Archive of Our Own

In retrospect, Feyre would never know why this time was different. When her boyfriend lifted his hand and struck her, sending her crashing to the floor, she didn’t know why it filled her with rage instead of fear. Or why she picked up that vase filled with half-dead roses and slammed it over his head.

Feyre had just reacted. It was pure anger—Tamlin bruised her face so she couldn’t attend her art show the next night and was forced to stay in, all because he wanted her with him and no one else. He’d done it so many times, had ignored her pleas for him to see a therapist about his anger and the trauma he’d endured by a former lover instead of venting his rage on her. 

She suspected the control made him feel safe.

She didn’t feel safe. Didn’t that matter? He never heard her, and followed her when she left until she broke down and took him back, Over and over, until Feyre was a joke to her friends, her family. No one believed her when she said this was the last time.

They didn’t care when she left him. 

The vase smashed against that sunlit blonde hair, catching him off guard. Tamlin was a big man—it took a lot to surprise him. He stumbled, pitching forward. He smashed his face against the fireplace mantle with a sickening crunch before crumpling to the ground. Feyre didn’t move, panting for air.

Blood pooled around his face, and still Tamlin didn’t get up. They were silent for a multitude of heartbeats.

“Tam?” she whispered as cold slithered down her spine. He didn’t respond. Feyre crept closer and closer, pushing aside strands of his hair to look at him. With shaking hands, she pressed her fingers to his neck, trying to find a pulse. 

“Fuck,” she whispered. “Oh— fuck.”

Feyre stepped away from him, scrambling for her phone before she remembered it was in his pocket. She wasn’t allowed unrestricted access to it, given how he felt she abused her privilege and talked badly about him. He was determined to control everything about her—even her thoughts. 

Feyre fished it out of his back pocket before laughing. Who was she going to text? Lucien? Nesta? And say what?

Hey–I murdered my boyfriend, can you help me clean up my fireplace? 

No, Feyre couldn’t involve them in this. She should call the police and tell them what happened. They’d see the bruises and they’d…put her in jail because she’d still killed someone. And what was wrong with her that her first thought was cleaning up the evidence instead of guilt—remorse? 

But Feyre knew, as she looked down at him, that eventually one of them was going to die. She’d known it every time he’d struck her, every time his fingers had curled around her throat in anger that one day he wouldn’t stop in time. This felt inevitable and in some ways, she’d made her peace with it long ago.

To be fair, she’d always assumed their roles reversed. 

Feyre didn’t know what her plan was. She was moving on autopilot. Leaving her phone on the coffee table, Feyre fished out anything identifying from his jeans before reaching for his ankle. She’d just…drag him, she thought. 

She hadn’t realized just how heavy Tamlin was. By the time Feyre got to the front door she was drenched in sweat and she’d left a bloody trail in her wake. She wanted to scream. What was she supposed to do? Burn down her house? Which was worse? She could say she came home and the house was on fire from a lit candle and Tamlin panicked, smashed his head on the fireplace and died.

And she’d go to jail. 

Either way, Feyre was going to jail. The thought ought to have sobered her. Tamlin would get the last laugh from hell, containing her in a little cell just like he’d always wanted. So Feyre kept dragging him until she somehow managed to get Tamlin into the trunk of her car. She could practically hear the podcast that would be written about her and her many, many mistakes. 

Those who couldn’t do, started podcasts, or however the saying went. She drove in silence, winding her way through the city towards the one place she could be rid of a body. Velaris wasn’t devoid of crime, though it certainly liked to pretend it was. She’d seen all the articles about bodies washing up on the Sidra’s riverbank, of the suspicion people were being dumped from the docks. 

Let people think Tamlin had run afoul of the gangs. He certainly loved to gamble—maybe he’d racked up debt. Maybe he’d insulted someone. Feyre could play stupid, could rip up all the floors in her house and pull the carpet out of her trunk, too. Or she’d burn the house down, fake her own death, and start over in Toronto. 

A reasonable thing, she told herself as she pulled down the shadiest street she’d ever seen. With the glitter of downtown Velaris fully behind her, the warehouse district seemed…well, the exact sort of place you’d dump a body. Half the streetlights seemed to be broken and not one building had a full set of unbroken windows. 

It was here, inhaling the fishy scent of the docks, that reality began to creep in on Feyre. Was she really going to do this? Feyre forced herself out of her car, heart pounding. She was shrouded in darkness now, which made everything feel more ominous somehow.

Like she was being watched by a million surveillance cameras, broadcast live into everyone's homes. Feyre opened the trunk with shaking hands before backing up with a screech.

“You stupid bitch,” Tamlin slurred, stumbling from the trunk. He wasn’t dead and she’d fucked this whole things up. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“I—” Throwing you into the river seemed like the wrong response. How had her life come to this, she wondered? When had she become a monumental joke? Tamlin lurched, faster than she’d anticipated. Feyre didn’t move until they were both tumbling to the ground, his hands wrapped around her throat.

“Did you think you could kill me?” he asked, his face so close she could see his hatred burning in the dark. Feyre’s hand slid over the pavement, slicing over something sharp as she searched for anything to get him off her. Feyre was forced to reach for his fingers, trying desperately to pry them off her throat. She couldn’t breathe, and not being able to breathe always made her panic. 

“Hey!” a masculine voice yelled from somewhere in the dark. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Tamlin released her with surprise, turning to look at whoever had caught them. Feyre scrambled from beneath him and without considering that she now had an audience, grabbed a chunk of a broken cinder block and slammed it against Tamlin’s jaw. She might have screamed when she hit him—or maybe that was just the sound of her heart. 

Tamlin crumpled again, and this time Feyre didn’t stop. Straddling his chest, she hit him again, and again.

And again.

If he was alive, it was hardly a mercy. Feyre looked down at his bloodied, broken face just in time for the overhead street light to finally flicker on. Orange flooded through her vision, causing Feyre to blink. She turned, remembering she had an audience.

Standing over her, his face slack with what she assumed must be shock, was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. 

She took a breath and wiped her bloodied face on the back of her hand. Waiting for his horror, for his panic as he dialed 911. 

“Did you…?” he asked, blinking eyes so blue they might have been violet. 

She didn’t respond, rising shakily to her feet. The thought of straddling Tamlin’s dead body suddenly made her sick. She didn’t want to look at him—she needed to be far, far away from all of this. 

“Wow,” he said, running a hand through hair so dark it blended in with the night around him. Licking full lips, he took a breath. “We need to get rid of this.”

Feyre hadn’t expected him to say that. “What?” she asked breathlessly.

“The body,” he said in that rich, sensual tone. “Weigh him down.”

“Are you—”

“You’ve made me your accomplice,” he said, as if this were the most normal thing in the world. “And no offense, but I’m not going to jail over a man who strangles women.”

Feyre’s fingers curled around her neck, thinking of how bruised she’d be in the morning. The man—tall, she thought, and casual in a pair of well-fitting jeans and a plain black t-shirt that showed off the tattooed curve of his collarbone and powerful biceps, walked around her to peer down at Tamlin. 

“How did you get him out here? Drugs?”

Feyre barely remembered. That seemed like hours ago. “I dragged him.”

He raised well-groomed brows. “He looks heavy.”

Feyre wrapped her arms around her body as this stranger dragged out several unbroken cinder blocks from the darkness surrounding them. A lock of his head flopped against his sweaty forehead, half-hiding his eyes. He worked easily, like he had experience, and more importantly, didn’t ask her to help. 

Feyre, in return, didn’t ask where he’d found that chain. She merely stood there and watched him attach cinder blocks to Tamlin’s body before he looked up at her. 

“Help me?”

He still did most of the work. Grunting through his teeth, they dragged Tamlin to the edge of the docks and with a heave, plopped him into the inky, cold water. There was something so final about the sight of Tamlin’s face vanishing into the depths where, ideally, he would never be found. 

The stranger picked at a piece of dirt on his shirt. “Want to get Taco Bell?”
Feyre blinked, huffing out a hysterical breath. “Who are you?”

He offered a dazzling smile, so at odds with the crime they’d just committed. “My name is Rhysand, but you, darling, can call me Rhys.”

Rhys. 

Her accomplice. 

“My name is Feyre.”

He nodded. “C’mon. Let’s get some soft tacos. We’ll need an alibi, right? On me.”

Feyre could only nod. “Right.”

Rhys opened her passenger door with a flourish, hand outstretched for her keys. Feyre handed them wordlessly while Rhys jogged around the back of her little coup, slamming the trunk shut. This was where he’d threaten her, she thought with dread. Blackmail—she’d be trapped with another psycho instead of being free.

“So,” he said, circling away from the docks easily. He had one hand on the steering wheel, the other on the center console. “Are you thinking soft tacos, or—”

“What do you want?” she asked, hoping it was something easy. Money? Sex? A favor he could call in at some later date, ideally when she’d already packed up the area and was untraceable. 

“I like a chalupa, usually,” he mused. “But it might be better to get like, twenty soft tacos and bring them back to my place—”

“Your place? What? No, I meant, why are you helping me?”

“It’s hard to kill your…what was he, anyway?”

Feyre drummed her fingers against her knee, her jeans bloodstained and dirty. “Boyfriend.”

“Ah. Well, it’s hard to kill your boyfriend when you broke up with him months ago and have been dating me, right? We were out together, getting tacos, which is a casual, established relationship kind of food, before we went back to my place and had passionate sex for the rest of the night.”

It should have scared her, how casually he said that. There was humor in his voice—like he knew he was being absurd. It wasn’t a proposition, or at least, she didn’t think it was. 

“We ah, should probably get our stories straight though,” he added, glancing sideways at her. “Just in case.”

“My house is covered in Tamlin’s blood. The minute the cops show up with a black light, they’ll see it.”

“I know some guys who can help with that,” he offered. “Clean it up, but if you want them to come rip out your flooring, they are quick and discreet.”

“What do you do for a living?” she asked.

“Ah, good question. My girlfriend would know that. I work in finance.”

“Finance,” she repeated suspiciously. “But you know discreet contractors?”

“You should see the parties we hold,” he said with a grin. When she didn’t smile, he softened his expression. “I’m joking. My buddy Cassian runs a business. He’d do it as a favor—no questions asked. Just mop up the blood when you get home, okay? He can have it done in a day or two and you can crash with me. I’ve got a spare bedroom.”

“Why would you help me? I just killed a man, remember?”

“And I helped,” he reminded her, stopping at a light. “We’re in this together now. I’m not going down over a piece of shit strangling his girlfriend on the docks and neither are you. So we’re gonna spend tonight eating tacos and getting our story straight and in the morning, I’m gonna drive you home, help you clean up your place, and bring you back while Cassian gets rid of your floors.”

“And how long will we…?” Feyre didn’t know how to even ask. 

Rhys shrugged. “I figure we can keep up appearances for a few months until people stop looking for him.”

“This isn’t going to work,” she said, her hysteria rising again. Rhys’s hand slid to her thigh, squeezing until she took a breath.

“Breathe, Feyre, darling. Everything is going to be okay. That’s a good girl, breathing through your nose. Release it through your mouth. Good…very good. You’re going to be okay.”

She leaned her head back against the seat. “Maybe I should just turn myself in.”

“No,” he said, looking over with those star bright eyes. “You deserve to live, Feyre.”

She didn’t know how to make sense of that. 

You deserve to live. 

While he pulled into a drive thru and ordered enough food for ten people, Feyre turned his words over and over in her head. She hadn’t been living these last three years. Merely surviving. Constantly walking on eggshells to try and keep Tamlin from getting angry. Doing what he asked, even though it made her miserable. Giving him access to her life, control over the food she ate and the clothes she wore. 

And maybe killing him was the wrong response—but it was the first choice Feyre had made without any consideration for his comfort in years. A bad choice—but a choice nonetheless.

Rhys set a hot bag of food on her lap and began driving deep into downtown.

“My place tonight,” he said firmly, with no room for negotiation. “You can shower and sleep, and we can get to know each other.”
She nodded. 

Rhys wasn’t lying that he had a place downtown, though he’d certainly undersold it. He had on of the brownstones she’d always admired and knew she’d never be able to afford. Made of gorgeous brick she assumed, though his was covered in lush, green ivy that her sister Elain would have adored. Little flowers wove their way through the curling vines, making it seem as if his home was protected by some kind of magic. 

 Any other day, Feyre might have marveled at the sheer scale and size of his place—tonight, all she wanted was to crawl beneath hot water. His home was decorated beautifully and she wondered if that was his style, or he’d paid someone to do it. 

“Use my bathroom,” he offered generously, leading her through his bedroom. She tried not to think of the man in front of her, one hand clutching a greasy bag of tacos and the other on her shoulder, laying on those dark satin sheets. “It’s nicer than the guest one and has the added benefit of having shampoo in it.”

Rhys flashed her an apologetic smile. “I don’t have company often.”

“Oh, I don’t believe that,” she said, aware of how flirty she sounded. He arched his brow. 

“Believe it, darling,” he all but purred in response. 

He left her there with nothing but a smirk and a soft, “What’s mine is yours.” His shower was obscene, big enough for the two of them. Water poured from all direction, and for a minute, Feyre could pretend she was here because she’d met him and she genuinely liked him.

But when she closed her eyes, she saw Tamlin hovering over her, his hands wrapped around her throat. 

She saw his face disappearing into the water. 

Feyre stole Rhys’s fluffy white robe when she was done, padding out into the bedroom where he’d helpfully laid out a plain white t-shirt and a pair of dark boxer shorts—all clean. All things his girlfriend might wear. Feyre put them on before rifling through his drawers for a pair of sweatpants or athletic shorts. She wasn’t going out there like this. 

She found gray sweatpants and without wondering what they looked like on him, she cinched them around her small waist and knotted the ties. Good enough. She was comfortable at least. 

She padded into his large living room where he’d spread tacos over a glass coffee table. Bottles of water sat on coasters, alongside several different types of beer. It was strangely endearing how he was trying to make this experience palatable. 

What would the murder podcasters say about this? 

Feyre bet Rhys would have groupies in jail. 

He stared when she came in, eyes wide. Feyre was still combing through her hair, wishing she’d nabbed some of his socks, too. “I borrowed your pants. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I ah…” he cleared his throat, looking back at his spread. “Take whatever you like.”

“So,” she began, sitting carefully beside him on his expensive looking couch. “Fake dating?”

He smiled. “That’s right. Let's get our story straight, hm?”

And they did. Feyre slid to the floor to better eat without making a mess while she and Rhys talked. He was easy to talk to, too. He told her about his sister at college and his parents divorce. About college and his friends and how he spent his time. She learned what kind of music he liked, the shows he watched, his favorite movies.

She shared, too. She told him about her sisters and her father’s death. About how she painted and her hopes of making it big one day—big enough to support herself, anyway. How her house had belonged to her father and neither of her sisters wanted it, which was how Feyre had ended up living somewhere without a mortgage or rent.

And, inevitably, to Tamlin. How they’d met, when he’d become mean—how she’d tried and tried to leave and how he’d keep coming over with gifts and threats depending on his mood. How she kept taking him back because it felt inevitable. She couldn’t escape him so why even try? 

Rhys just listened, even when she rested her shoulder against his knee. 

“I don’t think love is supposed to be so hard,” he finally offered, looking down at her with sympathy that didn’t feel pitying. “I’m sorry that happened to you. I hope you know you didn’t deserve it.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, trying and failing to take her eyes off of him.

“We should get some sleep,” he finally said. And despite his jokes about a night of passionate sex, he merely showed her to his guest room across the house and told her if she needed anything, to just yell. She fell asleep quickly, sinking into nightmares where Tamlin somehow rose from the dead and found her, dragged her from bed, and forced her to take his place.

Feyre woke to darkness and the sound of someone's voice.

“Feyre?”

Rhys was in the doorway, shirtless in just a pair of athletic shorts. “You were screaming.”

Was she? But she must have been, given how hoarse her voice was. Rhys held the doorway, unmoving though his chest rose and fell rapidly. She could see his tattoos in the warm light from the hall—black whorls of ink decorated the golden brown musculature of his upper torso. Mountains graced his powerful knees. 

Could Tamlin get through this man, she wondered? Rhys looked as if every inch of him had been lovingly carved and something about him exuded strength. 

“I…” she whispered, scooting from the center of the bed to the side closest to the shaded window. She pulled the blanket back wordlessly, inviting him to join her. He was a stranger—he was her protector. He’d intervened long enough to keep Tamlin from killing her, had brought her home, and asked nothing but that she help him from being implicated in her crime.

He wanted to help her, too. No questions asked. 

Here, too, Rhys did not object. He merely joined her, one arm outstretched to gather her against the warmth of his body. 

“Go back to sleep,” he murmured, his breath warm against her cheek. “I won’t let anything happen.”

Feyre believed him. 

She’d woken in a strange man’s arms. Somehow, it wasn’t weird. Rhys seemed determined it wouldn’t be, and all of Feyre’s anxiety from the night before had begun to melt away. He seemed wholly unbothered as he ushered her cheerfully out the door, and Rhys got coffee while Feyre waited in his car—not hers. 

She asked him only one question when they began to drive to her house. “Do you think I’m a bad person for not feeling guilty?”

He glanced over at her, hand squeezing the thigh he was casually touching. “Why should you feel guilty when the alternative was you?”

And when she didn’t respond, he added. “Do you think he ever felt guilty?”

Feyre bit at chapped lips. “No.”

“Then why should you?”

She thought about that even when they reached the house. Feyre stepped inside, expecting to see trails of blood and broken glass everywhere. In her memory, it all seemed worse. Her phone was still on the coffee table in the living room, and there was some dried blood, but not nearly as bad as she remembered. 

Tamlin’s phone was gone.

“Go pack your things,” Rhys said, making his way to her little kitchen. “I’ll deal with this.”

“See if you can find his phone,” she called after him, making her way to the bedroom. They would need that. Stupid, to leave it at her house—though, she had planned to say they’d been together all night and she didn’t know what happened when he left. And Feyre certainly hadn’t considered a stranger would offer to be her pretend boyfriend for an alibi.

Now she needed it, though she didn’t know how she’d explain her phone and his at the same place. One problem at a time, she rationalized. 

Feyre zoned out in her bedroom, lost in a flurry of memories and moments in that room. Everything was tainted by Tamlin—good and bad, though mostly bad. Feyre wondered how they’d even gotten there. Things had been so good in the beginning that by the time things weren’t good, she found herself willing to excuse some of it. 

A lot of it.

He had a bad childhood. His last girlfriend had been horrible to him. He just needed someone to be kind to him. To show him softness, that he could trust. He was emotionally unavailable, unconcerned with the words coming out of her mouth. He didn’t listen or worse, he dismissed her feelings if he disagreed or disliked them.

And if she pushed too far, he’d lash out. Sometimes he’d just yell, but more and more, it became the back of his hand or the knuckles on his fist that ended the argument. When he was truly enraged, his fingers would curl around her throat, removing her ability to speak at all. Feyre could never figure out what he wanted.

Even then, sitting on the edge of a green and gold bedspread, she wondered what he’d really wanted. Compliance? A doll he could dress up and fuck—that looked at him only with adoration?

Or did he just want someone he could vent his own pain into? He was suffering, so she would have to suffer, too. He wanted her to. 

By the time Feyre began pulling clothes from her closet and dressers, she could hear the sound of masculine voices at the door. Curious, she crept down the hall, peering into the living room toward the door.

Rhys had dressed the same today as yesterday, though the midnight purple shirt he’d thrown on clung to his muscular chest and made his biceps all the more prominent. He was holding open her front door to keep whoever was on the porch from seeing in. 

“...with you?”

“That’s right,” Rhy purred, his posture utterly relaxed. “Do you need something?”

There was a pause.

“Mr. Green wasn’t at work today and his co-workers called to do a wellness check.”

“He doesn’t live here,” Rhys replied, still casual. How was he so relaxed? Feyre was sweating, was so terrified she thought her heart might come out of her chest. 

“His phone last pinged here.”

She saw a smile spread over Rhys’s handsome face. “Feyre was with me all evening—if Tamlin was here, well. I guess he’s back to stalking her, isn’t he?”

More silence. “Stalking?”

“That’s right. Stalking her, hitting her when he gets too close, breaking in…things that, now that I think about it, are crimes. Right, officer?”

Why was he grinning like that? “Is that so, Mr. Moreno?”

He only shrugged. “What do I know about the laws of this fine country? What I do know is that if he was here looking for my lovely Feyre, she was very occupied. As for Tamlin—have you tried the casinos?”

Another voice entered the conversation. Cheerful, like Rhys’s, he called, “Excuse me officers, I’m trying to scoot past you.”

And in stepped the largest man Feyre had ever seen. Handsome, with shoulder length hair that fell in dark waves, hazel eyes set in soft, golden brown skin, and a smile that wouldn’t have been out of place on a billboard ad—with the body of someone who worked out every day of his life, she figured this had to be Cassian.

“Any other questions?” Rhys asked, his eyes bouncing toward his friend. 

There was a mumbling of no before Rhys snapped the door shut and Cassian burst out laughing. “You should have told them to call your lawyer.”

“I’m sure Eris would have loved that,”

Cassian turned to the living room, scrubbed mostly clean while Feyre tried to figure out how to announce herself. Cassian whistled softly. “I can have this done in a day.”
“

Good,” said Rhys as Feyre loudly took a step. He turned and she appeared, eyebrows raised. Cassian’s smile faded when he saw her, and too late, Feyre remembered she was covered in bruises. She needed to reschedule her show. 

“Hey,” Cassian said, his voice devoid of pity, which made her feel better. “I’m Cassian. I ah…heard you wanted some new flooring?”

She nodded. “How much–”

“I got it,” Rhys said just as Cassian added, “No charge.”

Cassian and Rhys looked at the other before Cassian said, “I owe Rhys a favor…or three. Don’t worry about cost. Let’s pick you out some new floors.”

The whole thing was strange and yet Feyre almost didn’t care. She packed and then let Cassian show her different wood samples while another man—Azriel, she learned—came with news he’d put leather interiors in her car before strolling right back out of the house. When she’d asked what he did, Rhys had said IT, and Cassian said mechanic. 

Feyre picked dark wood because Cassian said it would make her house easier to sell—and Feyre wanted to be rid of it. He promised her two days tops, and when she asked what would happen with the current wood, he only grinned.

Like he knew exactly why she was asking and wanted her to know she didn’t need to worry. Feyre was tempted, when she got back in Rhys’s car, to just ask him what was going on. To stare him down and demand to know how he was so calm, so unbothered. As they drove back to his place, Rhys told her amusing stories about he, Cassian, and Azriel growing up and Feyre, in turn, talked about her sisters. 

She wondered what they’d make of all this. What would they say when they learned that Tamlin was dead and the police were already asking questions? Nesta was a lawyer, but maybe she wouldn’t want to help—maybe it would ruin her reputation.

And Elain was a florist. Surely florists didn’t want to be associated with murderers? 

Lucien was the only other friend she had. He, too, was a lawyer and she only knew him because Tamlin had introduced them. She very much doubted she could text him hey I killed your friend, can we talk? Without angering him.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” Feyre asked Rhys once they were safely tucked back in his apartment. He was walking to the kitchen, fingers reaching for a pot.

“What?” he asked her, half lost in whatever thoughts slid through his brain.

“That you watched me kill someone.”

His eyes snapped to her face. “Truthfully?”

Her heart raced. “Yes,” she whispered, her throat coated in sandpaper. 

Rhys braced his body against the counter, backlit by the golden light of the afternoon filtering through an open kitchen window. “It should have been me—not you, who finished him. I was coming to help, but you…”

There was no revulsion on his face. Only open admiration, and some other emotion she didn’t recognize. Rhys cleared his throat. “You’re dealing with a lot, but I wasn’t totally lying about wanting to eat tacos and do…other…things with you.”

Passionate sex. That was what he’d said. Feyre suppressed a shiver at the thought, remembering how it had felt to wake up with her cheek pressed against his chest. 

Rhys turned to fill the pot with water while Feyre wrestled internally with the idea that she was a bad person for wanting to have that with him, too. She hadn’t known him even twenty-four hours. For all she knew, he was just as bad as Tamlin.

Worse, even. 

“Have you ever…” Rhys stilled, his back tense at her question. He turned ever so slightly, looking over his shoulder with unreadable eyes.

“Have I ever what, darling?”

Feyre shook her head. “Nothing. I shouldn’t—”

“Killed someone?” he guessed. It was an absurd proposition. Still, Rhys smiled like he’d done when he had been talking to the police, and Feyre knew, without him saying a word, what the answer was.

Yes. 

That night, after spending the evening laughing with someone who very well might have been a serial killer, Feyre took the empty guest bedroom again, tempted to ask him to join her. Rhys hadn’t made any overtures and Feyre hadn’t invited him.

Moreno. 

She’d heard the cops call him that. With her phone back in her possession, it was easy to google him. Nothing about Rhysand Moreno came up that was unusual. An instagram page that somehow already had pictures of the two of them backdated by four months. 

On page two, she found one article about a man named Antonio Moreno who’d gone to jail for tax fraud, and when she clicked it, Feyre was treated to an image of a man that had to be Rhys’s father. They shared those blue-violet eyes and that midnight colored hair. Antonio, she learned, was rumored to be more than just a blue collar criminal—but the head of a powerful crime family. 

A murderer, among other things. 

That had been ten years ago—Rhys would have been in his early twenties when his father was put behind bars. The article only speculated, as the feds had never been able to prove his father did anything more than not pay his taxes correctly and lied to the IRS. 

She set her phone down and replayed every interaction she’d had with him. Rhys, dressed casually for the docks which didn’t seem the sort of place a man with his kind of money and face liked to hang out. He’d know exactly where to find that chain and those blocks, and hadn’t flinched when it came time to dump Tamlin.

He knew a guy in construction and was good friends with a mechanic. And when she’d asked if he’d ever killed someone, Rhys had only been amused by the question. Feyre stood, her heart pounding. 

She crossed the dark house for his bedroom. She’d assumed he’d be in it—and she was right about that. When she flung open the door, Rhys was certainly laying on those dark, silken sheets.

Naked.

His cock gripped in one hand, muscular thighs spread apart. He didn’t release himself when he saw her, head turned to look.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, his voice huskier than usual. 

“I—” Yes, something was very wrong. A man with his face ought to have an average sized penis at best. Feyre couldn’t drag her eyes from the long, thick erection currently straining beneath one of his already large hands. 

Neither of them moved for a moment, waiting for the other to do or say something. She should have knocked and he should have tried to cover himself. Should have at least pretended he was a gentleman. Rhys stroked himself languidly, an invitation if she’d ever seen it. 

“Would you like to know what I’m thinking about?” he asked when she remained still and silent. Feyre did— and she needed to know the truth. 

“A thought for a thought?” she replied, determined she would have both. He smiled when she closed the door softly behind her.

Rhys stroked himself again.

“Alright. You first, darling.”

“When your father was arrested, did you take over the family business?”

He huffed out a laugh. “Googled me, huh?”

“Did you?”

Rhys slid his free hand behind his head, flexing his bicep ever so slightly. “Yes.”

“And the night on the docks?”

“That’s two questions, Feyre,” he teased, stroking himself again. “But I’ll answer because I think you’re going to crawl into my bed regardless of what I say.”

“You don’t know that,” she whispered, back still pressed to the door. Rhys finally released himself, but only to sit himself up and swing his powerful legs off the bed.

“Don’t I?”he whispered. “Because I think the only thing keeping you from my bed is your fears that you should be more upset by what you did last night.”

Feyre didn’t move as he approached. “I was at the docks cleaning up a mess when I stumbled upon an angel. I would have done it for you—I would have killed him for putting his hands on you, and I regret I couldn’t do that for you. You can’t figure out why it doesn’t bother me—why would it? When you were the most magnificent thing I had ever seen with that chunk of concrete in your hands? I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. All I could think about was your name. I had to know it. And I would have done anything to hear you tell me.”
He was towering over her, one hand pressed against the very same door she was. 

“Was this all a ploy? To get me here?”

“You can leave,” Rhys told her, lowering his face ever so slightly. “I’m not going to hunt you down. You’re not an animal. And I think you know I’m not going to betray you. If you want to leave and never see me again, consider this our little secret.”

“And what will you consider it?” she asked him breathlessly, her hands twitching at her side. She wanted to touch him so badly she ached from it.

“What will I consider you?” he asked, his voice sultry—so at odds with the contemplation on his face. “The one who got away, my darling Feyre. I’ll console myself with the knowledge that you escaped that man. That your life is one you chose, and not one forced on you.”

“And if I wanted to stay?” she asked, unsure if that was smart. She didn’t know him, though she liked him.

And she wanted to know more about him.

“Then I’m going to put you in my bed and fuck you so throughly you’ll never consider leaving me.”

“Am I safe?” she asked him, raising her hand to press it to his chest. “Swear you won’t hurt me.”

Feyre could feel his pounding heart beneath her palm. 

“I won’t hurt you,” he whispered. “And I’ll kill anyone who tries.”
She leaned up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek. She intended to feel the rough stubble of his jaw. Rhys smelled like salt and citrus—like a dark night over a cold sea. Rhys turned his face at the very last second, letting her lips collide with his own. And oh. That was much, much better. 

His mouth was soft, his hands instantly on her face, tilting her so he might have better access to her. Feyre pressed herself against him, forgetting he’d already been hard when she came in. She could feel him pressed against her hip, all but bruising the bone. 

“This was what I was thinking about,” Rhys gasped before those hands slid from her face down her body to cup her ass. She was in the air, legs hooked around his waist in an instant as she dragged her fingers through his dark, thick hair. Rhys devoured her in another kiss, tongue sliding between parted lips for a taste. 

“What?” she gasped. Was he talking? Rhys dropped her to the bed and yanked at the pants she was wearing—his sweatpants, which might have been embarrassing had he not been peeling them off her body. Feyre helped, lifting her hips before she tossed her sleep shirt to the floor so she was just as naked as he was. 

“This is what I was thinking about,” he repeated, hovering over her until he was between her legs, sitting on his haunches. Rhys ran his hands up and down her thighs, spreading her out inch by inch. “I was wondering what you’d sound like when you came, and how you might taste…how your body would feel gripped around my own.”

“Rhys,” she whispered as he lowered himself to the bed. 

“I wondered that too. No one can hear us, darling.”

Rhys was in no hurry, giving some credence to the whole passionate sex all night statement he’d made. His mouth trailed kisses up one of her inner thighs, reaching just where she wanted him before he traded legs, moving down, and then right back up. Feyre squirmed, trying to get him to move up.

Rhys chuckled. “What’s your hurry?”

“Please,” she begged, lifting her hips in invitation. 

He groaned softly. “Don’t beg—Just tell me what you want.”

“Put your mouth on me,” she whispered.

 Rhys didn’t have to be asked twice. He licked up the center of her and Feyre gasped. Despite having asked for exactly this, she didn’t feel prepared. She wasn’t prepared for how Rhys moaned against, the vibrations settling low in her gut. The hands holding her open currently slid beneath her, pulling her lower half off the bed entirely while spreading her apart.

Rhys went after her like a wild animal—ravenous and desperate, his tongue sliding over her clit before delving into her body, teasing her with what it would be like when he actually fucked her. 

She was burning, falling. Feyre’s fingers curled in his sheets, the same she’d admired the night before when she’d walked into his bedroom filthy and soaked in blood. Wholly unaware Rhys was hardly a guardian angel but more like the devil, dragging her down, down, down with him.

If this was damnation, she welcomed it. 

Wanted it. 

Feyre tangled her fingers in his hair, pulling the strands while pushing his face closer. Rhys let her, his whole world reduced to her pussy, a fact he seemed immensely delighted by. His tongue moved faster, chasing each moan that slipped from her lips until Feyre couldn’t stand it anymore. Maybe it was the stress of the last twenty four hours or maybe it was him and how he seemed to have an expert understanding of her body, but Feyre bowed off the bed and Rhys redoubled his efforts.

It wasn’t necessary. Feyre’s pleasure, once tightly spooled in her body, unraveled quickly. She didn’t mean to scream his name as glittering stars burst through the darkness behind her eyelids. And she certainly didn’t mean to grind her body against his face, hips rolling and making a mess of him. Rhys didn’t stop, his fingers kneading into the supple flesh of her ass cheeks until Feyre was wrung out and too sensitive.

“Rhys, stop, it’s too much—”

He swallowed her protests with his mouth, still wet from her orgasm. His body settled against her own, cock rubbing against her still convulsing flesh. 

“You are my salvation, Feyre,” he whispered, forehead pressed to her own. Locks of his dark hair flopped into his eyes, making it seem as if he were half shrouded in shadow. Rhys was a dark prince—what did that make her?

“You’re mine,” he added softly, pushing himself into her body gently. Feyre inhaled sharply, pulling him down by the neck for a kiss. Rhys didn’t stop his invasion though he went slow, as if he knew she needed a second to adjust to the stretch, to the utter fullness of accommodating him. Feyre was adrift in a sea of Rhys, drunk on the scent of him, on the feel of being skin to skin as they shared the same body. 

“Feyre,” he panted, swallowing hard. “God Feyre, you…”

Seeing him so at a loss sparked new arousal. Feyre wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed beneath his jaw before licking down the side of his neck. It was enough to convince him to move, to withdraw himself to the tip before thrusting himself back into her. He moaned when she involuntarily tightened around him, forming like a second skin against his bare cock. 

“Your body, Feyre,” he groaned again, finding a rhythm that was brutal without being painful. Feyre rose to meet him thrust for thrust, losing herself in the way his hands skimmed over her, the way his mouth kissed her. 

Feyre raked her nails down her back, sharp enough she was sure she must have drawn blood. Rhys all but whimpered, his pace quickening. She wanted to see him undone, wanted to make him fall apart.

An arduous task, giving her own pleasure currently rising through her. “I need to feel you come,” he panted, like she hadn’t already done so on his tongue. “Come on my cock, Feyre, darling,” he moaned, the words half pulled from his throat with what seemed like great effort. 

One of his hands slid between their bodies, finding her clit and rubbing with inelegant, yet effective strokes. 

“Rhys—”

“Be my good girl,” he whispered, teeth nipping at her earlobe. “Come for me, Feyre, please—”
And she did, like a puppet controlled by strings. Rhys did, too, and she wondered if he would have even if she hadn’t, or he would have held himself back. Rhys had gone tight, almost rigid as his precise rhythm gave way to mindless thrusting, desperate to get closer, to fuck her deeper. 

Feyre pulled him close, letting them both ride through their combined release as one. Rhys buried his face in the crook of her neck, kissing and whispering her name like it was a prayer to his personal god. 

“Give me a minute,” he said, pressing a soft kiss to her lips.

“For what?”

“To have you again. I need to catch my breath,” he said with a grin. “I seem to recall I promised you all night.”

“I might need more than five minutes,” she said weakly.

Rhys kissed her again. “Take all the time you need.”

One year later:

Rhys flopped on the bed he shared with his girlfriend— wife— head spinning from champagne. She came with him, in part because his hand was wrapped around her waist, and partly because she, too, had a little too much to drink at their wedding reception.

“Wife,” Rhys said with a breathless laugh. 

“You keep saying that,” Feyre teased, poking him in the ribs. “Did you just realize that’s what happens when you get married?”

“I keep waiting for you to change your mind,” he admitted, rolling to his side to look at her. She was a vision in white, her dress tight through her abdomen before flaring out around her legs. Her hair was pinned around her face, but a night of dancing and laughing had softened the pearl pins, allowing tendrils of that golden brown hair to escape and frame her pretty, freckled face. 

“You’re stuck with me now,” she said, opening silvery blue eyes to look up at him. “And it’s too late for cold feet.”

Rhys laughed, then. Lowering himself for a kiss of gloss stained lips, he said, “I’d have married you the night I met you if you weren’t so freaked out.”

Feyre only smiled, pushing herself up to kick off her heels. “So you like to remind me.”

Rhys followed behind her as she sashayed through the room, fingers itching to touch her. 

“You were very patient,” she added, her praise warming him.

“I was, wasn’t I?” Rhys laughed again, because he’d been anything but patient. He’d gone to his mother for the family ring a month after meeting Feyre and had spent five months walking around with it in his pocket, waiting for the right moment while simultaneously talking himself both in and out of asking. She’d think he was crazy. She’d leave him any minute just as soon as she realized what a wreck he was. 

She’d married him only five hours earlier, binding herself to him with two simple words.

“Are you ever going to tell me what you were really doing that night?” Feyre asked, pulling one of his shirts from a wooden hanger in the closet. In the morning they’d be off to the airport to spend two weeks alone on a private beach where Rhys intended to fuck her every which way. Tonight, too, just as soon as his head stopped spinning.

“I was looking for you,” he recited, just as he always did. Feyre offered him an exasperated look.

Fiddling with his cuffs, Rhys said, “I was looking for you—and I knew the minute I saw you. That night one of the alarms at one of our warehouses went off. I was nearby so I went to turn it off before the cops decided to poke around. I was parked a couple blocks down since the feds still like to follow me around—as you well know. I was heading back when I found you, bashing in the face of someone already on my list.”

Feyre’s fingers slipped from the zipper on her dress. “Your list?” 

She was well acquainted with his list. Though Feyre wasn’t involved in his business, a practical consideration given Rhys wanted children and a family and it was hard to raise children if both parents ended up in jail. His father had taught him that. Not that Rhys would ever find himself in jail given how close he and new mayor Eris Vanserra were. 

And he paid his taxes, as illegitimate as they were. He wasn’t going to waste time behind bars when he could be with his wife. 

“Yes, darling,” he agreed, tugging the zipper the rest of the way down. He wanted to see her in his shirt. “If I had known he had you, I would have moved a little faster.”

Feyre knew better to ask if anyone had come looking for Tamlin. He had no friends, no family. The police had done a half-hearted investigation given he paid far better than the city did so he could conduct business without their interference. They concluded he’d likely skipped town to avoid his debts, and if they ever found him, well…Tamlin owed more than Rhys money. 

“You would have lost your chance to buy me tacos—and make a dramatic entrance,” she reminded him, allowing his hands to skim over her bare shoulders.

“I have no regrets,” Rhys informed her. “Other than he hurt you.”

“I don’t want to talk about him on our wedding night,” Feyre chided. “A thought for a thought?”

Rhys nodded as her dress pooled at her feet. Fuck fuck fuck he was so wrecked at the sight of her in those black lacy scraps she’d clearly chosen in the hopes of driving him to his knees. Feyre turned, letting him see the way her thong slid between her perfect ass cheeks, bending for the shirt she’d dropped. 

“What?”

“A thought for a thought,” she repeated, obviously amused. Rhys nodded, watching as she shrugged into his oversized shirt with a pounding heart. 

“I’m thinking I want to rip you out of that shirt,” Rhys told her, letting himself sink to his knees while Feyre smiled. She was so delighted by his antics, and Rhys liked bathing in the light of her pleasure. Feyre’s fingers were quick on the buttons before she came to him, letting him gather her in his arms and press his face against her stomach. 

“I’m thinking I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life. I’m thinking I’m glad you found me that night—and I’m thinking that I’m so in love with you I feel like I might come out of my skin.”
Rhys looked up at her, sighing softly when her fingers slid through his hair, scratching against his scalp.

“You are my salvation, Feyre,” he whispered, certain she didn’t believe him. Rhys was content to spend the rest of his life proving it to her. “And if I had to wait five hundred years for you, I would have done it-gladly. I love you."

And he did.