Eris threw her a mocking smile. “We’ll play later, Nesta Archeron.” He ignored Cassian as he aimed for the dais again.
Alone with Cassian, the packed dance floor teeming around them, Nesta demanded, “Are you happy now?”
His face was like stone. “No.” A glance over his shoulder showed her a tight-faced Rhys and Feyre, who were undoubtedly shouting at him mind to mind. But if she and Cassian lingered like this for too long, the spell she’d woven around Eris might be disrupted, and …
Cassian offered up his hand. Swallowed once.
He was nervous. This male who had faced down enemy armies, who had battled to the brink of death more times than she cared to count, who had fought so many dangers it was a miracle he lived … he was nervous.
It softened some crucial piece of her, and Nesta slipped her hand into his, their calluses rasping against each other. His hand slid around her waist, so large it spanned nearly halfway across. She gathered her skirts, and lifted her gaze to his.
Nesta fell back a step, leading him, them, into the dance, and Cassian went with her.
He was not graceful like Eris. He did not instinctively move to each beat like she did. But he kept up, willing to follow her into the music, into the sound and the movement, and his eyes did not, would not, leave her face.
Their steps quickened, and Cassian found his rhythm.
He spun her, and she whipped herself around, his arms waiting to catch her.
His hand on her waist tightened, his only warning as he launched them further, faster into the music. Cassian smiled at her, and the world faded away.
The music was no longer the most beautiful thing in existence. He was.
Nesta couldn’t stop it then.
The answering smile that bloomed through her at last, stealing across her face, bright as the dawn.
Cassian would only yield Nesta to Azriel, who swept her into a waltz as easily as breathing.
Wandering over to the wine table to pour himself a goblet, Cassian met the eyes of a few courtiers gawking at Nesta and let them see what would happen if they so much as approached her. They quickly fell away, and he leaned against a pillar, content to watch Nesta dance with his brother.
Mor was at his side a moment later, her lips curving upward. “Looks like our lessons paid off.”
Cassian kissed her cheek. “I owe you one.” They’d been training in secret these past weeks. Mor had been positively giddy when he’d asked for her help.
But her eyes were dark now, her face wan.
“How are you doing?” he asked neutrally, well aware of the people around them. What Mor had been and was now to them.
Mor lifted one shoulder, then let it drop. “Fine.” She nodded to Nesta. “I enjoyed seeing what she did.” She elbowed him in the ribs. “Though I suppose you didn’t. You just had to cut in, didn’t you?”
He crossed his arms. “Rhys can deal with it.”
“It seems like Rhys is,” Mor said, and Cassian followed her stare toward the dais, where Eris stood beside the thrones, speaking with Rhys and Feyre.
Without Rhys so much as blinking in their direction, Cassian found that Rhys had let him in on the conversation—he was inside Rhys’s mind, seeing and hearing the conversation through Rhys’s eyes. From Mor’s sudden stillness, he knew she’d been brought in, too.
“All right,” Eris was saying to Rhys, sliding his hands into his pockets. “You showed me what I can have, Rhysand. I’m intrigued enough to ask what you’d want in return.”
Feyre blurted into Rhys’s thoughts, What?!
Cassian wanted to echo the same, his entire body tightening. But Rhys didn’t move from where he lounged on his throne. “What do you mean by that?”
Lust glazed Eris’s eyes. Covetous, calculating lust. Cassian swallowed his growl. “I mean that whatever you want, I’ll give it to you in exchange for her. As my bride.” He jerked his chin to the box with the dagger at Rhys’s feet. “I’d rather have her than that.”
He danced three dances with her! Feyre squawked. Rhys’s lips seemed to be fighting a losing battle not to smile.
Cassian could only stare at Eris’s throat, pondering whether to strangle him or slit the skin wide open. Let him bleed out on the floor.
“That’s not my decision,” Rhys said calmly to Eris. “And it seems foolish for you to offer me anything I want in exchange for her, anyway.”
His jaw tightened. “I have my reasons.”
From the shadows in his eyes, Cassian knew something more lay beneath the rash offer. Something that even Az’s spies hadn’t picked up on at the Autumn Court. All it would take was one push of Rhys’s power into his mind and they’d know, but … it went against everything they stood for, at least amongst their allies. Rhys demanded their trust; he had to give it in return. Cassian couldn’t fault his brother for that.
Eris added, “It is a bonus, of course, that in doing so, I would be repaying Cassian for ruining my betrothal to Morrigan.”
Asshole. Cassian’s hands curled into fists, but Mor’s fingers landed on his arm. Gentle and reassuring.
Can’t we throw him to the beasts under the cell and be done with him? Feyre seethed to Rhys.
Again, Rhys’s lips twitched. So bloodthirsty, Cassian heard his High Lord croon to his mate. But Rhys said, “Anything I want, whether it be armies from the Autumn Court or your firstborn, you would grant me in exchange for Nesta Archeron as your wife?”
Cassian growled low in his throat. His brother was letting this carry on too far.
Eris glared. “Not as far as the firstborn, but yes, Rhysand. You want armies against Briallyn and my father, you’ll have them.” His lips curved upward. “I couldn’t very well let my wife’s sister go into battle unaided, could I?”
You can return every Solstice present in exchange for letting me tear him apart, Feyre said. Cassian clamped his mouth shut to avoid shouting his agreement toward them.
But Rhys, the bastard, silently laughed. His face remained stone-cold as he said, “I’ll consider it, and talk to Nesta. Keep the dagger, though. You might need it.”
Cassian glanced to Azriel and Nesta, still beautifully waltzing.
It didn’t spark one ember of his temper.
But Eris … Ally or not, he’d make sure the prick got what was coming to him.
CHAPTER
58
Nesta had stood here once before. A year before, actually.
A different house, in a different part of this city, but she had stood outside while the others celebrated the Winter Solstice within, and felt like a ghost looking in through a window.
Ice crusted the Sidra behind the house, the lawn sloping down to it winter white. But evergreen garlands and wreaths decorated the river house—the epitome of merry warmth.
“Stop scowling,” Cassian said. “It’s a party, not a funeral.”
She glared, but he opened the front door to a riot of music and laughter.
She hadn’t slept with him after the ball, or since. He’d looked inclined when they’d returned to the House of Wind, but she’d simply said she was tired and had gone to her own room.
Because as soon as that music had faded and the dance had stopped, she’d realized how stupidly she’d been smiling at him, how low those walls in her mind had dropped. Eris had danced with her twice more after Azriel, and he’d had such intent in his eyes she knew she’d woven her spell around him well. He’d bid for her, she’d learned with no small amount of smugness.