Work Text:
Chapter 1
Feyre wandered the streets of Velaris, chasing the fading sunlight, her boots crunching on fallen leaves.
The fall night air was chill as it twisted through the streets and snuck beneath her coat, the fabric of her skirts. Above her, the full moon hung low and heavy in the sky, its light shimmering off the cobblestones damp with mist.
The air around her was full of the scents of autumn, of cider and smoke and mulled wine.
Feyre loved Velaris in the autumn, the brisk cold beaten back by glowing hearths and warm meals at her table. So different from before, when she was hungry, when autumn was the harbinger of winter. Of harsh times and empty pantries.
Or…after that. In endless Spring. Where all was quiet and stagnant, even in ever bloom.
She rounded a corner and took a moment to appreciate the Rainbow, glowing before her under the cold starlight.
In the evenings, when there wasn’t dinner with the Inner Circle or some formal social event demanding a High Lady, Feyre liked to come to the studio. Knew she would have the place entirely to herself.
The door shut with the ring of a bell and she lit the fae lights in the room, the rest illuminated by the burning night lights of the city street.
The High Lady smiled as she doffed her coat and wandered through the maze of easels covered in the children’s paintings. She pulled off her gloves and scarf and set them gently down on her work bench on the far side of the room.
And paused. The usual mess was here, brushes and new supplies and paperwork and little gifts from the children. Sometimes Ressina teased her for the disorganized piles, but Feyre liked it. This was one of the few places she could spread out and destroy as well as make, without Nuala or Cerridwen or hell, even Rhys sometimes, following after her, picking up.
But what caught her eye was very out of place in the chaos. Atop the desk was a beautifully carved ornate wooden box. Though the wood was polished and immaculate, something about it screamed ancient .
It was common enough for the children to bring her gifts, and often the parents. But never anything as grandiose as this.
Patience never much of her strong suit, Feyre flipped the latch and lifted the heavy lid of the small chest until it hung back on its hinges.
No card, no engraving, no initials. Just twelve bottles of vibrant, fresh paint.
A soft smile played on her lips. Perhaps these were from the Continent, or one of the Master’s studios in Day? She was glad she was alone. Whoever had brought this perhaps had a sense of how embarrassed she would be, accepting such a luxurious gift.
The bottle of brilliant blue unscrewed easily and she grabbed a palette knife to mix the heavy pigment back in with the clear binder floating on top.
It was…mesmerizing. Bright and almost glowing. She wondered where they ever found the pigments to make something so otherworldly.
There was a lightness in her chest as she looked at the other bottles, each as vibrant and rich as the first. She had come here to paint, after all.
/|㇏^•ᵥᵥ•^ノ|\
The city streets outside were bursting with life, even in the chill. The sounds of conversation and the clap of shoes against the cobblestones grew as patrons left the latest show out at the theater up the street. Music swelled from the city square just beyond, and street vendors hawked their wares.
But when Feyre painted, it all faded into the background.
For too long, she thought, shaking her head as if from a dream. She arched her back and groaned at the crick forming from her bad posture.
Her brush dunked in the water glass beside her as she rubbed her stiff neck. Had it really been so long? She was mixing the paints, brushing on a tinted under layer, and then…
Finally her eyes returned to her canvas and she gasped.
Sworls of choppy blue, green and white centered the canvas, looking like rippling waves. She could have sworn they moved. And around them, bands and bands of dark black. A frame. A mirror. A door.
She didn’t remember painting a single stroke.
The painting seemed to ripple again, and maybe it was the light but she could have sworn…there was something behind the brush strokes, depths upon hidden depths.
She felt a familiar feeling, a dread in her belly and prickling of her skin. So like those first steps Under the Mountain, tiptoeing and peeking around each corner, knowing something terrible was inevitable around one of them.
She couldn’t tear her eyes away.
The sounds of the street faded away again as her eyes focused and unfocused. Feyre felt her arm lift, her fingers picking up a brush. As if on its own. She took a dab of paint and the world faded away.
/|㇏^•ᵥᵥ•^ノ|\
The second time, she still didn’t know how long she had been under. Because that’s what it felt like, thrashing under deep waves, being tossed back and forth. And somewhere, deeper still, a voice. Soothing and gentle. Telling her, just let go.
Sink .
-Darling?
It was the voice of her mate that brought her back with a start.
-What are you up to? I’ll be winnowing back from the camp soon.
-I’ll meet you at home, she quickly sent down the bond.
The painting had changed. Her heart pounded between her ribs.
Looking back at her was a single slitted eye, red as hot coals.
And she heard it whisper,
Sink .
/|㇏^•ᵥᵥ•^ノ|\
Rhys panted as he rolled his hips upward, the chill night breeze from the cracked window doing little to cool the heat of his skin, dripping with sweat.
Above him Feyre moaned, her hips grinding against his, her head tilting back to the ceiling with her mouth parted, tasting the air.
Only a single candle lit the room from the bedside table. The cold moonlight cast in, a sharp line through the curtain, the silver light piercing over her neck, her peaked breasts.
Rhys’s eyes were wide. Enchanted . She was so fierce and free tonight, taking everything she wanted. Feyre moved on him, her hand lifting to grasp her breast and he gasped as she clenched tighter around him.
She had been rough tonight, desperate. Throwing him against the wall and ripping away his fine black jacket the moment he stepped into the bedroom. He had barely had time to grin, to tease her for her lascivious hands and lips until he was thrown onto the bed, his clothes roughly stripped from his body.
He gripped her hips, trying to guide his body deeper into her. His pleasure was a wild, feral thing, setting off sparks in his mind the more he felt the wanton drag of his cock through her slick wetness.
Feyre opened her mouth in a gasp as her back arched, the light catching on her pointed canines. Her hands went to cover his on her hips, and he felt her talons growing and scratching against his skin.
Though he was inside her, touching her everywhere, his body only cried out more, more.
Her skin was pale, almost blue in the moonlight, but her body was burning, scorching him under his palms and where they were joined at the hip.
Through his lusty haze, he felt the sudden pangs of a hunger so desperate the breath caught in his throat.
Feyre whimpered, a delicious sound, and leaned forward on her knees to pitch towards him and suckle at the pulse throbbing in his neck.
“Rhys,” she panted. Her voice was deep, desperate. “I’m so hungry.”
He gasped as the feeling struck him down the bond, her aching emptiness traveling through the golden tether between them and gripping his heart.
Between his pleasure he felt the flashes, of a girl starving and cold in the woods, of moldy bread in a dank prison cell. All the times she was alone and he hadn’t been there to provide. It was driving him mad. He felt the urge to let his power rise, to turn back the sun and moon in the sky until he was there every moment she was alone and desperate and surround her with his wings. To place delectable morsels on her waiting tongue, let her suck the taste from his fingers.
That tongue was lapping against his neck, licking off beads of sweat, replaced by the scrape of her teeth, sharp against his skin.
Though she was in his arms, her cunt fluttering around him, his heart was breaking with her hunger, her need. His mate was starving. A primal urge rose within him, to provide, to satiate.
“Darling ,” he cried, his voice breaking. “What do you need? Tell me,” he pleaded, his arms wrapping around her back, hot and slick with sweat.
She nipped at his neck. “ I’m so hungry,” she said again, nuzzling at his throat.
“Yes, yes,” he cried. As if he could, would ever deny her anything. Certainly not with his cock buried deep inside her and her voice this needy whine. “Take what you need,” he whispered into the dark.
Her body stilled at that and his own cried out at the lack of friction. But he felt her smile against his neck, and then her teeth scraped, and then she was biting, her sharp canines piercing through his flesh to reach his hammering pulse beneath it.
All feeling in his body rushed, like an errant wave, and he came with a hoarse cry as he spilled himself inside of her.
His vision is blurred and his mind is hazy as he comes down from his climax, the thoughts filtering through his mind like wandering clouds across the night sky. Feyre’s mouth is hot against his neck, a heady, burning sensation running down from her lips to his limbs, his body tingling. The feelings down the bond are glowing, warm, thankful.
Instead of relaxing back into the bed, his body, he feels he’s moving up, and up, floating above the mattress. He feels a drip of something, blood or sweat, escape Feyre’s lips and travel down the muscles of his neck. Her teeth are sharp but her mouth is warm, her tongue dancing over his skin.
And oh, she’s so content. She hums against him, the sound reverberating through his neck to his skull. She’s taking and taking and all he wants is to give her more, to fill her up. She pierced his skin and all his strength, the swirling madness of his darkness rushed out to satiate her need.
She sucks harder and he feels his limbs going loose and light, his whole body weightless and attuned to every place they are connected. He groans with her ecstasy, her joy. Gone is the starving human girl in the forest, bitter and trembling. He is feeding his mate, his Feyre, and here on top of him she is safe and warm.
Just when his body feels like it might sink, might fall through the mattress and into whatever dark earth lies beneath it, she breaks from his neck with a gasp.
Feyre throws her head back towards the ceiling, panting, the moonlight cascading down her body once again. He watches, enraptured, feeling like he’s outside of his body, vaguely charting the dribble of blood dripping from her lips to her chin to her throat, pooling in the hollow of her collarbone.
He is so tired now. He files the vision of her blood stained teeth deep within him for another time. All he feels now is her pleased murmurings across the bond. A deep humming contentment in his chest. The male, now content, who dreamt sometimes about that ancient High Lord, dashing his body and blood against the stone streets of Velaris, to keep it safe.
He groaned as she slipped off of him, but his hands wouldn’t quite work the way he wanted them to. The mattress dipping beside him as she collapsed. She was still breathing heavily, licking her lips. He turned his head and wished she would do the same, needing to drink in more of her.
And finally she did. She looked at him and smiled, a glint in her eyes that was strange but, her smile, that was enough to send a shiver down his body. His eyelids heavy, he smiled back.
“Are you happy, darling?” He whispered.
Safe and warm and fed.
Her smile widened as his eyes slowly drooped. A buzzing in the back of his head was the only thing keeping him from slipping away completely. His mind clung to the feel of her sharp talons, softly scraping against his skin. Drops of blood pooled with her sweat and finally drifted across her collarbone and down her shoulder.
“I’m so happy,” she said, and he fell into the darkness with a soft sigh. “You taste so good, my love.”