Cassian’s head lifted, eyes flashing. “I know.”
She couldn’t breathe under that stare, that beautiful face. “How can I need you again so soon?” It wasn’t a coy, courtier’s question—it was voiced out of sheer desperation. Because she did need more. She needed him back inside her, needed his weight, his mouth and teeth on her. She had no explanation for it, that rising, unquenchable thirst.
His eyes flickered. “I’ve needed you from the moment I first met you. And now that I get to have you, I don’t want to stop.”
“Yes,” she breathed, about as much of the truth as she’d admit. “Yes.”
They stared at each other for a long minute, for eternity. And then, to her shock and delight, Cassian hardened before her eyes. “Do you see what you do to me?” he asked. “Do you see what happens every time I look at you, all fucking day?”
She smirked. “I vaguely recall you boasting weeks ago that I would be the one to crawl into your bed. It seems like you did the crawling.”
His lips twitched upward. “It would seem so.” Her heart thundered as he held her stare. “Get on your hands and knees,” he ordered, his voice so low she could barely understand him. But her blood heated, and an ache that had nothing to do with how hard he’d just taken her began to build between her legs once more.
So Nesta did as he bade, baring herself, still wet and gleaming with both of their releases.
He snarled in satisfaction. “Beautiful.” She whimpered a bit—because beneath the praise, pure lust simmered. He growled, “Put your hands on the headboard.”
Her breath began sawing out of her again, but she obeyed, already thrumming with need.
Cassian rose behind her, gripping her hips. He knocked a knee against each of her own, spreading her legs wider. Callused fingertips brushed down the length of her spine, over the tattoo there, the ink binding them.
He leaned to whisper in her ear, “Hold on tight.”
CHAPTER
42
Cassian got the summons to the river house just after dawn.
He hadn’t slept in Nesta’s room—no, after that second time, when his entire body had been turned to sated, content jelly, he’d rolled off her and returned to his own suite. She hadn’t said anything. The understanding had been there, though: just sex, but they needn’t wait so long again.
Sleep had been elusive as he’d thought of what they’d done, what he’d done to her. The second time had been even rougher than the first, and she’d taken everything he’d thrown at her, met his demanding pace and depth, and had held that headboard until her body had collapsed with pleasure. Gods, sex with Nesta was like …
He didn’t let himself dwell on comparisons as he sat in Rhys’s office next to Amren and Azriel, facing their High Lord across his desk. Those thoughts had not done him any favors last night. Or this morning, when he woke hard and aching, and realized that the scent of her was all over him.
He knew his friends smelled it. Neither Rhys nor Az had commented, but Amren’s eyes had narrowed. Yet she said nothing, and he wondered if Rhys had given her a silent command. Cassian filed away his curiosity about why Rhys might have felt the need to do such a thing.
“All right, Rhysand,” Amren said, tucking one foot under her thigh. “Tell me why I’m here before breakfast while Varian is still sleeping soundly in my bed.”
Rhys pulled back a canvas tarp that had been over part of his desk. “We’re here because I got a visit at dawn from a blacksmith out by the western edge of the city.”
Cassian went still as he saw what lay there: a sword, a dagger, and a longer great sword, all sheathed in black leather. “What blacksmith?”
Rhys leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. “The one you and Nesta visited several days ago.”
Cassian’s brow furrowed. “Why did he bring you these weapons? As a gift?”
Azriel leaned forward, a scarred hand reaching for the closest sword.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Rhys warned, and Az halted.
Rhys said to Cassian, “The blacksmith dumped them here in an absolute panic. He said the blades were cursed.”
Cassian’s blood chilled.
Amren asked, “Cursed in what way?”
“He just said cursed,” Rhys replied, motioning to the weapons. “Said he wanted nothing to do with them and they were our problem now.”
Amren slid her eyes to Cassian. “What happened in the shop?”
“Nothing,” he said. “He let her hammer at the metal for a bit, so she could get a sense of the hard work that went into making weapons. But there was no cursing.”
Rhys straightened. “Nesta hammered the blades?”
“All three,” Cassian said. “First the sword, then the dagger, and then the great sword.”
Rhys and Amren exchanged a look.
Cassian demanded, “What?”
Rhys asked Amren, “Is it possible?”
Amren gazed at the blades. “It has been … It has been such a long time, but … yes.”
“Someone please explain,” Azriel said, peering at the three blades from a safe distance.
Cassian forced himself to sit perfectly still as Rhys dragged a hand through his black hair. “Once, the High Fae were more elemental, more given to reading the stars and crafting masterpieces of art and jewelry and weaponry. Their gifts were rawer, more connected to nature, and they could imbue objects with that power.”
Cassian instantly knew where this was headed. “Nesta put her power in those swords?”
“No one has been able to create a magic sword in more than ten thousand years,” Amren said. “The last one Made, the great blade Gwydion, vanished around the time the last of the Trove went missing.”
“This sword isn’t Gwydion,” Cassian said, well aware of the myths regarding the sword. It had belonged to a true Fae High King in Prythian, as there had been in Hybern. He had united the lands, its people—and for a while, with that sword, peace had reigned. Until he had been betrayed by his own queen and his fiercest general, and lost the sword to them, and the lands fell into darkness once more. Never again to see another High King—only High Lords, who ruled the territories that had once answered to the king.
“Gwydion is gone,” Amren said, a shade sadly, “or has been gladly missing for millennia.” She nodded toward the great sword. “This is something new.”
Azriel said, “Nesta created a new magic sword.”
“Yes,” Amren said. “Only the Great Powers could do that—Gwydion was given its powers when the High Priestess Oleanna dipped it into the Cauldron during its crafting.”
Cassian’s blood chilled, waves rippling over his skin. “One touch from Nesta’s magic while the blade was still hot …”
“And the blade was infused with it.”
“Nesta didn’t know what she was doing,” Cassian said. “She was letting off some steam.”
“Which might be worse,” Amren said. “Who knows what emotions she poured into the blades with her power? It might have shaped them into instruments of such feelings—or it might have been the catalyst to release her power. There is no way of knowing.”