#Not Feyre learning the tiny insidious marks of control straight from Rhysands playbook

[flowerflamestars]

the rolling in the graves snippet

Nesta’s voice emerged from the closet, breathless with anger in a way that piqued Lucien’s every interest, entire focusing concern. “It has to be the silk taffeta?” Word spit like a curse, coming around the corner half in a bodice she was quite actively falling out of, Nesta froze at the sight of Lucien in the middle of white rug she hated. Stopped, one arm crossed over her chest, and like it didn’t break him clean in half, smiled. That quick quirk, her real smile, sharp and small. “Lucien.” In daylight, in domesticity, her sister rattling around downstairs, Nesta saying his name. Lucien slid forward, mindful of the intimacy it truly was, brushing his palm down her bare arm. “Nesta.” She made a face, a quick-change of amusement, scowling gorgeous at the pause before she pulled him close. An exhale, the slow sloping sun of late afternoon picking up a brighter, bloodier metric across her walls, pink and gold across Nesta’s bare skin. Even Lucien’s magic wanted. “Nesta,” Lucien said again, heedless of half filling his mouth with her hair, “What’s wrong?” Shoulders low and teeth sharp against his collarbone, Nesta nuzzled as close as skin and bone would allow, before she sighed. “Fucking temple before dinner. Feyre wants us to match.” “Like children,” Elain said, sunnily, from the doorway, unbothered by their closeness or the hiss Nesta let out, pure temper in the sound. “Mother had better taste.” “Mother was a tyrant,” Nesta heaved out, tipped back in Lucien’s arms but not away, hand bunched in his shirt more than a small wonder. She turned in place, wordlessly offering him her half-bared back, pink-blotched neck curved down. “Vanserra’s good with knots.” His first, desperate urge, was to kiss her nape. To follow Nesta down, heady on the sheer acknowledgement of one true thing. His second was to start lighting things on fire. Lucien could see where she’d tried to get it herself. Where the boning, structuring sheer panels around her waist, had dug in so deep as to leave marks. “Gifts,” Nesta sighed, poisonous. “From the High Lord.”