#RoRSoD

[thatbitchydonutcollector]

The Rose of Regret and the Sting of Desire

Part 3

Nessian Mini Series- Mainly Angst/Eventual Smut

Note: Thanks so much for beta-ing @darlingfireheart (😘). This is quite the filler chapter some may say. But I truly, truly love the duo (haha no spoilers) that I explore in this part. Much is planned, and you must be patient for the slow burn. There will be much more Nessian confrontation in the next part (which is already in the works). Without further ado, enjoy! 🌿

Word Count: 1,343

After more than a day of scouring the House of Wind, Nesta finally shrugged on her cloak and decided to brave the stairs leading down to the base of Velaris.

It was nothing like the human realm.

Where she grew up, full of dull colors and starving lands, people had one hand on their weapon and their head turned in paranoia. The human realm was merciless. The human realm let her and her sisters starve while not even batting an eye. But here...

...there children running in the streets. There were townsfolk walking with smiles on their faces and plentiful baskets of food on their hips. There were people laughing. Playing. Grinning.

These people were happy.

And now Nesta understood what lengths her sister would go to to protect this place of shimmering stars and joyous people.

Her feet carried her slowly, taking her time in searching the grounds before her. A female, twirling with a basket of roses on her arm, gave Nesta a smile as she passed. She stopped on her feet, searching Nesta’s face and frowning accordingly. She handed out a pale white rose to her.

“I have no money for this,” Nesta said dully.

The girl beamed and just searched her face. She saw the uneasiness in Nesta’s expression. She saw the longing.

“There is no cost.” The girl chimed simply. “I hope your day brightens.”

Was her facade that translucent? Nesta asked herself as her nose inhaled the sweet perfume of the blooming bud.

Nesta kept walking until she reached the Sidra. She heard the steady thrum of its current, and the sloshing cacophony of where it thrashed against the bank.

Her head bowed, Nesta sped up her pace. And she knew exactly why her feet wanted to walk faster. She knew exactly why the sound of choking waves almost made her sick to her stomach.

The feeling of water filling her lungs engulfed her. She remembered the way it burned like wildfire inside her and the way she gasped for air on the tiles of Hybern as she expelled it from her system, scorching like razor blades leaving her body.

The first thing she smelled in her new body was her-- Cassian’s blood seeping across the tiles towards her.

Nesta put a hand to her stomach, suddenly overwhelmingly nauseous.

She groaned as she caught her breath.

The raging storm inside her was screaming. She was better than this. So Nesta Archeron stood up tall and continued her search through the streets of Velaris with a white rose in her hand.

The sun was setting by the time she made it to her destination.

Rhysand’s townhouse.

She climbed the few steps and knocked heavily at the door before her. Something inside her churned, slightly hoping that he wasn’t home. Hoping he was off doing High Lord-ly things without his mate by his side. Waiting a few moments, Nesta sighed and turned on her heel eager to leave.

Nesta Archeron had so many questions, and the only prick she knew who would have the answers was Rhysand. But despite herself, she was scared of what he would tell her… of what it would mean.

Just as Nesta cleared the steps back towards the direction she came, she heard rustling inside the house and the door cracked open.

He looked awful.

She remembered what he looked like when he was meeting with the Queens back home. Regal. Kingly even. His head high, his back straight, and his mate by his side. Rhysand was nothing of what she remembered. There was stubble on his cheek, his hair was an untamed mess, and there were dark circles under his eyes as he looked at her.

She saw him try to stand taller, but she was not a fool. With Feyre spying in Spring… Rhysand was in shambles.

He said her name with a hoarse breath, then promptly cleared his throat.

“May I come in?” she sighed.

With a glare at her, Rhysand opened the door for her to follow him in. “What brings you to my humble abode, Nesta?” he goaded.

“I need to ask you something.” Nesta glanced around his townhouse. There were maps spread haphazardly over the large kitchen table, there was a notebook open with maddened scrawl and pencils exploding across the room and onto the floor.

“Oh?”

She suddenly felt the urge to leave. Feyre was out there, in the clutches of their enemies and she was going to ask about unimportant, much less dire things. She chuckled to herself and Rhysand raised his brow.

“May I ask what’s so comical?” his face was unamused.

“Nothing, I--” she paused. “Nothing.”

A moment of silence passed between them.

“Why are you here?”

“To ask--”

Rhys cut her off with a snarl in his voice. “Then ask it.” He still hated her. That much was apparent. For failing Feyre. For letting her youngest sister starve. She hated herself so she supposed it was valid that Feyre’s mate hated her as well.

She took a deep breath to calm herself. “How did you know… that Feyre was your mate?”

His eyes widened. “You came all the way from the House of Wind to learn about Feyre and I?”

Nesta tensed. She felt stupid, silly to come this far to ask the male that hated her guts in such a time. Gods, she was so rutting stupid. Nesta started towards the door. “You know what, nevermind. I’ll just--”

“No, wait.”

She paused.

“I suspected for a long, long time.” Rhysand said grimly. “I had dreams of her even when she was still living in the mortal land. When she crossed over into Prythian it was like a veil being lifted.”

Nesta’s hands were shaking and she gripped the rose tighter. Maybe in rage or in fear, she couldn’t tell. “Yes, all that with the dresser drawer and the dreams but how did you know?”

“Why are you asking this, Nesta?” He knew damn well why she was asking. She just stared at him.

With that rutting smirk on his face, he continued. “When she was revived by the High Lords, after all the chaos died down and I was alone with her… when I smelled her and saw her in that body, I knew. It was like… her being high fae heightened the bond between us. I had suspected for a long while, but that was the moment I knew. It’s like a tether. A string tied between mates that connects them.”

“When did Feyre realize?”

Rhysand’s eyes darkened. “I kept it from her. For months when she was in the Night Court with me. The Suriel told her in the end but she came close to realizing it on Starfall.”

Nesta nodded, turning away from him. She was calculating precisely, taking in everything between her and Cassian. “And when one of you is hurt or in distress?”

“I’d do anything for her. To comfort her. To make her feel better. I’d slaughter my way to get to her, the only thing stopping me is her decision in the matter.” Rhysand studied her face. “But you already know how this works, don’t you?”

She turned back to him, his face had no smirk, no arrogance or hatred. “What do you mean?” Nesta said, but they both knew it was a lie. They both knew exactly why she came here.

“You just needed validation.” Rhysand said plainly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Nesta gave Rhysand one last look and then opened the door back to the streets of Velaris.

She was down the steps before she heard his voice again. “Nesta,” She turned with heavy eyes to look at her sister’s mate. “He’s been through a lot, and so have you. He’s a good male.”

Nesta met his gaze as he leaned on the doorframe of his home. Pained and broken. “I know.”

Nesta trekked all the way to the Sidra and watched as the white rose fell from her grip and was swallowed by the current of the maddening river.

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Tagging: @my-fan-side @fck-tamlin @darlingfireheart @beetwixxt

[thatbitchydonutcollector]

The Rose of Regret and the Sting of Desire Masterlist

Nessian Minific Series- Mainly Angst

Started pre-ACOWAR

Masterlist

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

More to come!

[thatbitchydonutcollector]

The Rose of Regret and the Sting of Desire

Part 2

Nessian Mini Series- Mainly Angst

Note: We’ll see how speedy these updates come out. I am working on a personal novel at the moment (or at least trying to) so it’s good to take a breather to work on these little pieces. More to come!

Word Count: 1,386

He was a full-blooded Illyrian male. A sword-trained and hard-edged male who sliced down threats on a battlefield with no remorse and unwavering strength. Cassian was a fighter. A survivor. He was a Gods damned commander of armies and a steel blade that struck true…

...then why was he on his knees?

That pure moment of instinct. That pure moment of lust and uncontrollable urge to touch, taste, and feel everything that made up Nesta Archeron. That kiss… oh rutting Gods, that kiss. It was like an answer to a question he had been asking himself for years. He had never felt like that before. That desire. That primal need.

He wanted his hands running down her sides, over her body. He wanted his heart to fly out of his chest and become hers. Take it. It’s yours if you want it.

She wouldn’t want it. Nesta would throw him away like he deserved.

But when he felt that hand lightly stroking his wing… that was what made him snap.

He had almost torn out her throat, ripped her sweet flesh from her bones. Cassian looked down at his hands. The hands that held her there, helpless against that wall. The hands that could have killed her. The hands did harm her. Everything he did, he did it for her.

He was crying. On his knees in his chambers, Cassian had silent tears streaming from his face and slipping to the floor.

All he could think about was her. Her face contorted in rage as her head was shoved under the roiling tides of the Cauldron, that infernal finger pointing in promise. He had vowed to protect her. He had sworn it infront of her that he wouldn’t let anything happen to her, and yet he flopped on the floor of Hybern’s castle like a fish as the Cauldron filled Nesta’s lungs.

They winnowed back to Velaris from Hybern that night that Feyre had given herself to the Spring bastard. The night that what was between Nesta and Cassian became a tangible and beating thing that connected them together. He had sensed it from the very day he saw her with her proud defiance and the way his blood called to everything about her.

His Nesta.

But, she was not his. She belonged to no one. No to him. And by the way she wandered around the House of Mist like a half-dead corpse, something in Cassian told him that even Nesta did not belong to herself. She was broken. Angry. A raging storm.

“Don’t touch me!”

Nesta had screamed at him. She had fear in her eyes that Cassian had never seen before. Fear. Betrayal.

Cassian stood from where he had fallen to his knees, swiped off the tears from his cheeks, and stared at his reflection in the mirror. He unfurled his wings, looking at the scarred and discolored tissue. His wings had been the only thing taking over his mind in that one moment of defense. They were healed. They were salvaged from the shredded scraps they had been before. Cassian flexed them, moving the membranous muscles out further while feeling the air glide over his sensitive skin. He whispered her name as he pressed his wings into his body, threw himself out the window, and took off towards the mountain-kissed horizon.

As his wings brushed the stinging wind, Cassian had a feeling that if he ripped out his heart and handed it to Nesta Archeron, she would shred it to pieces with a smile on her face.

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

When Nesta Archeron scrambled to the library where her sister was, she couldn’t catch her breath. She wrapped a hand around her throat where his had been, trying so hard to breathe. Breathe.

Her mind was flooded with images of the Cauldron. Her sopping gown and the water creeping into her lungs that burned with a fire that made her scream and claw at her throat. The way she coughed and vomited on the cold-tiled floor and her body was wrecked with shivers. As soon as Nesta emerged from the Cauldron, pure and menacing rage in her bones, she could smell and sense Cassian’s blood mere feet from her too-slender fingers and her reinvented marrow. Everything inside her called to everything inside him, and it scared her. It terrified her.

Six months.

Six months of Feyre surrounded by enemies and Elain and Nesta holed up in this house. And she had wanted to spend every second with Cassian. How selfish and miserable a sister was she is Nesta was--doing whatever she was-- with Cassian while her sister was out there. It had been six months and she had been so fed up with seeing him every day that she forgot to spend that time with Elain or trying to help get Feyre back. She was guilty.

Nesta slid down the wall, her back jabbing on bookshelves, and put her face in her hands. Within a few minutes, the dull throb of Nesta’s neck was completely gone, and her lungs were expanding with quiet breaths. There were perks to a fae body after all.

Nesta touched a finger to her lips, slick and swollen. She closed her eyes, remembering how Cassian moaned against her...

Fuck.

… before it all went to hell.

She had kissed someone before, yes. Her stomach turned for even thinking that man’s name. The one who would have raped her, the one who would have sat her in the corner to be a good little wife.

This… this was different. It was unlike anything she’d ever felt. It was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. And what did that make her? A monster? A horrible excuse for a sister?

Because while Feyre was out defending this Court, she was here within its safe walls and feeling things for beautiful winged males. Male. Singular.

His wings. Gods, she had touched his wing.

She remembered everything from the past few months: His shredded wings straining against his skin. Cassian’s screams and snarls ringing through the halls as the healer straightened out each and every tiny bone in those massive wings. She could remember her hands shaking. Her heart pounding as she sat against the wall going mad because of this male’s screams. She waited outside that door every day. Every rutting day to make sure he was alright… to make sure he was alive.

And when he healed, when he could walk again and Nesta could finally breathe, she pulled herself away from him. Distancing herself from him, feeling guilty, feeling useless and enraged.

Nesta sat in her room, mowing through the library, walking with Elain in the gardens, to no avail. She was crawling in her skin for… release. Everything was bottled up inside her. Nesta’s muscles locked in frustration and her fists were clenched by her side as she asked him to train with her. Only a week after his wings were fully healed, only a week of them ignoring each other… sliding down the halls as if ghosts trying not to be spotted. Surprisingly, he said yes. She let out her anger on him. It felt amazing.

They danced around each other for days, both too afraid to push the other.

Nesta stood, taking a moment to calm herself before checking in on Elain. Her head snapped up at a sound before her. Her sister was staring right at her, a book in her hand and a smirk on her face.

“What?” Nesta spat, immediately regretting the sharpness in her voice. Elain raised a brow.

Elain sighed. “You cut your training short.”

“I did. Things got… out of hand.”

“And that’s why you slid to the floor almost having a panic attack?”

“I--” Nesta started, but she stopped as soon as she saw the look in Elain’s eye. “Stop that. I’m covered in sweat, and I’m going to go bathe.”

Elain sat down in a padded chair next to an arching window with an incredulous look on her face. She opened her book and began reading.

“What?” Nesta said quietly.

“I said nothing.”

Retreating into her chambers, Nesta spared a glance at the bathing room before her. The bathtub with sloshing sides and choking waves stared at her cooly. Blood boiling in her skin, Nesta collapsed on her bed with a huff.

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[thatbitchydonutcollector]

RoRSoD Part 3 is in the Works!

Catch up: Here

It’s been a while, but new motivation has surfaced.

🌿