Emma

One broad, corporeal hand that had been wrapped around a thigh disappeared, followed by the hot sting of a slap on her ass. Her breath hitched at the small hurt.

“Don’t move,” Dorian murmured, soft lips kissing the spot he’d just reddened before resuming their worship between her legs. His hands wrapped around her again and he tugged, pulling her back to his mouth.

But she bared her teeth in wanton desire and ignored him, turning until she was on her back, his ghostly manacles disappearing. She scraped her nails through his hair, pulling him close until the ministrations hit something new. But Dorian, his grand plans for teasing and tasting upended, growled in frustration.

He rose, wiping a finger along his bottom lip before tasting it, and the sight alone made her want to eat him alive. She let her legs fall open. Let herself be seen, too. A vulnerability that had him prowling over her, steady and lithe as a plains-cat.

“Still not used to being told what to do,” he mused, eyes tracing in a steady sweep over her body. His voice was low and heavy in a way that had her melting into the mattress. Dorian smirked as he watched it.

He hovered a hair’s breadth away from her lips. “Though you seem to enjoy it just fine,” he breathed, moving to pull her bottom lip between his teeth. He dipped his head lower to press a kiss to the middle of her throat, and she closed her eyes and leaned up to give him better access.

He kissed a trail down the column of her neck, strands of his hair winding through her fingers as if each one was the tether to a lifeline. He sucked one breast into his mouth while fondling the other. Even in its baseness, their fucking was always refined. Steady and purposeful, never sloppy or one-sided. She loved it—

A sharp bite on her skin and she mewled, wanting everyone alive to hear it. She gripped with her thighs, intending to turn him again to have her own way. She flipped until she was astride his hips, then ground one savoring stroke and relished the feel of his hands wrapping around her ribs, guiding the rocking movement that had her wanting more than they could possibly accomplish in one night.

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"Eris," his mother's voice was no more than a tremor behind him.

"Stay behind me," he gritted as quietly as he could. "Don't move." His fingers splayed protectively, ready to cast fire, to block whatever magic might reach for her through the portal that'd just split open in the middle of their dining room.

Inside, his mind was chaos. He had no idea what he was looking at; another world, he knew. But he couldn't tell which one; had no clue if they were friendly or not. Though from the way the male on the other side had just snapped a child servant's neck, he could only guess that these new neighbors were far from benevolent.

The murderer before him began speaking in a foreign language to the males behind. There was a female wheezing and bloodied between them. Eris sidled closer to his mother, arm stretching back protectively.

"Eris," she whispered again; not quiet enough to escape the notice of the male on the other side. Strange eyes flicked behind Eris' shoulder. He didn't give the male a chance to act. His arms flew forward, fire warping and bending around them in a cocoon of safety. But the male raised a single hand, and the fire winked out. Eris stood dumbfounded—horror-struck—as he looked across the threshold of his world.

"What are you?" he whispered, though he knew the male couldn't understand him. Yet the male still smiled, serenely and unbothered, and swiped his hand as if he were clearing the air of smoke. Eris felt a pull forward, and he was yanked from his dining room and sent tumbling into whatever hellscape awaited on the other end of the portal. He heard his mother scream, then a fizzling noise as the portal shut behind him.

Shitshitshit.

Eris jumped to his feet, off-kilter and dazed, and attempted to summon his fire again.

Nothing.

Panic. Pure, undiluted panic coursed through his blood as he stared at his impotent hands. They began to shake.

He looked up, attempting to reassess, and saw two Peregryn-looking Fae smirking at him from only a few paces away. The teenage boy—frightening beyond all reason—was staring at him oddly, as if Eris were a book he couldn’t quite comprehend. Or a mere game for him to toy with. Then he said something in that foreign tongue to the poor female dying in her chains. Eris hardly registered it as he was thrust backwards. He reached out his hands to grasp something—anything—that might keep him from being blown away. He whirled and clawed, grasping for purchase as he was flung through the air and sent tumbling towards some dark expanse in the distance. His arm snagged on something, and he felt his skin rend and tear at the shoulder. He cried out in pain, but the sound was lost to the torrent of wind around him.

He was dangling off the edge of a precipice, it seemed; caught in the void between the opening of two worlds. He could drop into nothingness if he wanted. Or he could let himself be cast into some foreign land, and likely never see his mother again. Eris let his grip loosen on the ragged edge of the portal.

Let go, something in his head whispered. Let go.

Eris released his mangled arm, telling himself it was only in relief and not temptation; for he still grasped the edge with his good hand. Pain lancing through the ripped tendons and fibers of skin as he dangled from one arm.

Let go.

Fingers loosened. Before he could decide, a golden-haired male hollered something over the wind, extending his arm in offering over the edge of the rift.

Friend or ally?

Thinking of his mother, Eris slung his weight up, lifting with every ounce of strength to reach the stranger. The male screamed at him again, incoherent and strained, spoken in a strange language. Then he reached further, extending farther over the edge to offer more help for Eris to rise. Eris stretched, feeling himself nearly split from the effort, when fingertips brushed fingertips. Another reach, a wince of pain, and nails were clawing, wrists grabbing wrists, then elbows, then—

Eris was hauled back and thrown across the ground with a grunt from the stranger, who collapsed as Eris tumbled to a halt on his stomach. With a hissing noise, the rip sewed shut.

Eris groaned, touching his chest. Broken ribs; at least two. He couldn't move his leg. His arm was wrecked. He had no weapons. If this stranger turned out to be a enemy . . . Eris was utterly, completely, fucked.

Boots shuffled, coming in line with his vision. Eris squinted up at the pointed end of a sword.

Sharp eyes, an aristocratic nose looking down at him. A flicker on the stranger's features, a shock of fear, then—

Gold, spinning thread. Unwinding from Eris' chest and straight into the male standing above him. The stranger staggered back, wide-eyed and mouth agape at the impossibility of it. The rightness of it.

And in that moment, Eris knew.

Mate. His mate.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They hadn’t spoken in over an hour.

Not after Rhys had flown home.

Not when Nesta had turned to Cassian, only to have him surge away from her before she could speak. Not as she followed his storming steps to their bedroom, then their bathing room; not as he angrily stripped and began summoning a bath.

He’d been soaking in the tub ever since, and Nesta had been looking out the bedroom window.

The soft lights of Velaris sparkled up at her. Would they still be there tomorrow? How much more time in their lives had she bought by giving Bryce Quinlan the Mask?

Impossible task, she’d told Ember Quinlan. Her daughter had embarked on an impossible task. Nesta had known it when she summoned the Mask, and still she’d given it to the Fae girl.

And she’d give it to her again.

The strange hollowness she felt had nothing to do with her decision.

Nesta turned, peeling off her clothes and folding them neatly before knocking on the door to the bathing chamber.

Cassian didn’t answer.

Nesta’s hand hesitated near the knob, her body stiff with pride. It was a grating feeling, vulnerability. A feeling totally foreign to her until recently—something that had been beaten out of her by her mother, her grandmother. It went against every nerve, every instinct in her body to swallow and turn the handle.

His arms were slung out to rest on either side of the cold stone, and his head was back; eyes hard and fixed on the ceiling.

Nesta made herself cross the room towards the sunken stairs of the bath, lowering herself fully underwater as she entered. She reemerged and smoothed her hair back before walking to the opposite end and perching on a built-in bench, her chin resting on her knees.

Now it’s been an hour and a half, she thought dryly. Nesta sighed and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to waste any more time, especially if there might be precious little of it left.

“Say something.”

Cassian didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Nesta waited.

She realized this was the part where most people extend a peace offering. A meaningless I’m sorry, to get the conversation flowing. It didn’t matter if it was genuine, so long as its said.

But Nesta didn’t like lying to Cass. So instead, she whispered, “I don’t regret what I did.”