You Are
My Mate

In the aftermath of Amarantha's cruelties, Rhysand waits — centuries of longing bound into a patience he has never needed before. Feyre flinches from every shadow and screams herself hoarse in the dark. He does not push, does not demand, does not invoke the bond that has sung through his blood for five hundred years. He only stays: a steady presence at the edge of her nightmares, a wall of warmth against the cold she carries inside. Night by night she reaches for him, until at last she lets him in — slow and trembling and full of everything they have both survived. Afterwards, Rhysand presses his forehead to hers and whispers the words that have shaped his immortal life: You are my mate. And in the darkness of the Night Court, Feyre begins to believe she is more than a survivor.