we strode for a large desk in the center of the space, Tamlin claiming an ornate cushioned chair on one side of it. The only thing he had that was close to a throne these days.
I slid into the matching seat across from him, the pale wood groaning in protest. The set had likely been meant to accommodate tittering courtiers, not two full-grown warriors.
Quiet fell, as thick as the emptiness in this house.
“If you’ve come to gloat, you can spare yourself the effort.”
I put a hand on my chest. “Why should I bother?”
No humor. “What did you want to talk about?”
I made a good show of surveying the books, the vaulted, painted ceiling. “Where’s my dear friend Lucien?”
“Hunting for our dinner.”
“No taste for such things these days?”
Tamlin’s eyes remained dull. “He left before I was awake.”
Hunting for dinner—because there were no servants here to make food. Or buy it.
I couldn’t say I felt bad for him.
Only for Lucien, once again stuck with being his crony.
I crossed an ankle over a knee and leaned back in my chair. “What’s this I hear about you not enforcing your borders?”
A beat of quiet. Then Tamlin gestured toward the door. “Do you see any sentries around to do it?”
Even they had abandoned him. Interesting. “Feyre did her work thoroughly, didn’t she.”
A flash of white teeth, a glimmer of light in his eyes. “With your coaching, I have no doubt.”
I smiled. “Oh, no. That was all her. Clever, isn’t she.”
Tamlin gripped the curved arm of his chair. “I thought the High Lord of the Night Court couldn’t be bothered to brag.”
I didn’t smile as I countered with, “I suppose you think I should be thanking you, for stepping up to assist in reviving me.”
“I have no illusions that the day you thank me for anything, Rhysand, is the day the burning fires of hell go cold.”
“Poetic.”
A low snarl.
Too easy. It was far too easy to bait him, rile him. And though I reminded myself of the wall, of the peace we needed, I said, “You saved my mate’s life on several occasions. I will always be thankful for that.”
I knew the words found their mark. My mate.
Low. It was a low blow. I had everything—everything I’d wished for, dreamed of, begged the stars to grant me.
He had nothing. Had been given everything and squandered it. He didn’t deserve my pity, my sympathy.
No, Tamlin deserved what he’d brought upon himself, this husk of a life.
He deserved every empty room, every snarl of thorns, every meal he had to hunt for himself.
“Does she know you’re here?”
“Oh, she certainly does.” One look at Feyre’s face yesterday when I’d invited her along had given me her answer before she’d voiced it: she had no interest in ever seeing the male across from me again.
“And,” I went on, “she was as disturbed as I was to learn that your borders are not as enforced as we’d hoped.”
“With the wall gone, I’d need an army to watch them.”
“That can be arranged.”
A soft snarl rumbled from Tamlin, and a hint of claws gleamed at his knuckles. “I’m not letting your ilk onto my lands.”
“My ilk, as you call them, fought most of the war that you helped bring about. If you need patrols, I will supply the warriors.”
“To protect humans from us?” A sneer.
My hands ached to wrap around his throat. Indeed, shadows curled at my fingertips, heralds of the talons lurking just beneath.
This house—I hated this house. Had hated it from the moment I’d set foot in it that night, when Spring Court blood had flowed, payment for a debt that could never be repaid. Payment for two sets of wings, pinned in the study.
Tamlin had burned them long ago, Feyre had told me. It made no difference. He’d been there that day.
Had given his father and brothers the information on where my sister and mother would be waiting for me to meet them. And done nothing to help them as they were butchered.
I still saw their heads in those baskets, their faces still etched with fear and pain. And saw them again as I beheld the High Lord of Spring, both of us crowned in the same blood-soaked night.
“To protect humans from us, yes,” I said, my voice going dangerously quiet. “To maintain the peace.”
“What peace?” The claws slid back under his skin as he crossed his arms, less muscled than I’d last seen them on the battlefields. “Nothing is different. The wall is gone, that’s all.”
“We can make it