“Nephelle, you see, was a cartographer because she’d been rejected from the legion’s fighting ranks. Her wings were too small, the right one somewhat malformed. And she was slight—short enough that she’d be a dangerous gap in the front lines when they fought shield to shield. Drakon had let her try out for the legion as a courtesy to her lover, but Nephelle failed. She could barely carry the Seraphim shield, and her smaller wings hadn’t been strong enough to keep up with the others. So she had made herself invaluable as a cartographer during the War, helping Drakon and her lover find the geographical advantages in their battles. And she became Miryam’s dearest friend during those long months as well.
“And that day on the seafloor, Nephelle remembered that her friend had been in the back of the line. She returned for her, even as all others fled for the distant shore. She found Miryam skewered on the queen’s spear, bleeding out. The sea wall started to come down—on the opposite shore. Killing the approaching army first—racing toward them.
“Miryam told Nephelle to save herself. But Nephelle would not abandon her friend. She picked her up and flew.”
Azriel’s voice was soft with awe.
“When Rhys spoke to Drakon about it years later, he still didn’t have words to describe what happened. It defied all logic, all training. Nephelle, who had never been strong enough to hold a Seraphim shield, carried Miryam—triple the weight. And more than that … She flew. The sea was crashing down upon them, but Nephelle flew like the best of Seraphim warriors. The seafloor was a labyrinth of jagged rocks, too narrow for the Seraphim to fly through. They’d tried during their escape and crashed into them. But Nephelle, with her smaller wings … Had they been one inch wider, she would not have fit. And more than that … Nephelle soared through them, Miryam dying in her arms, as fast and skilled as the greatest of Seraphim. Nephelle, who had been passed over, who had been forgotten … She outraced death itself. There was not a foot of room between her and the water on either side of her when she shot up from the seafloor; not half of that rising up at her feet. And yet her too-small wingspan, that deformed wing … they did not fail her. Not once. Not for one wing beat.”
My eyes burned.
“She made it. Suffice to say her lover made Nephelle her wife that night, and Miryam … well, she is alive today because of Nephelle.” Azriel picked up a flat, white stone and turned it over in his hands. “Rhys told me the story when he returned. And since then we have privately adapted the Nephelle Philosophy with our own armies.”
I raised a brow. Azriel shrugged. “We—Rhys, Cass, and I—will occasionally remind each other that what we think to be our greatest weakness can sometimes be our biggest strength. And that the most unlikely person can alter the course of history.”
“The Nephelle Philosophy.”
He nodded. “Apparently, every year in their kingdom, they have the Nephelle Run to honor her flight. On dry land, but … She and her wife crown a new victor every year in commemoration of what happened that day.” He chucked the stone back amongst its brethren on the shore, the sound clattering over the water. “So we’ll train, Feyre, until the last possible day. Because we never know if just one extra hour will make the difference.”
I weighed his words, Nephelle’s story. I rose to my feet and spread my wings. “Then let’s try again.”
I groaned as I limped into our bedroom that night to find Rhys sitting at the desk, poring over more books.
“I warned you that Azriel’s a hard bastard,” he said without looking at me. He lifted a hand, and water gurgled in the adjacent bathing room.
I grumbled a thank-you and trudged toward it, gritting my teeth against the agony in my back, my thighs, my bones. Every part hurt, and since the muscles needed to re-form around the wings, I had to carry them, too. Their scraping along the wood and carpet, then wood again, was the only sound beyond my weary feet. I beheld the steaming bath that would require some balancing to get into and whimpered.
Even removing my clothes would entail using muscles that had nearly given out.
A chair scraped in the bedroom, followed by cat-soft feet, then—
“I’m sure you already know this, but you need to actually climb into a bath to get clean—not stare at it.”
I didn’t have the strength to even glare at him, and I managed all of one stumbling, stiff step toward the water when he caught me.
My clothes vanished, presumably to the laundry downstairs, and Rhys swept me into his arms, lowering my naked body into the water. With the wings, the fit was tight, and—
I groaned from deep in my throat at the glorious heat and didn’t bother to do anything other than lean my head against the back of the tub.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, and left the bathroom, then the bedroom itself.
By the time he returned, I only knew I’d fallen asleep thanks to the hand he put on my shoulder. “Out,” he said, but lifted me himself, toweled me off, and led me to the bed.
He lay me down belly-first, and I noted the oils and balms he’d set there, the faint odor of rosemary and—something I was too tired to notice but smelled lovely floating to me. His hands gleamed as he applied generous amounts to his palms, and then his hands were on me.
My groan was about as undignified as they came as he kneaded the aching muscles of my back. The sorer areas drew out rather pathetic-sounding whimpers, but he rubbed them gently, until the tension was a dull ache rather than sharp, blinding pain.
And then he started on my wings.
Relief and ecstasy, as muscles eased and those sensitive areas were lovingly, tauntingly grazed over.
My toes curled, and just as he reached the sensitive spot that had my stomach clenching, his hands slid to my calves. He began a slow progression, higher and higher, up my thighs, teasing strokes between them that left me panting through my nose. Rising up until he got to my backside, where his massaging was equally professional and sinful. And then up—up my lower back, to my wings.
His touch turned different. Exploring. Broad strokes and featherlight ones, arches and swirls and direct, searing lines.
My core heated, turning molten, and I bit down on my lip as he lightly scraped a fingernail so, so close to that inner, sensitive spot. “Too bad you’re so sore from training,” Rhys mused, making idle, lazy circles.
I could only manage a garbled strand of words that were both plea and insult.
He leaned in, his breath warming the space of skin between my wings. “Did I ever tell you that you have the dirtiest mouth I’ve ever heard?”
I muttered words that only offered more proof of that claim.
He chuckled and skimmed the edge of that sensitive spot, right as his other hand slid between my legs.
Brazenly, I lifted my hips in silent demand. But he just circled with a finger, as lazy as the strokes along my wing. He kissed my spine. “How shall I make love to you tonight, Feyre darling?”
I writhed, rubbing against the folds of the blankets beneath me, desperate for any sort of friction as he dangled me over that edge.
“So impatient,” he purred, and that finger glided into me. I moaned, the sensation too much, too consuming, with his hand between my legs and the other stroking closer and closer to that spot on my wing, a predator circling prey.
“Will it ever stop?” he mused, more to himself than me as another finger joined the one sliding in and out of me with taunting, indolent strokes. “Wanting you—every hour, every breath. I don’t think I can stand a thousand years of this.” My hips moved with him, driving him deeper. “Think of how my productivity will plummet.”
I growled something at him that was likely not very romantic, and he chuckled, slipping out both fingers. I made a little whining noise of protest.
Until his mouth replaced where his fingers had been, his hands gripping my hips to raise me up, to lend him better access as he feasted on me. I groaned, the sound muffled by the pillow, and he only delved deeper, taunting and teasing with every stroke.
A low moan broke from me, my hips rolling. Rhys’s grip on them tightened, holding me still for his ministrations. “I never got to take you in the library,” he said, dragging his tongue right up my center. “We’ll have to remedy that.”
“Rhys.” His name was a plea on my lips.
“Hmmm,” was all he said, a rumble of the sound against me … I panted, hands fisting in the sheets.
His hands drifted from my hips at last, and I again breathed his name, in thanks and relief and anticipation of him at last giving me what I wanted—
But his mouth closed around the bundle of nerves at the apex of my thighs while his hand … He went right to that damned spot at the inner edge of my left wing and stroked lightly.
My climax tore through me with a hoarse cry, sending me soaring out of my body. And when the shuddering ripples and starlight faded …
A bone-weary exhaustion settled over me, permanent and unending as the mating bond between us. Rhys curled into bed behind me, tucking my wings in so he could fold me against him. “That was a fun experiment,” he murmured into my ear.
I could feel him against my backside, hard and ready, but when I made to reach for him, Rhys’s arms only tightened around me. “Sleep, Feyre,” he told me.
So I laid a hand on his forearm, savoring the corded strength beneath, and nestled my head back against his chest. “I wish I had days to spend with you—like this,” I managed to say as my eyelids drooped. “Just me and you.”
“We will.” He kissed my hair. “We will.”