A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses #4) by Sarah J. Maas

“Is that what you’re upset about?” His question was so gentle, so sad.

Nesta opened her eyes. “Some of them have been here for hundreds of years and still haven’t been able to come back from what they endured. So what hope do I have?”

He rubbed at his shoulder, as if it were sore. “We’ve been working for barely two weeks, Nesta. Physically, you might be seeing changes, but what’s happening in your mind, your heart, will take far longer than that. Fuck, it took Feyre months—”

“I don’t want to hear about Feyre and her special journey. I don’t want to hear about Rhys’s journey, or Morrigan’s, or anyone’s.”

“Why?”

The words, the rage, built again. She refused to speak, instead focusing on tamping down that power inside her until it didn’t so much as murmur.

“Why?” he pushed.

“Because I don’t,” she snapped. “Put those bat wings away.”

Cassian obeyed, but stepped closer, towering over her. “Then I’ll tell you about my special journey, Nes.” His tone was icy in a way she’d never heard.

“No.”

“I slaughtered every person who hurt my mother.”

She blinked up at him, the weight in her vanishing at the vicious words.

Cassian’s face held only ancient rage. “When I was old and strong enough, I went back to the village where I was born, where I’d been ripped from her arms, and I learned that she was dead. And there was no one I could fight to change that. They refused to tell me where they’d buried her. One of the females hinted that they’d dumped her off the cliff.”

Horror and something like pain went through her.

His eyes flared with cold light. “So I destroyed them. Anyone who wasn’t responsible—children and some females and the elderly—I let them leave. But anyone who had played a role in her suffering … I made them suffer in return. Rhys and Azriel helped me. Found the piece of shit who’d sired me. I let my brothers tear him apart before I finished him.”

The words hung between them.

He said with soft fury, “It took me ten years before I was able to face it. What I’d done to those people, and what I’d lost. Ten years.” He was trembling, but not with fear. “So if you want to take ten years to face whatever is eating you alive from the inside out, go ahead. You want to take twenty years, go ahead.”

Silence fell, interrupted only by their uneven panting.

Nesta breathed, “Do you regret what you did?”

“No.” Such unflinching honesty. The same honesty that now assessed her, marking every roaring, sharp piece of her.

Nesta dipped her head, as if it’d stop him from seeing everything.

Warm, strong fingers cupped her chin, calluses scraping against her skin.

She let him lift her head. She hadn’t realized he’d come closer. That only inches separated them. Unless she’d been the one to drift toward him, drawn by each brutal word.

Cassian kept his light grip on her chin. “Whatever you need to throw at me, I can take it. I won’t break.” No challenge laced the words. Only a plea.

“You don’t understand,” she said, voice rasping. “I am not like you and the others.”

“That’s never bothered me one bit.” He lowered his hand from her chin.

She straightened. “It should.”

“You say that like you want it to bother me.”

“It bothers everyone. Even oh-so-special Rhysand.”

His teeth flashed, any semblance of softness gone. “I told you once, and I’ll say it again: don’t take that snide fucking tone when you speak about him.”

“He’s not my High Lord. I may speak of him as I wish.” She made to step away, but he gripped her wrist, holding her in place. “Let go.”

“Make me. Use that training and make me.”

Hot temper poured in. “You’re an arrogant bastard.”

“And you’re a haughty witch. We’re evenly matched.”

She snarled. “Let go.”

Cassian snorted, but obeyed, turning his face as he backed a step away. And it was the light of victory in his eyes, the clear sense that he believed he’d somehow unnerved her and won this fight that had her grabbing the front of his leather jacket.

Nesta told herself it was to knock that smirk off his face that she curled her fingers in the leather and hauled her mouth to his.





CHAPTER

19

For a heartbeat, there was only the warmth of Cassian’s mouth, the press of his body, the stiffness in his every trembling muscle as Nesta slanted her lips over his, rising onto her toes.

She’d kissed him with her eyes open, so she could see precisely how his own widened.

Nesta pulled away a moment later and found his eyes still wide, his breathing harsh.

She laughed softly, making to unhook her fingers from his jacket and strut down the hall.

She only got as far as lowering her right hand before he surged forward to kiss her back.

The force of that kiss knocked them toward the wall, the stone slamming into her shoulders as all of him lined up against all of her, a hand sliding into her hair while the other gripped her hip.

The moment Nesta hit that wall, the moment Cassian enveloped her, it destroyed any illusion of restraint. She opened her mouth, and his tongue swept in, the kiss punishing and savage.