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And, fine—maybe he’d agreed to come a bit too quickly, but . . . Cassian surveyed the estate, the muddy, thawing grounds, the distant village, and looming, budding forest. He’d left their first encounter here not entirely sure where he’d stood, or who’d had the upper hand. And, Mother damn him, in the past few weeks, he’d found himself turning over every word and look he’d exchanged with her, over and over.
None of it had been pleasant, every syllable from her mouth barbed and vicious, and . . . Cassian huffed a breath, hot tendrils ripping away in the wind. He couldn’t tell what was worse: that he’d thought so much about it, or that he’d run here so damn fast. And was now . . . dawdling.
The thought sent him into a swift, near-reckless dive for the green-roofed estate, his magic’s cloaking rendering him little more than a fell wind and a hollow boom of wings. The horses in the nearby stables thrashed and nickered at his approach, but their keepers scanned their immediate surroundings, found nothing of alarm, and resumed their work.
Cassian tried not to think about how easy it was—how that lack of awareness, that lack of instinct, would likely cost them their lives should the wall be shattered. Should someone like him turn this estate into a personal hunting ground.
He’d seen it happen in the last war—not that many humans had been wealthy enough to own property. But he’d witnessed what had been left of entire slave camps when one of the Fae decided to have some fun. The thought was enough for him to clench his teeth and hone his focus on the front door before him.
They’d sent word yesterday about precisely when to expect him. So when he knocked on the front door, it was a matter of a heartbeat before it was yanked open.
The sharp movement told him which sister had been waiting.
Yet with his magic cloaking him, Nesta Archeron and her unnervingly perfect face saw nothing but thinning patches of snow on the muddy lawn and the sloping drive cutting through it, the cobblestones gleaming with streams of melting ice. She casually opened the door for him to pass, and called to the insufferably nosy housekeeper that no one was at the door and the sound had only been the wind.
Right. Because emptying the house of all the servants so often would raise more suspicions than was safe. Especially with the other sister engaged to a Fae-hunting prick.
The housekeeper scuttled into the immaculate foyer to confirm for herself that no one was there, but Nesta merely informed her that she was going upstairs and not to disturb her for an hour. The woman opened her mouth to object, but Nesta, with rather impressive flatness, repeated her order and began her ascent up the grand, carpeted staircase.
The housekeeper’s eyes thinned to slits as the young mistress strode away—and Cassian kept his steps quiet as death as he eased around the aging woman, then up the stairs as well.
He was focusing hard enough on keeping silent, on keeping his wings tucked in tight so they didn’t rustle anything, that he barely took in the heavy, pale purple gown, simpler than others he’d seen Nesta in, tight enough in the bodice to show off her slim waist, the fitted sleeves displaying her slender arms. A thinner build than Feyre and Elain—discounting the generous breasts that he glimpsed as Nesta reached the top of the stairs and turned left.
Not that he looked at them. Much.
For all the world, Nesta was merely trudging to her room, perhaps a bit grumpy and groggy. But as soon as she entered the spacious bedroom, bedecked in velvets and silks of varying shades of blue and silver, and shut the oak door a moment later, the heavy, slow posture vanished.
Along with his cloaking.
A blink was her only tell of discomfort or surprise—and he may or may not have let his wings spread a bit wider as she looked him over.
“You’re ten minutes late,” she only said, moving toward the far end of the room, where a fire crackled against early spring’s chill. Where the sound of the flames might cover their voices. Clever girl.
“I do have other duties, you know,” he said with equal quiet, flashing a grin.
Like circling the house because he was compiling a list of choice insults to throw her way, responses to an invented argument. Like a complete fool.
“Here I was,” Nesta said, a pillar of ice and steel beside the hearth, “thinking I heard you flapping around for ten minutes. It must have been a pigeon stuck in one of the chimneys.”
Cassian just stared at her. She stared at him.
His temper rose with dizzying speed at the words, the absurd perfection of her. A blade given form—that’s what she was.
He smiled, slow and vicious, precisely in the way he’d learned made her see red. A smile that he knew instantly unsheathed those lovely claws of hers. “Hello, Nesta. Nice to see you.”
No reaction, no shift in her scent at the smile that usually made his enemies start running. Nothing, save for the delicate flare of her nostrils. “How is my sister?”
Healing, he almost said. Trying to outrun the fact that she’s falling in love with Rhys, and pointedly ignoring the fact that he’s been in love with her for a damn long time. That all signs point to them being mates, but I’m not stupid enough to say it to either of them.
So he merely said, “Busy.”
A flicker of her throat. “So busy she cannot deign to visit, it seems.”
“Feyre’s got enough on her plate—with the situation with Hybern and outside of it.”
The fire drew out the golden sheen in Nesta’s hair as she angled her head. A predator sizing up a worthy opponent. “And what is your role in all of it?”
Cassian braced his feet apart on the floor. “I command Rhys’s armies.”
