Hey Guys!

This is a fanfic I found on AOO.

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Making Feyre wait in that cell for someone to come and save her life was perhaps the hardest moment I had yet faced Under the Mountain. She was in such immense pain to the point that she couldn't move at all, not even the parts of her that were still well and whole. And she was getting worse. Every spare moment of my day was spent monitoring her condition and each time I returned to the darkening recesses of her mind, it was like watching my worst nights with Amarantha on repeat a thousand times over.

But I couldn't go to her.

If I went straightaway, I'd lose credibility arguing Lucien would never come. And what was worse was the Fox was starting to heal. If I didn't time my arrival just right, he might actually manage to beat me to the punch and I couldn't let that happen, not now that I had decided to place all of my hope in Feyre. I'd damn myself to an eternity in this filthy excuse of a court before I let that happen.

Which was why when I sensed Feyre's thoughts fading away, her consciousness taking the subtle turn of the corner towards non-existence, I broke. I could not - would not - wait any longer to reach her. Doing so nearly destroyed my spirit as badly the Middengard Wyrm tore Feyre's arm, the damage was that bad. I lingered in the darkness as I winnowed in to her cell, intentionally blurring the lines of my body so I could take her in and what I saw lying before me was a sight I knew would haunt my nightmares for years to come.

Feyre looked ghastly. I couldn't even see her arm, she kept it in the shadows from me. But her skin was deathly pale and beads of sweat crawled against her brow where the fever had set in. Her thoughts flickered incoherently in her head and she made no movement other than to see what shadows had come to torment her.

Feyre. My Feyre. What had they done to her?

Steadying myself a moment too long, I put my mask back on knowing I had a job to do that I would forever hate and made myself appear complete before her. A smile not at all kind slowly etched itself onto my face. "What a sorry state for Tamlin's champion," I said.

"Go to hell," she said little more than a whisper, but I was pleased all the same that her words had any bite to them at all. I needed to know that the Feyre with a mind like a diamond who despised me at all costs still had some fight in her. It might be our only hope.

I moved closer, hovering over her body as I picked up on the scent of vomit from where it sat stewing in the corner. Everything was dark and I could sense Feyre's desire to move away even though she couldn't.

"What would Tamlin say," I said, "if he knew his beloved was rotting away down here, burning up with fever? Not that he can even come here, not when his every move is watched."

"Get away," was all she said and it was obvious how much each syllable cost her body to put forth. But she needed to fight so I pushed again.

"I come here to offer you help, and you have the nerve to tell me to leave?"

"Get away," again came the reply. Not enough.

"You made me a lot of money, you know. I figured I would repay the favor."

I had hoped that a cheap shot based on an idea as shallow as money would be enough to rouse her, but Feyre gave me... nothing. Her head rolled and I felt her thoughts begin to slip once more into the void as they had moments before when it was enough to prompt me into coming. Panic caught me by the throat as I frantically changed tactics.

"Let me see your arm," I said softly, softer than fit my guise. Again, nothing. "Let me see it," I pressed, and this time the words came out a growl. It was too hard watching her fade like this, to not even care. Where was the girl who had flipped me off in the pit? The girl who called after me on Fire Night? The girl who threw the javelin at Amarantha with such venom in her eyes even when it might have costed her everything?

I grabbed her arm and pulled until I could see it properly. Feyre's cry died in her mouth as she bit her lips shut, bit a little too hard, I gathered. The scent of blood hit my nostrils.

"Oh, that's wonderfully gruesome," I said and truly, the wound was. Bone stuck out at all the wrong angles and the blood had yet to clot. Feyre swore at me for my mockery and I laughed, a sigh she could not hear escaping me in the process. She wasn't lost yet, thank the Cauldron. "Such words from a lady."

"Get out," she said, still barely more than a whisper.

"Don't you want me to heal your arm?" I applied more pressure to her arm, knowing it hurt her, but she needed to agree to let me help. It was imperative for my plan to save us both.

"At what cost?"

"Ah, that. Living among faeries has taught you some of our ways." I could sense her mind sharpening every so slightly, just enough that I could step a little deeper into the web of what I envisioned. I set her arm carefully against the floor, a small reprieve. "I'll make a trade with you. I'll heal your arm in exchange for you. For two weeks every month, two weeks of my choosing, you'll live with me at the Night Court. Starting after this messy three-trials business."

"No," she said straightaway and with near-perfect clarity, her eyes finding mine in the darkness.

Now the real dirty work began.

"No?" I said, leaning dangerously closer. "Really?"

"Get out."

"You'd turn down my offer - and for what?" She was silent. There was no real answer for her, I just had to convince her of it. "You must be holding out for one of your friends - for Lucien, correct? After all, he healed you before, didn't he? Oh, don't look so innocent. The Attor and his cronies broke your nose. So unless you have some kind of magic you're not telling us about, I don't think human bones heal that quickly."

I stood up and began to pace, allowing myself to look far too pleased. My extremely arrogant ego, I was quickly learning, was the fastest way to proving my point and pissing Feyre off in the process. As much as I loathed it, she needed to hate me by the time we were done in this cell.

"The way I see things, Feyre, you have two options. The first, and the smartest, would be to accept my offer." She spat and though I gave her a chiding look, I wanted to laugh. Now there was some of that old venom coming back. "The second option - and the one only a fool would take - would be for you to refuse my offer and place your life, and thus Tamlin's, in the hands of chance."

I stopped my pacing as I sensed the magic word had perhaps worked. Tamlin. The moment I had put into question Tamlin's life, Feyre's entire mind stopped most of its hopeless whirring and died. She was desperate to save him and it killed me. What would it feel like to know Feyre felt such a frenzy to protect me?

Angry at myself for indulging the thought, I pushed forward, distracting us both with Tamlin's personal pain.

"Let's say I walk out of here. Perhaps Lucien will come to your aid within five minutes of my leaving. Perhaps he'll come in five days. Perhaps he won't come at all. Between you and me, he's been keeping a low profile after his rather embarrassing outburst at your trial. Amarantha's not exactly pleased with him. Tamlin even broke his delightful brooding to beg for him to be spared - such a noble warrior, your High Lord. She listened, of course - but only after she made Tamlin bestow Lucien's punishment. Twenty lashes."

Feyre began to shake and I knew it was working. A sick part of myself enjoyed knowing how much Tamlin suffered for this. What a disgusting creature I was. But again, I pressed on smoother than glass to make her abhor the mere mention of me. It was easy enough to do, I hated myself as it were that convincing someone else to join me in that endeavor was nothing to me now.

"So, it's really a question of how much you're willing to trust Lucien - and how much you're willing to risk for it. Already you're wondering if that fever of yours is the first sign of infection. Perhaps they're unconnected, perhaps not. Maybe it's fine. Maybe that worm's mud isn't full of festering filth. And maybe Amarantha will send a healer, and by that time, you'll either be dead, or they'll find your arm so infected that you'll be lucky to keep anything above the elbow."

Pain - this time, emotional - overwhelmed her. My plan was starting to work, so kept talking.

"I don't need to invade your thoughts to know these things. I already know what you've slowly been realizing... You're dying." I whispered the last few words in her ear with enough poison to hurt her that I would die from the pain of it when this was all over. Tears threatened to overtake her face as she sucked in a breathe of fear and dread. "How much are you willing to risk on the hope that another form of help will come?"

Feyre looked up at me and I could see the hate writhing around in her eyes, feel it twisting in her gut. I only needed to put the finishing touches on her, gather her consent, and my fate as the most vile creeping thing alive would be made manifest at last.

"Well?" I demanded when she said nothing, thinking she would accept my offer.

But Feyre looked into my eyes with malice as she spoke, "Go. To. Hell."

I snapped, my hand reaching out and snatching her arm in a cruel movement. She screamed loud enough to pierce the walls and floors several feet above us when I grabbed the protruding piece of bone and twisted. I took advantage of those moments in between when I knew her mind was so clouded with colors and visions of pain that she could not see me to allow my own features to collapse into a face of equal torment, equal despair. Whatever cruelty Feyre suffered at my hands I would ensure I was made to feel in equal force. And the grief I felt then and there for what I did to her as she thrashed about in my arms, nothing short of losing my friends could have matched it.

I made sure my composure was regained by the time she came too. I put on my most repulsive smirk and she spat at me, and so I stood up outright laughing at her as I wiped the spit from my cheek. I would have wiped tears away with it If the facade I wore weren't necessary.

"This is the last time I'll extend my assistance," I said, making sure she realized how desperate her situation was. "Once I leave this cell, my offer is dead."

She spat in reply and a part of me was genuinely frustrated she held out this long even though it signaled the fight in her we needed to win. "I bet you'll be spitting on Death's face when she comes to claim you, too."

I gave the illusion of fading slowly away from the room. I wasn't actually winnowing, but Feyre seemed to think I was and it gave her pause. Her thoughts reeled instantly as her confidence in Lucien wavered and she remembered moments of their relationship that were far too tenuous and new to rely on now.

In my mind, I pleaded with her to just agree. This was the only way I had yet found to get back at Amarantha for all she had done, to muster a small piece of hope for my court. Cauldron boil me, I even wanted her to do it purely to take revenge on Tamlin for the simple fact that he'd gotten to enjoy her company all this time and now did nothing to fight for her like I would. But mostly, I begged in my mind for her to agree just so I could know what it would feel like to have Feyre choose me for once, even if it were the only time in her life she would ever do so.

I chose her once, in the pit. Against the Middengard Wyrm. No one else had. I would keep choosing her until she told me not to or there was none of me left. If I could just find a small piece of myself she found worth choosing, I could survive another day.

I gave the illusion of almost flickering entirely out of the cell, fearing that I may in fact have to leave with a failed plan, when Feyre moaned, "Wait."

I knew what she was thinking. I could read her desperation to save Tamlin's life plainly in her thoughts and it sickened me to the point that I made her beg me stay a second time. He didn't deserve such uncontested love, not from Feyre.

"Wait," she said again and I took the illusion of winnowing away.

"Yes," I said with my most wicked grin, the one I reserved now just for her.

"Just two weeks?"

I knelt beside her and spoke with a voice like sweetest honey. "Just two weeks. Two teensy, tiny weeks with me every month is all I ask."

"Why? And what are to... to be the terms?"

"Ah. If I told you those things, there'd be no fun in it, would there?"

"Five days."

"You're going to bargain?" Her silence was all the answer I needed. For the second time, I wanted to laugh like I had when I watched her cleave bones for the Middengard Wyrm. There was the girl I knew and whom I - the girl I had come to admire, who would fight and push and pull even when any other person would have known the risk was too great in doing so. If Feyre was going to bargain away her days with me when she believed me to be on my final nerve with her, then I could rest assured that we would make it out of this.

"Ten days," I said. She countered with, "A week" and looked so determined that she would not show me an ounce more weakness than she already had, I knew I couldn't beg her more.

And then, for the briefest of moments, my entire world stopped. I saw a light at the end of the tunnel that showed me what this bargain would mean if we did in fact escape from Under the Mountain. I trailed my gaze down and up Feyre's body realizing that this person who was as dear to me as my friends in Velaris despite knowing her so little... would grace me with her company every month.

She would despise those weeks. She would count down the seconds until she left. And she would dream of him every day she was 'wasting' with me. But she would be with me nonetheless.

And maybe... just maybe... I would have the chance to change her mind.

"A week it is," I finally said.

"Then it's a deal," Feyre replied.

I spun the magic before anymore could be said. Joy flooded me as I grabbed her arm to heal it, my smile real and erratic in my emotion. When I was done, I stood back and beamed at my handiwork, at how much I was going to enjoy the rise the tattoo got out of Feyre, and even more so how much it made her look like a member of my court.

It was twisted, perhaps even a bit masochistic of me to put such an obvious reminder in front of my face day in and day out that although she looked like she belonged to the Night Court, she never would. But what did I care anymore? I had already lost so much for my home and I would lose it all countless times over that giving myself one small reprieve to enjoy, however mad it was, was worth it.

"What have you done to me?" Feyre said in outrage as she took in the tattoo, a cunning, slick design of swirls and flowers in inky black that flowed from the tips of her fingers to the crook of her elbow on her left arm, the eye that meant more than she realized at the center of it all on her palm.

"It's custom in my court for bargains to be permanently marked upon flesh."

Not even a little bit true.

"Make it go away," she said sounding panicked and for the umpteenth time, I laughed at her.

"You humans are truly grateful creatures, aren't you?"

"You didn't tell me this would happen."

"You didn't ask. So how am I to blame?" I walked towards the door, finally ready to leave, and darkness escaped me in waves now that I could relax in the knowledge that I'd won everything tonight. My life. My future. Even a small piece of Feyre was mine to cherish. The darkness reveled in it. But Feyre could not take her eyes from the tattoo, so I rubbed it in a little further just to make sure she truly hated me from here on out. This would not work otherwise.

"Unless this lack of gratitude and appreciation is because you fear a certain High Lord's reaction." Checkmate, I thought as I caught the flash of dread pulse through her mind as she thought of Tamlin and what he would do when he saw how I'd marked his precious Spring Court pet. "I think I'll wait to tell him until the moment's right, though."

Feyre looked at me and I knew I'd succeeded. She thought I'd done all of this out of spite with no concern for her or anyone else. Hate was too weak a word for what she felt towards me and I could stand to read that reminder in her thoughts no longer.

"Rest up, Feyre," I said, her name a final prayer on my lips. Shadow and darkness consumed me as I began to winnow, the look of venom in her eyes burning holes into the fabric of my soul.

And then, exactly as Feyre had hoped for, I was gone.

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(3200 Words)