Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Will you be okay?” 

Her hands on his arms, eyes glaring into his. Feyre attempted a staredown with the male towering over her. Tamlin raised an eyebrow as Feyre slowly sucked in a breath, nostrils flaring. An intimidation tactic that she slowly realized was working very poorly. 

Tamlin put his hands on her waist and leaned down to whisper, “I will be fine.”

“You cannot be sure.” She countered with, “Hybern is dangerous and I-”

“Feyre I swear.” Tamlin took her hand, the hands with black swirling tattoos. She turned her glaring eyes to stare at it in disgust. Feeling the Night Lord’s hands on her bare body once more, she shuddered, eyes falling closed at the memory. 

A part of her was still closed off the male standing before her. Still left in that pit of utter despair and hopelessness. Every night was a struggle to not fall into it, to not go back to living in that dark cell in her dreams. 

Tamlin wasn’t any better, staying in beast form when he could not sleep, and pacing the grounds when the walls became too much like the rocks of the Mountain. 

The same coin, two different facings. They struggled at the start, but with the past only getting further behind them, new trouble lay ahead. With Tamlin now being requested to visit the Court that witch originated from. 

The thought of him back in a scene like that again. Back at her mercy. Back in the darkness. Back in that danger. 

Feyre grabbed his wrist and forced him closer, standing to the tips of her toes to harshly say, “I will not let you be hurt again. I will not let you be taken from me again.”

She said it, and she clamped her mouth shut after she did. Broaching the topic she had been keeping locked inside her. How it felt like torture to see him leave every morning. To not be close, to be gone, to not be around. Like at any moment, claws of red would emerge from the darkness and whisk him away, to where she would never see him again. 

To lose him again… it would break her. In a way she didn’t think she could possibly recover from. 

Tamlin had gone silent, he watched her with those deep green eyes that seemed to bore into her soul. Saw past the exterior and into a part of her she had been keeping locked up tightly. 

Everything she kept locked up, the chains loosened at the look in his eyes. She screwed her eyes shut because she couldn’t, not yet, she couldn’t face what was underneath her yet. 

“Feyre.” He whispered, not a question, just acknowledgement. Still keeping her eyes tightly sealed, she felt a soft, tender kiss to the crown of her head. 

Just like the loosened chains in her soul, her eyes gave away from the tension, against any will of her own. Like it all crumbled before him. 

She held onto his hands. Grasping his fingers tightly, “Please. I can’t lose you again.”

“You never lost me.” He murmured, pressing another kiss, this one to her brow, “You have never lost me.”

A tear, hot and wet slid from her eyes and down her cheek. Burning into her with the sensation. One hand released hers and he wiped it off with his thumb. Catching her chin between his fingers, Tamlin coaxed her into looking up at him, so she did. Meeting those spring green eyes with her stormy blue. 

It was strange the things that mirrored each other in them. If he was the soul of the land, Feyre felt like the wind and sky, the storm that rained down on the Earth. Unbound and wild. Though she tried to keep the wildness down, if only because it was another form of protection in the newly bloomed Prythian. 

“Swear it to me.” She demanded, “Swear you will be okay.”

“I swear it.” Tamlin said, with all the sincerity in his words as the day he had said those beautiful and still dreadful words, “I love you, thorns and all.” That day had always signified the change in their relationship, she couldn’t help but love it, but hate it all the same time. If only she had whispered it back, instead of pretending to sleep. 

She released a breath, then launched forward, sending him sprawling to the ground as she wrapped her arms around his middle. 

“Feyre!” He shouted, but unable to hide the laugh behind the words. 

“I will not let you go!” She said, despite herself a smile bloomed on her face, “You will have to pry yourself from my cold, dead hands.”

In an instant, Tamlin flipped them around, pinning her to the soft carpet of their bedroom. Staring down at her with a satisfied grin, “Cold and dead? You seem very alive to me.”

She huffed as she struggled against his hands. But was no match, even if Tamlin had lost some muscle due to the stress of the days after the Mountain, he was far stronger than her. That did not mean Feyre would not, or could not, put up a fight. 

She kicked up into him, causing Tamlin’s breath to whoosh from his lungs as she quickly scrambled and flipped them back over. Straddling his waist, she grinned with victory. Tamlin laughed, as he let his hands drift to her waist. Seemingly content to remain put. 

“Alright then, my thorn, you have me beneath you, what will you do with me?” The words were amused, meant to incite whatever Feyre had next planned. 

She considered him for a moment, hands drifting down the planes of his chest. Touching and feeling. One hand tangling in the waves of blond before her. Finally she said, “I want you to be safe.”

The grin slowly slipped away from his face, replaced by a tender softness. He gently took her hand and kissed the skin of her wrist, before pulling her gently down. His lips meeting hers. Feyre hummed softly, a sigh escaping her throat, as she kissed him back. The fire between them burning with their intimacy. Whilst it was not the hours long, moaning mess they both became at night, it was something deep and fiery nonetheless. Just as, if not more, intense than any long night spent together. 

Memories bore into that kiss, and Feyre felt another tear slip from her eyes. Tamlin brushed them away with ease, leaning back just enough to whisper, “I never left, and I am not leaving now.”

She nodded, she knew he wouldn’t. Knew with his full magic back, Tamlin was stronger now and could protect himself with ease. Protect himself in a way Feyre never could. But still the worry and anxiety festered in her gut. 

“I know, I just…” It was hard to forget, she wished to say, but words were stuck in her throat. She wasn’t a poet, and did not know how to conjure up the way of conveying perfectly to the male beneath her how she felt. 

“I am afraid.” She said, and nothing more. She could barely say those small three words at all. 

Tamlin looked at her, that strange look that she couldn’t understand. But then he wrapped his arms around her back and pulled her close. Feyre laid her head down on his chest, pressing herself tightly against him, keeping him as close to her as their physical bodies allowed. Like if she just held on tightly enough, he wouldn’t leave. 

He kept his big arms tightly around her. His warmth seeping into her, pushing back something horribly dark and frozen, like a coldfront beginning to press in. Something about the steady beating of his heart, his breathing, his skin touching hers, it all felt like it was thawing something frozen in her chest. Feyre felt her body relax against his, becoming a puddle in his arms. 

“I’m afraid too.” He whispered, which caused her arms to tighten, but he quickly continued, “But we’re brave for it.”

She blinked as she looked up at his eyes, gold flecks gleaming. Cutting through the striking green. The small traces of color and detail in his eyes that she had been unable to see until he received this new, strange body. 

“How? How are we brave, Tamlin?” Her voice was small, a hushed whisper, unable to speak louder for fear of breaking into a sob. 

“Because we are still moving forward in spite of fear.” He said, his voice harsh but solid and true. Like he was telling himself it as well as her. Tamlin cupped her face, “We are still going.”

She nodded, closing her eyes, “We are.” 

He pressed their foreheads together. Just remaining close, feeling the heat of the other, until he finally maneuvered them to stand. Feyre went easily. Standing before him as she had stood firmly the day she steeled herself to enter Under the Mountain. Despite the fear, despite the thoughts that begged to go back, despite the instinct to now pull him close and never let go again. Feyre remained upright, and strong. Her back like steel, her hands clasping his. 

“There is not a soul in Prythian more brave,” He whispered, “Then you, Feyre. Then the woman who won back Prythian.”

“No.” She said, voice ringing true, like thunder in a storm, “I did not win back Prythian, that is not what I set out to do.”

Before he could refute, before he could continue to praise her as if she were better than any God in the sky, she cupped his face and brought him close once again, “I won back you . That's what I set out to do. That is what I will always set out to do, you will never be taken from me ever again.”

For once Tamlin appeared utterly speechless, and Feyre smiled. A pure genuine smile. All at once the chains over her heart loosened and she did not tighten them again. 

She kissed him again, and fell back into that warmth. Into that wonderful bliss.