A Court of Shadows and Secrets (ACOTAR FANFIC)

Chapter 38

"Kali. I need you." 

Feyre's voice echoed through her head as she was immediately on her feet, startling Azriel who had his tongue down her throat moments prior. 

"Where are you, star?" Kali asked as she left the profoundly confused Azriel before heading towards the door. 

She watched as a tear-stained Feyre dropped a bloodied Rhysand onto the muddy ground. She practically ran into Kali's arms. "I need to leave. I need out." Feyre whispered. 

Rhysand struggled to stand, reaching out to Feyre as Cassian and Az ran to his side. 

"Okay. Okay, star." She whispered. 

Kali dove into the Morrigan's mind finding a safe place, still under the protection of Rhysand yet out of his reach. 

A cabin. 

Without a second thought, she winnowed to the location, taking Feyre with her. 

They walked in and Feyre didn't say a word. Kali would wait for her to speak first, though the urge to maim her father for whatever he had done, grew within her. 

After bathing and sitting in her sister's arms in front of the fire, Feyre finally spoke. 

"He's my mate... Rhysand is my mate and he knew... this whole time... He knew..." Feyre whispered, voice quivering with emotion. 

Kali, on the other hand, felt her world stop. 

Rhysand. 

Her father, Rhysand. 

High Lord of the Night Court and Amarantha's whore. 

HE... HE was Feyre's mate?

Kali's hands shook as she tried to contain all that she was feeling. 

Fear. 

Sadness. 

Confusion. 

But most of all...

Rage. 

Rage at the mother who would do something so cruel. Rage at Rhysand for keeping something so monumental not only from Feyre but from her. Rage at the Cauldron. Rage at the situation.

Unfiltered rage. 

At a spectacularly inopportune time, she felt the daemati claws of her father down her mind, begging for entrance. 

"Where are you? Where is Feyre?" Rhysand's voice echoed in her head. 

" I give you this time as a head start. Pray to the fucking cauldron I don't find you before I calm down." Kali hissed back before slamming the walls of her mind shut once more. 

Every muscle in her body was tense, her jaw was set as she glared into the flames. 

What god allowed this ironic tragedy to occur? Out of all the people, her beloved sister could be mated to... fucking Rhysand?

She might have preferred Tamlin. 

After Feyre fell asleep, Kali winnowed back to the townhouse. 

Her purple eyes were alight with anger as she slowly strolled in the front door, trying to control her breathing. 

Rhysand stumbled to his feet as his daughter entered the house. His once pristine hair was a disheveled mess. His eyes were red and his face was blotchy. He looked like shit. 

Good.

"Alya-"

"Don't fucking speak... My entire life... You have taken from me... My freedom, my childhood, my will... my brother... Now  I have a family... A true family... You have already endangered my family a few times and now I know why you feel so entitled to do that... I have very little left to lose Rhysand... So tonight I heard my sister call out to me, telling me to get her out... I take her far away and do you know what she tells me?" 

She let the silence hang in the air, filled only by Rhysand's shaky breaths as he tried not to sob in front of his daughter. 

"She tells me that the bastard who made my life hell... is her mate."

"How was I meant to tell her? She loved someone else..."

"THAT'S NOT THE POINT, RHYSAND! I couldn't understand your obsession with us... Why you wanted us in your court... Our power? to piss off Tamlin? I couldn't figure it out. Now I learn that you feel entitled to us. Your mate and Your daughter."

"No. NO. Alya, I do not feel entitled to you. I don't own you! I just want to protect you. To protect Feyre! If she had loved Tamlin I was willing to let her go, let her marry him!"

"How am I supposed to believe that? You would do anything for what's yours, right? You did it for your precious family for fifty years. You let your own children be maimed and tortured every day just to keep your own power. You expect me to believe you are not only after Feyre because she's yours?" 

"I LOVE HER!"
"YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF WHAT TRUE LOVE IS!" 

"You do not understand. You couldn't possibly understand the deep complex feelings of the mating bond. But, I do not love her because she is my mate I love her because she is Feyre." Rhysand spat getting slightly defensive over his love for Feyre.

"You sent her to the weaver! You whored her out in both the summer court and the court of nightmares. You used her as bait! She has been in more danger by your side than she ever was under the mountain because at least there I could protect her. AND I understand the mating bond plenty because unlike you, I ACTUALLY COMPLETED IT! And if my mate ever treated me the way you treated Feyre, I would have beat the shit out of him!" 

The words silenced the room for a moment. Azriel flinched from his spot in the kitchen where he and the rest of the Night court were eavesdropping. 

Everyone looked at him when Kali mentioned him, although namelessly, to the only person in the house who didn't currently know about it. 

"W-what?" Rhysand asked, looking like he had been punched. 

He knew his daughter hated him, knew she didn't trust him with her family... but she kept her mate a secret from him. 

"Why didn't you tell me? About your mate?"

"FUCKING HYPOCRITE! I don't owe you shit and I DID IT TO PROTECT MY MATE FROM THE LIKES OF YOU!" 

"I would never hurt your mate! I would never do that to you! I would never hurt you like that!" Rhysand roared, desperate to have his daughter believe him. 

"No, you would just leave me to rot in a prison cell for twenty years. You would just endanger my sister, just like you did Antares. You do not earn the right to ask anything of me... especially not about my mate." 

The mating bond was still fresh and with a single threat from Rhysand, she would kill him. 

Rhysand's heart broke for the second time that night. 

He had played the villain so long that in the eyes of his daughter, he became one. 

He became the threat that she had to keep her mate and family from. He became the nightmare that haunted her every time she told someone she loved them. He was her father and he caused her the most pain. 

"Alya-"

"I don't want to hear it... I'm so tired of being angry Rhysand... so tired of having to fight on all sides...I'm just so tired." Kali breathed out lowering her head in exhaustion. 

The night court finally decided to enter the room, Azriel went straight to his mate, taking her from the room and away from the painfilled eyes of her greatest betrayer, her father.