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Her cowardice, selfishness. The rage that had consumed her, so that she wanted them all to starve, just to see if their useless father would bother to save them. And then little Feyre had stepped in, and Nesta had hated her for it, too—that Feyre had done the unthinkable and kept them alive.

She didn’t know what to do with it, that rage. It still burned and hunted her, still made her want to rip and roar and rend the world into pieces. She felt it all—too keenly, too sharply. Hated and cared and loved and dreaded, more than other people, she sometimes thought. Could sift between them all in a matter of moments, like she was trying on different sets of clothes, and no one could tell or care.

Except him. He could see it, feel it.

That first afternoon, he’d looked at her—not at the face and the body that human men marked, but her—and he had seen it all. She’d wanted to hurt him for it before he could reveal those things to everyone else, find a way to break him so he couldn’t—

The hand pushing her own against his chest gentled. Cassian’s thumb stroked the back of her palm, the pad of it rough with calluses.

A log shifted in the fire, snapping as embers exploded, flaring light into the room.

She’d been staring at him. He blinked, mouth parting slightly.

Cassian leaned toward her, and Nesta found herself tipping her head back, exposing her neck, granting him utter access as he grazed his nose against her throat.

Mother and Cauldron damn him both.

This woman.

Nesta.

Cassian couldn’t bring himself to step back from the line that was so clearly drawn between them. One moment, he’d wanted to throttle her, then he’d read that terror on her face regarding her own past and he’d gone so murderously calm he’d scared even himself, then . . . then it had all stopped, the eye of a storm with them in it, and there she was.

And in those blue-gray eyes, he could see the thoughts swirling in her as if they were smoke under glass. The cunning mind at work behind that face—the one he hadn’t been able to get out of his head these weeks.

So he’d just . . . moved.

And then Nesta had tipped up her chin, allowing him access to her throat.

Every instinct in his body came roaring to the surface, so violent he had to choke them with a brutal grip or else he’d find himself on his knees, begging her for a touch, for anything.

But he leaned in, and grazed the tip of his nose along the side of her neck.

Soft—her skin was so soft; so fragile. He could scent the mortal blood rushing just beneath. Cassian breathed in the smell of her into his lungs, stirring his cock as it latched onto some intrinsic part of him and sank its talons deep.

Nesta Nesta Nesta

Her eyes drifted closed, and a small, breathless sound came out of her as Cassian brushed his lips over where his nose had touched.

His knees nearly buckled as her slender hand dug into his fighting leathers. He tried not to think of what that hand would feel like on other parts of him. Gripping him; stroking him.

More more more, his body sang.

He angled his head and kissed another spot, closer to her jaw.

Her frantic heartbeat was like a hummingbird’s wings, though her body remained tight and loose in all the right places, a flush spreading across those gorgeous breasts of hers. Big enough to fill his hands, to nuzzle until she was begging him—

Her pulse hammered right beneath his mouth. His tongue brushed it.

It was that touch that had her jolting back.

Nesta slammed into the wood paneling hard enough that he reached for her. But she was wide-eyed, livid, as she put a hand to her throat.

Cassian beat her to the venom about to blast from that throat and said, “Wound a bit tight these days, Nesta?”

She lowered her hand and hissed, “Is it some faerie magic of yours, to do such things?”

He barked a laugh. “No. Though I’m flattered you think so.”