For her, yes, but something else too—a belonging. He wants desperately to find someplace all his own, she suspects, and as he stares down at her like a man with little sanity left, Feyre realizes that, in his mind, she is his belonging.
Her chest tightens with the first stirrings of panic. Why can she sense these emotions from him? They shouldn't be connected—fae and humans have only ever been predator and prey—yet she feels as drawn to him as he obviously is to her. She considers asking if her thoughts and emotions are obvious to him too, but Rhys is moving faster now, his strokes lengthening. The smooth glide of his cock in and out of her pussy creates a low friction that makes her squeeze her eyes shut in an attempt to block it out.
This shouldn’t feel so good. This should be ugly and repulsive and wrong, but instead—he’s making her feel whole.
It doesn’t make any sense.
With a grunt, Rhys begins to thrust. His engorged cock plunges into her slickness, and like a man possessed, he bites down on her shoulder and pumps rapidly, as if any hesitation will be enough to break this moment. Her body jerks in time with his thrusts, small breasts heaving under her tunic. He rips the material aside to get at them and greedily sucks a pebbled nipple into his mouth.
“Rhys,” she complains, bobbing under him.
In response, he slides his arms beneath her thighs and scoops them up high, pushing and bending until her knees are nearly even with her ears. This new angle sets her eyes rolling in her head, and her mouth falls open on a gurgled moan.
Oh, she thinks dizzily, gripping his muscled forearms. Oh my gods.
Rhys hisses a breath through his teeth and plunges deep, the blunt head of his cock hitting her cervix again and again. Feyre starts to cry, overwhelmed by the pleasure and the intensity of his thrusts, but the sound is nearly drowned out by the loud slap of his balls clapping on her wet pussy. His wrinkled flesh bunches against her core and comes away slick with her arousal—and then they hit her a second time, and a third, and on and on until she loses count.
“Feyre,” he growls, nipping her chin, her throat, her breasts. “My eager little doll—my precious toy. Let me—" Another grunt. "—fill you up.”
She cries out, her breath catching on a sob, as he pounds into her in a reckless sort of frenzy that could very well break her to pieces. A fae's strength knows no limit, and Rhys seems to have forgotten how frail she is compared to him. But she doesn’t mind. Let him devour her, here and now. Let him consume her. There is nothing left in this sad little life but this moment.
“That’s right, darling,” he coos, pinning her hands by her sides. His hips slam into hers roughly. “Take—all of me. I—own you now.”
She sobs an incoherent response and writhes under him. His strokes become short, sloppy, and he moves faster and faster, their hips meeting with loud, sticky claps. Feyre’s eyes continue to roll, and drool escapes her mouth. She stares sightlessly up at the midnight sky, bracing herself for the flood of pleasure that’s sure to follow.
A low whine builds in her throat, but Rhys smothers it with a hard, possessive kiss.
“Fill you up,” he promises hoarsely, rutting into her as if his sanity depends on it. “Drench this tight pussy, put a baby in your soft little belly—”
Feyre’s neck arches back, her head digging into the frozen crust of the earth, as an orgasm slams through her with the force and speed of an avalanche. Her thighs tremble around his hips as she finds her release. With a scream, she rides the orgasm, her fingers and toes going numb, and Rhys strokes deep once, twice, three times—and bellows his own earth-shattering release.
Her vision whites out, and there’s a loud, droning buzz in her ears that she eventually realizes is her own screams. Feyre finds she's unable to close her mouth as Rhys fucks her through two more orgasms. The winter woods echo with the noise, and her screams continue to slice apart the dead silence for many long minutes.
Gradually, they come back to reality. Rhys collapses, his weight nearly smothering her. Mindless with pleasure, Feyre rolls her hips a few more times to suck the dribbling come from his cock, moaning and writhing on the floor. She hates him for this, for claiming her body against her will, but she would allow him to take her again in a heartbeat. Never mind that he forced her down, tore her leggings away, impaled her on a cock far too large for her small body—the connection between them has overriden her sense.
Besides, she’s always been prone to a bit of risky behavior.
Rhys licks up the sweat collected at the base of her throat, thumbs pressing large, oval bruises into the skin of her hips. He kisses her desperately for a few minutes, smothering her moans and gasps, whispering all the things he wants to do to her once he has her bent on all fours. His words wind their way through the haze: "like an animal—a big, round belly—until you beg me to stop."
But then he glances at the moon and growls low in his throat. Rhys finally lifts himself off her tired body and, with one last lazy swirl inside her come-slicked folds, withdraws until his cock flops between his spread thighs. He stares for quite a long time between her legs, at their mixed juices, at the cream dripping in thick, white lines to puddle on the dead leaves.
Eyes darkening, he drags a finger through her juices, swirling it around a few times to coat his skin completely, before raising that finger to his mouth and sucking hard. He inhales sharply through his nose and nods.
Dazed, Feyre stares up at him as he rises gracefully to his feet and secures the waistband of his trousers. In seconds, he appears as he did when he first stepped from the shadows—clean, fresh, polished—but still dangerous.
Oh, yes. Still that.
With a smirk, Rhys grabs her around the waist and lifts her upright. Before he sets her on her feet, he trails a line of hot kisses up her throat until he reaches her mouth. She tastes herself on his lips and moans softly. Then her toes touch the forest floor, and she squeezes his shoulder, but she staggers when he lets her go. Her knees are so weak and shaky—she's forced to cling to him for balance.
Without a word, Rhys helps her into her torn leggings, obviously doing the best he can to repair the damaged fabric—he pulls and yanks and stretches it until her skin's mostly covered again. Yet she shivers, still feeling their combined cream between her sore thighs, and he immediately folds her into his arms.
“By tomorrow morning,” he promises softly, rocking her side to side, “you won’t remember a thing, my love.”
She nods into his chest, stunned. Has she really just been ravished by a fae? Did he really plant his seed inside her body? Feyre darling. My love.
What is she to this dangerous man?
“May we meet again under better circumstances,” he murmurs into her mussed hair, thumbs grazing the line of her throat. His voice is low, somber. “I will have you for my own, Feyre. One day.”
Rhys sighs her name one final time—and vanishes into the starless night.
🌌🌌🌌🌌🌌🌌🌌🌌🌌🌌
FOUR YEARS LATER—CALANMAI
Feyre whirls around at the sound of that low, smoky voice—and finds herself face-to-face with the most handsome man she's ever seen.
His violet eyes flash, and those lips from a long-forgotten memory slowly curve in a damning smile.
"There you are. I've been looking for you."