Archive of Our Own

OCTOBER.

ELAIN

The first time it happened, Elain was so pissed off that she made Lucien leave the room after she came. 

It was, of course, his fault. And from where he kneeled at the foot of her bed, Elain was half-horrified, half-helplessly aroused at the glisten still visible on his lips and — oh gods — his chin, evidence of what she’d allowed him to do. After what she, herself, had done. 

And then he’d just looked at her like that, instead of reaching out and continuing what they’d started, and the look in his eyes made that feeling in her chest begin again, the one like a golden band tight around the very beating of her heart, like he could see under her skin, whisper right into her head—   

“You have to go,” Elain said, quickly, desperately pushing her skirt back down her thighs. “Please, please, leave.” 

A brief flash of something like hurt in his eyes, then nothing but the carefully polite mask he wore day in and day out, just like every other time he visited from the Human Lands. Elain wanted to slap it right off his face. Or something like that. “Of course.” He turned away and swiped roughly at his face with one sleeve, making her blush even harder. In a few quick seconds he was on his feet, across the room, one hand on the door. 

“Lucien—” Elain said before she knew why. He turned on one heel, met her eyes with only gracious guest-level distance simmering in his own. 

“Yes,” he said. Elain’s mouth opened and then closed. This was a mistake? Perhaps it wasn’t. This won’t happen again?  

Perhaps it would. 

“I’m sorry,” she finished lamely.

“I’m not,” Lucien returned. And then he turned and left the room. 

DECEMBER.

The next time it happened was a moment of weakness, Elain told herself. Even if it implied she’d been clearheaded the first time around. 

She’d been on her feet all day cooking for Solstice Eve dinner, and she’d tried to send Cassian, of all possible options, on an errand to get more mussels, which of course he had somehow complicated with four more types of shellfish that she then had to figure out how to cook. Then Nyx, adorable and irrepressible and more than a little spoiled at this point, had flitted through the house with mud somehow caking not only his boots but the bottom tips of his wings. Nesta and Emerie and Gwyn were gossiping out in the garden and doing absolutely nothing close to helping; Azriel was gods-know-where again; Mor was sleeping off a hangover. And then Amren, for some reason, came in to ask Elain how the food was coming along and accidentally knocked a bag of bay leaves off the counter in the process. 

“Mother above,” Elain said, keeping her voice to a tight, vicious whisper. “If everyone is going to sabotage this, then why do I even fucking bother?” And with that, she put a cover on the pasta, left the bread in the oven, and left the kitchen. 

Elain stomped — actually stomped! — her way up the stairs and into her room. For about the hundredth time, she thought about how nice it would be to move out. But then who would hear the door slam as she continued across her own bedchamber and flung open the glass doors and stormed onto the balcony? She slapped her hands down on the railing, chest heaving as she took in lungfuls of fresh air. They were having a mild winter, temperatures no colder than fall in the afternoon, and this was likely their last hour of sunlight before the longest night of the year. 

“Is everything all right?” 

Of course he was out here too, two windows down with a small terrace of his own. He was putting his tumbler of brown liquor and his book down on the comfortable chair he’d dragged out there. Elain’s first impulse was to shriek, and clapped a hand over her mouth to prevent herself from doing so. 

“I can give you some privacy,” Lucien said at her expression, already stepping backwards. 

“Don’t,” Elain said, putting her hand to her forehead. “It’s me who should go. You were having a perfectly nice time out here.” 

Lucien waved a hand towards the book. “Brushing up on my Winter Court political-economic history? Not really. Just something I should keep up on, while at work.” He tilted his head. “You, on the other hand… pardon me for saying, but you don’t seem to be very much in the whole holiday spirit.” 

“Oh, I’m keeping busy,” Elain snapped, and then immediately regretted it. How was it that it was always Lucien around when she was at her lowest, her least graceful and generous? 

“Hiding can be very busy work,” he said back, no trace of insult registering on his irritatingly handsome features. “But you don’t seem to be having much fun.” 

A pang in her chest, suddenly, at his words. Yes, Elain had planned a feast, was filling her days with industrious preparation; yes, she was busy, yes, well-dressed, polite and calm; no she did not find any part of the holiday fun so far. “And what if this is how I’ll have my fun?” she said, hands on her hips. “Give them a bit of a scare by disappearing for a little while?” 

Was that amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes? “Then wild beasts couldn’t make me tell on you,” Lucien said. “One tip, though, my lady?” 

“I said not to call me that anymore.” 

“Perhaps you should set up your hideout somewhere other than your room?”

Of course. The first place they’d look. Elain’s cheeks reddened. “Surely you don’t mean your room is a better option,” she said. She did not need to tell him how strongly she did not want to be behind closed doors with him, after the last time. 

“Not my room, but my balcony?” Lucien stepped past his curtain for a moment and then brought a second chair out to join the first one. “It’s close enough I think you could even winnow. No need to set foot in my bedchamber.” 

Had he winked at her, saying that last word? Elain’s heart flip-flopped in her chest, and she scowled back at him. “Winnow between two balconies two full stories above the ground?” She eyed the ground below them. “Don’t you think I’ll drop myself on my head?” She’d been practicing, but always in the middle of an empty space and never with anyone other than Feyre or Nesta watching. 

“I don’t,” Lucien said. “It’s what, twenty feet?” More like thirty, forty. He stepped as close to the curtain as possible to give her a roomy, but clearly visible, landing spot. “This is actually how I learned, growing up. Eris and I would hop back and forth around the house, or try to pop up on the roof past our bedtimes.” 

“You were a menace, I’m sure,” Elain said, ignoring a burst of gratefulness at the thought that he had faith in her. “Okay. But if I break a leg or get lost I am blaming it on you.” 

“I’d gladly claim full responsibility,” he said with a half-bow. “And I’d nurse you back to full health.” 

Elain snorted. So unnecessary. She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly and thought of the well of magic she could see just behind her closed eyelids, imagined slipping through space like a breath of air—

“Ooof!” She was colliding chest-first with a very warm, sweet-and-spice-smelling, broad-and-firm -chested Lucien, who caught both her wrists in his when she quickly stumbled backwards and slipped. “I mean, well done!” he said. 

“I told you I’d fall down!” Elain’s vision swam and she blinked fiercely, annoyed at the dizziness that always swept through her when she winnowed. 

“You fell because you slipped on my bourbon,” Lucien pointed out. She’d knocked his drink off the slim end table upon her arrival, and it was pooled on the floor, already seeping into her skirt. 

“Shit!” Elain said, and then immediately reddened; the Inner Circle’s constant swearing must be rubbing off on her. But Lucien only laughed easily in return, releasing her and heading indoors for a towel. 

“Don’t worry, it’s not very good bourbon,” he called from inside his room. “Rhysand’s taste in liquor is pretty boring.” Elain kept her gaze trained on the horizon, conscious of him moving through his bedchamber and opening his dresser. This was a terrible idea — his scent was billowing out the window with the curtains, washing over her until she felt heavy-lidded with the urge to just close her eyes and inhale as deeply as she could. She sank into one of the chairs. Were her hands actually shaking? 

Lucien emerged with a bath towel and dropped it on the ground, not looking directly at her. Elain sighed. “Do you think they’ll even notice I’m gone?” 

“Everyone is looking forward to this dinner, Elain,” he said, crouching to mop up the spill. She was almost sure now that he was purposefully keeping his eyes trained to the marble floor. “I bet they panic at the prospect of having to pull it off without you.”  

“Yes, but no one even comes by the kitchen, except to ask for their favorite topping on dessert or their favorite way to garnish a soup or…” She trailed off, aware she was being extremely unattractive. “It’s like if I’m sufficiently occupied and out of sight, then everything must be great. No need to worry about poor little Elain anymore.” 

“And are you?” Lucien finished drying off the marble and lifted his head to look her in the eye. His one metal eye clicked softly into place, something she only very rarely heard — she wasn’t sure he liked it when others did. 

“What?” Elain’s breath caught in her throat, the full weight of his attention on her suddenly making her skin too warm all over. Too late she realized that once again Lucien was on his knees before her, his lips slightly parted. Too late she recognized that he, too, found the position quite familiar.  

“Sufficiently occupied,” Lucien repeated. He shifted forward oh so slowly, every muscle in his body tensed to see if she would freeze or pull away. Then he was reaching out and with warm hands circling both her ankles, sliding up to her calves, rubbing the ache that had set in her muscles from standing over the stove. 

“Lucien,” Elain said, a warning note in her voice, and he stopped immediately, eyes still on hers. But really she was softening, already sinking deeper into her seat and moving one knee toward him. “Is this truly wise?” 

“Wise,” he repeated, as if turning the word over in his head. He still did not move until Elain lifted one slim ankle from where he held it, brushing her foot against the side of his bicep like she was scratching an itchy spot. “Is that what you think I am?” He let her slide her leg around him and then pulled himself closer, hands skimming up under her skirts so that her breath hitched. 

“No, I guess not,” she said. He slowly, firmly nudged her legs apart, settling between them, thumbs stroking at the insides of her knees and then further up her thighs. Her eyelids fluttered shut, the sensation so light and delicious she could feel her lips lift just a tad bit in a smile. 

“Elain,” Lucien said, voice low with want now. He was looking up at her from where her skirts were crumpled to one side. “Tell me to stop and I stop.” 

Elain opened her eyes for a moment. Cloudless, blue-grey winter sky, her least favorite season in Velaris; dark marble and grey curtain and purple and navy beckoning from the bedroom, the colors Rhysand and Feyre loved most, though to Elain they made the place look like a perfumery; and then finally, kneeling before her, the damp towel now cushioning his knees, she noticed, was Lucien: red-gold hair unbound and tousled like she almost never got to see it, shirt rumpled and unbuttoned at the collar only endearing him ever more to her, the look on his face hungry and nervous and altogether vulnerable. It was Lucien, just for her to see. 

Elain spread her legs. “I still don’t think I’m having fun yet.” 

FEBRUARY.

She was finally done denying that she wanted to fuck him. Every time Lucien was not actively on an errand or explicitly being yelled at by Jurian and/or Vassa, he came back to Velaris and stayed in his small but stylish apartment — and the minute he stepped foot in the Night Court she could feel it in the very pumping of her own blood through her veins. Something in her would fiercely rattle at the bars of its cage and snarl and bay at the moon like it was preparing for a hunt — and gods did it feel like that sometimes, the moments before she made it to his door, or the times they found themselves alone at the River House and their eyes met across the room, or, embarrassingly, the times they were very much not alone at the River House but she compelled him to sneak across the hallway. Or into the library. Or around the back wall into an overlooked corner of her garden.

Lucien came around the corner into the kitchen and she yanked him by the collar, harder than she thought she could pull, their mouths meeting even before she slammed the door closed. He tore his coat from his shoulders, waved a hand in the direction of the room so that the latches on both doors clicked into place. Elain was pulling his shirt from his trousers, pushing her hands up the smooth planes of his chest, her tongue sliding against his, and still she pressed herself to him harder like she could climb into his skin. Lucien walked her back until they were flush against the kitchen island and he could ruck up her skirts, a hum of amusement rumbling through his chest when she broke away from his lips to suck at the pulse point under his chin. 

“Easy,” he said. She ignored him and tugged harder at collar and shirttail and pants pocket, grabbed a greedy handful of his ass — if she’d been in any normal state of mind Elain would perhaps die of embarrassment, the way she was pawing at him, but his efforts to steady her only irritated her. Even in this he was infuriating, even as he skimmed his broad hands past the tops of her stockings and teased at where she really, really needed him—

“Fuck!” Lucien stiffened in front of her, the curse only making Elain smile against where she was scraping her teeth along collarbone. She’d found out half an hour ago that he was stopping by before yet another trip to Spring, and in a flash of inspiration she’d stripped off her underwear, stashing it in a pocket before he even came into the house. “Elain, fuck, you are so wet —” 

“So do something about it,” she snapped, suddenly sick of how he was bowing his forehead too reverently against hers. He didn’t even really have his fingers in her and gods knew how much time they had anyway— 

So swiftly it made her gasp, Lucien flipped her so she was facing the kitchen island, bent her over, and with his breath coming short and sharp unbuckled his belt. Elain pressed her palms flat to the counter and was just about to swivel around to look at him when he pushed her down, deep, controlled intent in the way he fisted one hand in her hair. “Fucking stay there,” he said, the words shooting straight to her aching core, and then with his other hand he lined himself up and pushed inside her. 

Elain yelped, not expecting the sudden stretch, and instantly his hand had clapped around her mouth, the pressure somehow soothing as Lucien drove his hips forward. “Quiet,” he said, still sounding a little mean, and gods why did that make her tighten around him even more, moaning softly through his fingers at the silken slide of him into her, again and again. It felt so fucking good, every time he touched her, every time he bottomed out, almost, almost everything she wanted. Lucien bent to whisper roughly how much he liked those things the same, filthy words about her wet cunt and how it felt, promises of even more he wanted to do with her perfect, tight pussy, and Elain’s eyes were rolling back in her head, the way he had her pinned against the hard counter so inexplicably comforting she could only think yes, yes, more . 

“You couldn’t—fucking—wait another second,” Lucien said, punctuated by each of his thrusts, and Elain shook her head in near-delirious agreement. His other hand was clawing past layers of fabric, eventually giving up and rubbing her through her very dress, so that the friction over her clit was rough against her slickness. It was overwhelming with the velvet glide of him inside her, relentless, and Elain wriggled pointlessly, only grinding herself further against the heel of his hand with a moan. 

For a moment she was furious at how helpless she was to the raw pleasure he could wring from her; it was unbelievable, how he seemed to know what she wanted or needed in every single second, even when she struggled in impatience or scratched at him or spat insults like a brat. All over her skin and behind her pounding heart, the bond sang with satisfaction, just like every other time they’d given into it the past few months. It was a shining, golden melody in her soul, joyous at meeting his own. And still, Elain thought, each stroke of his cock tipping her close and closer to the edge, they barely really knew anything about each other.

Behind her, Lucien slowed for a moment, his Fae hearing sharper than hers, and Elain would have wailed at the loss of momentum if he hadn’t shoved two fingers into her mouth, pressing down onto her tongue. He bent until his lips brushed her ear and she shuddered. “Your sisters are walking up the road,” he told her, sounding so frustratingly calm. “So you’d better come.” 

She hadn’t noticed him drawing one hand back to where they were joined. And as Elain’s whole body stiffened, trying one more time to turn around and give him a piece of her mind, Lucien only snapped his hips forward with a vengeance, his fullness catching her breath anew, and at the same time he snaked his hand between them, pressing the pad of his thumb to the tight rosebud of her ass. Elain came so hard she began to sob, writhing against him, fingers scrabbling against the countertop tile.

“That’s it,” he was saying, fucking her through hers and then his own orgasm, muffling his own groans into her hair. “Gods, Elain, you’re so fucking perfect—I’m—”

“Lucien,” she said, her pleasure just on the brink of pain, and in a second he had enfolded her into his arms and winnowed them into his room, on top of the rumpled sheets he’d left that morning. 

Elain was still limp and loose-limbed as she sank into the softness and the smell of him, rubbing her cheek against his pillows like a cat. She heard him chuckle. “Come here,” Lucien said, wrapping her in a quilt and pulling her close. As always, she did not put her arms around him, but she let him hold her, nose against the vee of his collar. “Do you want some water?” he asked. 

“No thank you,” Elain mumbled. 

They did not look at each other, only lay listening to the other’s breathing as her sisters and their mates clattered into the house. Out of the corner of her eye, Elain saw strands of red-brown escaping from where he usually braided his hair off his face. There was a stain on one of his pant legs, a few unfamiliar scratches on the forearm banded across her. His hand rested softly on her shoulder, the back of his pointer finger brushing against her neck. Absently. Affectionately? She knew she had just a few more moments to stay, if they wanted to make it look like they were simply taking separate naps.           

“Elain,” Lucien said. “Can I—” 

“I have to go,” she said, and winnowed herself into her own bed. She shivered at the absence of his arms and scent around her, then scowled and burrowed down into the blankets. She waited five, six minutes, until she heard him freshen up and join the others downstairs. 

When his footsteps passed her door, she felt the bond flare with hope and delight inside her chest. And she told it no. 

APRIL.

LUCIEN

In the spring Rhysand requested he stay close, report to him in person biweekly, and so Lucien was in Velaris more than ever before. And he was losing his mind. 

Already it was testing the limits of his concentration to have to cast so many glamors, wiping their scent from every door or wall or surface he’d fucked her on. He woke in the mornings feeling harried, heartbeat already rapid and unsteady as he lay in bed, the bond roaring at him to go and find her. He felt as if he’d tumbled into the kind of addiction he was warned about as a child, only instead of illicit substances there was only chasing after precious seconds of Elain: the feel of her smooth skin or the taste of her mouth or even just the smell of a piece of her clothing kicked under his bed. He would go to bed at night counting and re-counting the days until he could get his next fix of her. He wasn’t sure what actual rest was supposed to feel like anymore. 

That is, except for the scant moments she let him hold her, afterwards, the both of them breathing each other in, the violent hunger in him finally purring with satisfaction, and something else. It felt so right to be beside her like that that Lucien had given up on trying to talk to her about it. It felt so good when they were together he was paralyzed by it, felt like falling to pieces just imagining it. 

But he was beginning to think he could not handle whatever this was that they were doing. He was fine with letting her know that she had bested him at this game — never mind that he had responsibilities beyond the time he spent between her thighs. And never mind that every time she let him under her skirts it was sharper agony leaving her behind without telling her what he really wanted. 

When others were around she almost never spoke directly to him. The past months she had been careful to only allow him brief glimpses of what Elain Archeron was really like, and Lucien was so tired of that. He wanted to know all of her and he wanted it now. He wanted to stop playing games and pretending they were angry at each other — or okay, truly feeling angry at each other, but only because they hated wanting each other. 

It was Sunday when he winnowed back to the house he shared with Jurian and Vassa. He was so tired he had just enough time to kick off his shoes before collapsing on his favorite armchair in the corner. A shriek startled his eyes open. 

“Not there!” Vassa was running in from the kitchen armed with dustpan and broom. “Get off the chair now , you and that absolutely filthy thing you call a coat.” 

“Spring cleaning,” Jurian’s voice drifted in, by way of apology.

“It’s fine,” Lucien said, and started getting to his feet, but then at the last minute forgot he wanted his boots and stooped to grab them. Immediately a burst of fatigue cramped the whole middle of his back like a bear trap, and he simply fell forward with a grunt, collapsing on his own footwear and rolling sideways on the carpet. “Sorry.” 

“Good gods,” Jurian said from where he stood in the doorway, watching. “What the hell has that woman been doing to you in bed?”

“Not a ‘woman’,” Lucien coughed, deciding he could lie on his side for just a few more seconds. Vassa was staring at him from a couple of steps away, her brow furrowed. 

“Lu, I don’t think you’re doing so well,” she said, tapping him lightly with the end of her broom. 

“I’m getting up, don’t worry.” He did not want to get up off the floor. 

“No, I mean—” Vassa glanced at Jurian, only for a second; they’d clearly been talking about him while he was away. “I don’t think this… secret lovers thing is very good for you.” 

Jurian snorted. “Lovers would imply they were saying loving words to each other.” 

“Fine. Secret in-denial sex thing?” 

Lucien sat up, brushing off his well-loved hunting coat. “Hmm,” he said bitterly. “I don’t remember asking for either of your opinions.” 

Vassa actually swatted at him with the broom this time. He ducked. “You literally fell on your face, you idiot,” she said. Jurian was silent, but his arms were crossed. “How are you supposed to be doing this all-important emissary job when you can’t even put your shoes back on? You think Rhysand is going to be happy the first time you fuck up for real?” 

“Well, maybe he’ll fire me,” Lucien said, “And then I can spend more time around here like you’re always asking me to do.” 

“What, because that’s the only way you’ll stop self-sabotaging with a mate who uses you for sex and then treats you like garbage?” 

Lucien turned away from her, and before he could really clock himself, punched his fist into the plaster and stone of the wall, as hard as he could. The house shook with it, debris flying from the impact in a fine spray; immediately, sharp pain coated the skin of his knuckles, almost a relief to cut the tightness exploding from his chest. 

Nobody spoke. Lucien could not look at his friends. 

“I’ll repair it,” he said after a few excruciating moments. A terrible, shivering shame was washing over his entire head and neck. “I’m sorry.”

He flinched as there was a loud clatter behind him — Vassa dropping broom and dustpan, but only to kneel on the carpet beside him and put her arms around him. Lucien closed his eyes, the better to hide the pinpricks of hot tears. “I’m sorry too,” Vassa was saying, hugging him firmly and then sitting back on her heels. “That was out of line.” 

“That wall was shitty anyway.” Jurian sat in the armchair in question, leaning forward on his knees. “We are worried about you though.” 

“I know,” Lucien said miserably. 

“It’s because we love you,” Vassa said, elbowing Jurian in the shin. “Say it!” 

“He gets it.” 

Already the skin on his hand was knitting itself back together. Lucien flexed his fingers, still so embarrassed he wished more than anything he could turn back the last few minutes. “You guys aren’t so bad yourselves,” he said. 

That one earned him a whack on the shoulder before Vassa stood and left the room. “I’m going to get some much-needed welcome-home libations.”

Jurian stayed, watching him closely. “We would be glad to have you around here all the time, just to be clear,” he said. “If that’s what you really want to do.” 

“I don’t know what I want to do.” He was telling the truth — he wasn’t sure what would feel worse. Just the thought of staying away from Elain completely made him want to jump out of his skin. But this constant, toxic purgatory instead? It could kill him. 

“You’ll figure it out.” Jurian nodded his head towards the kitchen, where Vassa was beginning to make concerningly loud noises with the cupboards. “Or else she’ll keep busting your ass about it, you know that right?” 

Lucien looked around the living room they shared: the candles piled haphazardly on the mantle, the sticks for s’mores scattered by the fireplace, the undoubtedly chaotic assortment of prints and maps Vassa had tacked onto the walls. Jurian had chopped and neatly stacked wood for the week along the back wall. And on the sofa was a quilt that Lucien himself had brought from a trip to Winter Court as a present, now shared for anyone who wanted to curl up with a good book. At least he had this, he thought. 

“Yeah. I need it, though,” he told Jurian. 

His friend stood, brushing off his trousers. “What you need, I think, is a drink.” Lucien waited until he heard them bickering in the kitchen, closed his eyes and thought about what it would be like, wanting nothing more than this. And then he got up and went to find his friends.

MAY.       

The next time they were alone, they were outside, on a day that everyone else had abandoned the River House to do whatever business Rhysand’s Inner Circle always had. Even Feyre had taken Nyx for a walk along the Sidra, leaving nobody aware of Lucien walking straight through the front gates, bypassing the front foyer and following the steady call of Elain around the side of the house and into the garden. He thought of other evenings they’d met, when he couldn’t walk fast enough, sometimes winnowing straight into her bedchamber, other times half-running down the hallway toward wherever she was hiding. He thought of what he had to do today and his whole body resisted it, a pit in his stomach yanking him back even as the bond sang at the prospect of seeing her again. 

He was in the center courtyard, where Rhys or one of the other Illyrians had placed an exceedingly ugly fountain, when she came to him, not bothering to hide the sound of her sure strides or the swish of her dress through the new grass. Lucien had tipped his face up toward Velaris’s familiar sea-salt breeze, eyes closed. He waited as long as he could, until she stood directly behind him, the dizzying jasmine and honey of her hair and skin so fondly bewitching to him by now that he wished he could bottle it, keep it for later evenings without her.

“They’re all out,” Elain said quietly. She so very rarely touched him first. Outside in the clean spring evening, Lucien thought with a wrenching of his heart, it would feel so right for him to take her gently in his arms, as if the lovely calm of the garden was made for the both of them. 

No, not the two of them as they were, but perhaps in another lifetime, in another set of circumstances that knitted both their lives together. As he turned to face her, standing so near him he could see the very flutter of her lashes against her cheek, Lucien could not believe how close they were to that shimmering, alternate reality. Her arms sliding around his neck, her breath fanning against his own lips, the burnished chestnut of her hair all around them like a sweet, ethereal cloud. How could they be so close, he thought, and yet have gotten it so, so wrong? 

“Elain,” he said, catching hold of her wrists and lowering them. She only softened, pliant against him, a result of so many times he’d pulled her toward him even more urgently. The bond snarled in his chest, demanding that he do as it wished in the face of her submission; but the pounding of his heart, underneath the noise, was louder, and there was only one rhythm, only one name it beat its drum to. “Wait, please.” 

She nodded easily, tilting her face up to his, and Lucien allowed himself just one look. Eyes warm and open with expectation and desire, plush, full lips slightly parted, the dusting of freckles against the sides of her nose; her own chest rising and falling, a delicate blush he found very dear shading the skin near her collar; the trust of her hands soft against his. 

When he did not speak, the smallest furrow creased her brow. Neither of them usually did a lot of waiting. “Yes?”

“I want—” He stopped himself. “I mean, you should know, I never meant to do anything that might cause you any pain.” 

Suspicious now, she drew herself away from him, wrapping her arms tight around her body. Lucien pressed himself on, knowing that he might not have another chance. “You deserve more than this.” 

“More than what?” she said, lips thinning with alarm. “What exactly are you trying to tell me?”  

Lucien took a step toward her, reaching for her hand again, and this time Elain shrunk back. “I don’t think that this is good for us, the way that we’re meeting,” he said. “I think we have to stop.”  

“You think we have to stop,” Elain repeated stonily. “Did Rhysand talk to you? Did he tell you this was a big mistake?” 

“No!” Lucien raked a hand through his hair. Everything was happening so fast. If she would just listen to him— “I’m just trying to do what’s right.” 

“Because you’re such a good male .” Words edged with contempt, she straightened her spine so gracefully upright he knew instantly that he was doing very, very poorly. “I never needed you to be a gentleman. And may I remind you — it seemed very much like you didn’t mind.”

“I don’t excuse my behavior,” he said quickly, irritated in spite of his intention — to show her he could be decent, not just the savage she had been taught to expect from all Fae. “But I don’t want you to give up on finding happiness the way you always wanted.” He gestured at the house behind them. “I think you want a family and a life of your own.” 

Elain stiffened as if he’d insulted her. “You don’t know anything about me,” she snapped. “If you’re concerning yourself with my future, then why— how could you even allow this to happen at all?” She waved a hand between the both of them with what looked like disgust. “You realize that where I am from, you have completely ruined me for anyon—for any kind of marriage prospects at all.”

His lip curled at the suggestion. If he had his way she’d never need to trouble herself with human notions of female virtue again. “Surely Feyre and Nesta have told you that the Fae don’t care about—”

“I care!” She came toward him this time. The sun had begun to set, but her eyes blazed at him with undisguised rage. “I care very much if you have seen me as nothing more than a plaything this entire time!” 

Lucien felt the blood drain from his face. “No,” he said, “That couldn’t be further from the truth.” 

“Then tell me why!” She stamped one foot, hands clenched into fists. “ Why do you want to stop? Why do you think this isn’t a good idea? Why do you keep talking like I can’t handle the truth!” 

“Because I cannot do this anymore!” he cried. “I cannot keep up, Elain. It is breaking me to be with you like this.”

A pause, and he glanced up, already regretting his words. She was pale, shaking in her lavender frock, and the look in her eyes was so sad and so lonely that it took his breath away. “Am I so awful a companion, then?” Elain whispered, her voice cracking as she finished. 

He shook his head violently. “Just the opposite,” he insisted, reaching for her. “I want to—” 

He meant to say, I want to show you just how lovely I think you are. He meant to say, let me start all over again and court you, Elain, let me be the companion I think you are missing. Please, please let me know you, take care of you, love you. Let me give this a real chance. 

“Stay away from me,” Elain said, chin jerking upwards. When he did not move, she cocked her head in the direction of the house. “Don’t you hear them? Feyre and Nyx are home.” 

They were out of time. His pulse pounded in his ears, the utter weight of his failure like a storm threatening to crash against him. “Elain, please—” 

“Stay the fuck away from me, or I’ll go to Rhysand tonight and ask him how to break the bond.” 

Lucien flinched, hard. Elain turned and went into the house. And he stood there in the dusk, his hands trembling, eyes wide and blank with the fact that he had missed his opportunity to set things right. 

SEPTEMBER.  

He was up and winnowing into the hallway before he was even really awake. Wind and rain from a tail-of-summer storm beat against the windows and the roof above him, throwing even the spelled lamplight into a mercurial grey. He paused for a moment to confirm that he heard nobody else moving about the house; only Lucien had heard the scream and bolted upright. 

That is, if there had been any screaming out loud to begin with. Lucien blinked, his metal eye whirring drowsily as he realized he was standing right outside Elain’s door. He’d stay for a minute more and then go back to sleep, he reasoned. Just to make sure he hadn’t imagined anything. 

She had made it very apparent that summer that she did not want anything to do with him, so much so that even Feyre noticed her hostility and said as much. After that, Elain treated him — and most of the rest of them, to be honest — with icy politeness, speaking when spoken to, eyes sliding right over him as if he were a ghost. Her sisters were worried, Lucien could tell from their glances and nudges and leading questions. Elain had always struggled with the adjustment, but she was backsliding, refusing to get enough sleep and showing little interest in leaving the River House. 

Even Rhysand was gentle and almost nervous around her, though he never spoke to Lucien about it. Perhaps Rhys could have covertly sniffed around in his memories, Lucien thought, and at this point, he wasn’t sure he’d even mind. Nobody could make him feel worse about his actions than he already did.

He had just decided to make his way back to his room when it happened — a sharp sob from Elain’s room, and at the same time, a spike of pure fear down the bond, rattling him so thoroughly that Lucien winnowed closer to her again, this time just steps from her bed. Already he was thinking about how he’d have to apologize to her later, but he froze before the pale moonlight scattered across the room, flooding the four-poster bed where Elain lay gasping. 

“Elain, what’s wrong?” Four steps and he was falling to his knees by her side. “Are you hurt?” 

“Lucien,” she said, turning toward him, her eyes filled with tears. “You were—she was—I thought she was going to kill you!” Her breath was coming in rapid, shuddering bursts, her hair wild where it lay over her shoulders. “She took your eye.”

This time the fear was his. It was a memory that haunted him, too, sometimes in versions where Amarantha killed him slowly, or took both eyes, or trapped the whole of him inside the one he’d lost. Sometimes, instead, he dreamed it exactly the way it happened.

“A nightmare,” he told her. He’d taken one of her pale, soft hands in his, and she clenched his fingers tightly, as if still unsure that he was real. “You are safe in the River House, and so am I.”

“The pain,” Elain said, still shaking. “I felt your pain. And I heard you—oh Lucien, you were so afraid.” 

To survive Beron and his brothers and his flight from Autumn, only to say one stupid thing and, worse, let his guard down for a second—in that moment, Lucien knew, he’d thought Amarantha’s hideous, twisted smile was the last face he’d ever see. And yes, he had been afraid, as he lay thrashing while she carved out his eye; afraid she’d go on to mutilate other parts of his body, but also afraid to face his closest friend, who vomited when he saw him, and then afraid that this was punishment, somehow, for fleeing Autumn after Jesminda’s death, for daring to excel as Tamlin’s emissary, for trying one more time to be happy. While Tamlin had retched, Lucien had stumbled to his feet and headed to wash himself, thinking the whole time, I am broken, and I am alone. 

“Yes, I was,” he told Elain. “It was a long time ago.” Before he could stop himself, Lucien was reaching out, smoothing wisps of her hair back from her face; he could have wept at the sensation of her cheek against his fingertips, cold and wet with tears but still the most precious softness he could imagine. “Are you all right?” 

Elain shivered all over, so violently he could see it. “I don’t want to close my eyes,” she said. “It’s like she’s waiting for me.” 

He knew what that was like. “I can stay right here, if you need,” he said, and then remembered what the past few months had been like. “Or I can leave, if I am only making you more upset.” 

“No!” Elain swiped at her eyes with the hem of her nightgown. “Please… please stay.” She was staring down at the sheets, one hand still clinging to his. “I’m, I just…” 

“No need to explain,” Lucien said. “I’ll be here.” He stroked his thumb across her knuckles, and Elain settled down into her pillows, still sniffling. He had just found himself a more comfortable way to fold over the side of her bed when she let out a little impatient huff. It was encouraging, if confusing. “Did you need something?” Lucien said, glancing up at her once again. Elain was frowning.

“I can’t let you kneel on the floor like that,” she said. Some of the color was returning to her cheeks. 

“I assure you, I’m fine.” He’d slept in far worse positions. 

“No,” she tried again. “I mean… you could take the other side of the bed.” At the look on his face, she yanked her hand from his. “We wouldn’t even touch each other, to be clear.”

Lucien studied her. “You were perfectly clear last time we spoke,” he said. “Would it be fair to say I worry you’ll be upset with me in the morning?”

At this, a hint of a smile graced her face, as unexpected as it was delightful. As if a weight lifted off his chest, and yet Lucien told himself to not get his hopes up. “Yes, that’s fair,” she said. “I treated you like dirt.” 

“Like garbage,” Lucien agreed. They both spoke quietly, as if this conversation, under cover of night, was to be kept secret from the other, daytime versions of themselves. What else could explain the thoughtful way she glanced at him, the way she so casually invited him into her bed? Lucien knew it didn’t matter if Elain wanted him a foot or ten away from her, if she wanted him tied up or chained to the very wall — he’d stay because she asked him to. And in all this time, he had never once watched her fall asleep. “You’re sure you wouldn’t rather be alone?”

She nodded, swallowing hard. “That dream,” she said. “I screamed for help, and nobody came.” She turned her eyes to his and this time the haunted look on her face made a chill pass through him. “And she looked right at me.”

He took a deep breath and walked over to the other side of her bed, slipping beneath the covers. He was wearing soft pants, at least. “It was only a dream,” he said, lying on his side to look at her. They were whispering now. “But I heard you.”

“You came for me,” she said, mirroring him on her side. Even covered in blankets the curve of her hip beckoned to him, his hand twitching and the bond humming with her proximity. “After how I spoke to you.”

He skimmed one hand across the coverlet between them, palm up. “I will always come for you,” he said. “Do you believe me?”

Elain glanced down at his open hand. “Yes, I think I do.” Slowly but surely, she reached to meet him in the middle, lacing fingers with his. Her lips parted softly as their palms met. Neither of them spoke, as if again they had agreed to keep from spoiling their fleeting touch with words. 

As long as she faced him on her side, her face was cast in shadow. But Lucien waited as long as he could as Elain drifted off, watching their entwined hands and the subtle rise and fall of her breaths. He felt his own pulse slow and calm itself in time with hers, his eyelids drooping despite his best efforts. He thought she had already drifted off when she spoke next.

“I missed you, Lucien.” It was so quiet he wasn’t sure for a moment that he had heard it. But she sniffed after she’d spoken.

“I missed you too,” he said. That was the last thing he remembered before he fell asleep. 

ELAIN

She woke and for a moment kept her eyes shut tightly against the gently breaking morning. How despicable it was for her to be here — after the months she had spent refusing to let him get close to her, the horrid things she’d said to him in the garden, and then the way she’d begged pathetically for him to stay by her side, it would be unsurprising, and perhaps justified, if he’d slipped out while she was sleeping, and then never spoke of this again.   

And yet Elain turned over and Lucien was there. He was still asleep, across from her but stretched out on the other edge of the bed with ample space between them. He’d placed a pillow in between their bodies at some point in the night, and stayed head to toe on the other side of the invisible line it marked. She smiled. A gentleman if he really needed to be one, then. 

In all the times they’d coupled, she’d never had the chance to sleep beside him or rise from the same bed. And that had been her choice. She still did not quite understand why the secret games they'd played had been the one salve to the burning, choking, all-consuming anger she’d been left with, after the war and Velaris’ rebuilding. Everybody had seemed to settle contentedly into a new life and only Elain had wanted to scream with rage at having her Fae essence thrust upon her. 

But one thing she’d been quite sure of the entire time was that Lucien, a male she did not even know, had left her the space to choose. His was an open hand inviting her to eventually, truly take hold of him, come to him, take a chance on a beginning with him. And while everything in her entire life whirled on without her consent, Lucien’s patient, unasked question, his open door, no matter what, persisted in its openness to Elain’s yes. Or Elain’s no. 

In a quick turn of a second, a cloud continued on its way, and soft dawn sunlight burst in through the picture window, bathing her mate in shafts of gold. The sight of him took her breath away. He was and always would be the most beautiful male she had ever seen, but here in the privacy of her own room she thought he’d never looked more stunning, from the slope of his nose and jaw to the broad expanse of his bare chest, kissed by soft, curling fuzz the same auburn as all over his body. Unbraided and unbound, his hair spilled over the pillows and sheets, a few strands strewn across the metal of his mechanized eye, framing his scar. And his mouth, the lips she privately thought of as made for her alone, soft and unburdened by smirk or by tight-lipped restraint — gods, she loved to look at his mouth. 

She missed him so badly it was like an ache in her body. And that wasn’t even the half of it. When they’d ended things and when she gave up the chance to touch him, gave up the precious, gorgeous moments he held her in his arms, the first thing Elain had noticed was the terror that swept over her, newly comprehending the time ahead. Months, years, decades without him, hundreds of years she would spend as Fae — the possibility that she had driven him away, and that she would have to muster up whatever was left in her, to brave all of that time without the mate she had repelled — she had never been so afraid, not even in those moments she’d been taken from her bed so long ago. Because she now knew what it was like, time spent with Lucien and then time without.

How to ever begin to explain why she had made him so miserable. How to even ask whether she had used up her one choice, the worst way possible. Elain watched as Lucien began to stir, brow furrowed slightly. In just a few more seconds the moment would be over and then he would leave and everything would continue, the time she had been given, the time she’d already ferociously wasted. He opened his eyes and for a moment they simply looked at each other, face to face with the pillow still between them. 

“Good morning,” Lucien said, voice pitched down into a rumble by his drowsiness. “I don’t think anyone is up yet.” She knew he was telling her because it meant he could return to his own room without anyone knowing. She knew about so much that he did for her sake, and she never told him she noticed. 

“Yes,” Elain said. “Nyx is apparently not a morning person.”

He dimpled at her words. “Imagine that.” His smile was so dear to her by now she felt she could burst into tears. Lucien stretched, and then turned his gaze away from her for a moment. “Are you all right?”

She’d slept soundly beside him, but that didn’t surprise her at all. “Yes, I am. Thanks to you,” Elain said softly. 

And oh, at that his eyes flicked toward the door, and suddenly Elain was so, desperately, not ready for this to be over, this time with him, even just one day, please, gods. She opened her mouth, immediately her throat was closing, and at the surge in her emotion she saw Lucien’s face change, concern and also confusion, oh what she would give to go back to when he was smiling at her. “Wait,” Elain choked out.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” He half-sat up now, leaning away from her. “I can go, there’s no need to-I’m sorry if I-“

“No, please!” Elain said, and then she was crying, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes and rolling away from him. “Please, I’m doing this all wrong, please don’t go.”

He was still sitting up but at least he was not leaving. She couldn’t look at him. “I don’t want to make you more upset,” Lucien said, and the sadness in his voice only made tears rush to her eyes anew. 

“No no no,” Elain said, twisting the sheet against her mouth. “It’s me, it’s been me the whole time.” She was shaking her head now. “I’ve been so stupid, I’ve been so cruel to you.”

“Elain,” he said so gently. “You are many things, but you are not cruel.” 

She only squeezed her eyes shut, and dimly she was aware of Lucien still seated. “You don’t know me,” she said. 

“Maybe. But I would like to.” He was not moving. She could hear his very pulse beat through the bond, slow and steady, calling, calling. At his words her own heart leaped, violently, in her chest, brimming with her longing for him. “Elain, I would really like to.”

“But I hurt you so badly,” she said. “It’s not okay! I’m so, so sorry, for all of it.” Hot tears still stung the back of her throat.

“I’m sorry too,” Lucien was saying. “I should have—there’s so much I didn’t tell you, and I should have tried harder to tell you—”

“I didn’t give you the chance,” she said quickly. She turned and looked at him, bent over where he was seated on the edge of her bed, one hand clenched into a fist on his thigh. 

“It’s okay,” Lucien replied, turning his head to face her. And this time she gasped at what she saw in his eyes; the two of them could not look away from each other. “I promise I have made so many more mistakes than this—” His voice broke. “And so much worse, and I know we’ll make more. But I think it’s all right for us to say sorry, and try to do better next time, if we mean it.”

Elain wiped another tear from her cheek and this time he reached forward to take her hand, just holding onto it. She pushed herself to sit up as well. “How can you do it,” she said. “Go on after all of it was so painful?”

And this, finally, made Lucien truly smile at her, his hand firm and warm around hers. “Because one day after so many years,” he said, “I learned I had a mate. And she is strong, and smart, beautiful and thoughtful and loving.” He was lifting her hand to his lips now, and Elain sighed with the sensation, like a balm to the flaring of her anguish. “She has so much to look forward to. And some day the life she makes will be so full of joy she will look around and wonder how she got so busy being happy.”

Elain shook her head. But she felt hope stirring inside of her, and the bond brimming with its golden song, filling the hushed little room of her soul. Outside, the first few birds were beginning to call out to each other. “Elain,” Lucien was whispering now against her knuckles. “It’s okay for us to try again, don’t you see?” His eyes were wide as they met hers. “Do you want to?”

She smiled at him, her mate sitting across from her in the quiet morning sunlight. She leaned forward.