Chapter Text
It had taken years upon years—a few decades, really—for Feyre to recover enough from Nyx's birth to even think about trying for another child. Physically, sure, she'd been miraculously fine, and she'll never be able to thank Nesta enough for that. Mentally, though, things were sensitive for a while.
She loves her son. More than anything else in the world, she loves her son and the beautiful, intelligent child that he's grown into. Getting the privilege to watch him slowly grow from a babe to a teen is nothing less than a miracle. (Though she still hasn't adjusted to the rate at which the fae age. Nyx is the first fae child she's known in childhood, and their development is slowed slightly from the human rate that she's been accustomed to. Not nearly as slow as they age, thankfully, or thirty years past Nyx's birth he might still be prepubescent. But he's just coming into his own as a young adult.)
Feyre loves her life.
That didn't stop her from practically begging Rhys for another child.
Nyx is so perfect, she said. He's beautiful and wonderful and a piece of both of us and I want… I want another, Rhys.
He had responded by throwing her over his shoulder and taking her to bed to start trying then and there, contraceptive brew that was still in her system for that next week be damned.
And perhaps she really is Cauldron-blessed, her Making and mate and powers and perfect first son aside, because it's been maybe a year of them trying when she feels the first telltale stirrings of life within her.
She feels it, of course, while Rhys is on a week-long trip to Illyria with Nyx to oversee the training of new camp lords, ones that are as against wing-clipping and pro-training females as her mate himself. As much as she misses him, wishes he was here to tell right now immediately, the time gives her a chance to prepare a creative announcement—and have Mor and Amren arrange for them to take a vacation to the Summer Court to have some much needed uninterrupted time together before the new baby arrives.
A prickle of guilt rises within her at the knowledge that her mate, the love of her life, the father of her child, is not the first person she tells.
It'll be worth it, she reminds herself, to see the look of amazement on his face.
And it is.
When he winnows to the entrance of the River House and greets Feyre mind-to-mind, a mental talon scraping sensually down her adamant walls, she beckons him to her. She's standing in Nyx's former nursery, staring down the new, second mural on the wall adjacent to the first.
"Feyre, darling," he says from behind her, low and awestruck. "Do you have something to tell me?"
She grins, turning to face him with her hands cupping her still-flat belly. There's already silver lining his eyes. "I'm pregnant, Rhys."
Before she can so much as blink, she's wrapped in his arms, trembling with pure joy. After a week away, she relishes in the way her mate's scent floods her nostrils, salt and citrus and jasmine surrounding her in comfort; buries her face into the fine fabric of his jacket and burrows into the warmth of his body. His huge hands cover her back, tugging her impossibly closer. When he finally speaks again, his voice is rough with emotion.
"I don't know what I did in my life to bless me with such wonders."
"You were you, Rhys," Feyre murmurs, shifting in his hold to look up at him, finding his piercing violet eyes shining with unshed tears, a galaxy's worth of stars swirling in their depths. "I'm the blessed one, to have ended up here with you, and Nyx, and now this new little life…"
Her own eyes fill with tears, blurring the vision of her beautiful mate as he leans down to kiss her, capturing her lips with his own in a sweet, intimate kiss.
My darling Feyre, he murmurs in her mind, pushing all of his love and adoration down the bond until she's overflowing with it, no room for anything but him and the love that they share. You are nothing short of a miracle and I will forever be in awe of you. Queen of Nightmares, Princess of Carrion, Cursebreaker. My High Lady, my mate, my wife, my greatest love. Mother of my children. Feyre Archeron. There is no mantle you do not wear well.
It does not escape her that he names her as the last mantle. Her family name is a mantle of sorts, or, it had been. Being an Archeron has not felt like a burden in quite a few years. I love you, Rhys. More than this world. More than you could ever begin to imagine.
He cups her cheeks in his hands, staring down at her with those beautiful, star-flecked eyes, his perfect, slightly crooked smile blooming wide on his lips. Her mate. Her forever.
There is no thought to it when Feyre surges up onto her tiptoes to kiss him once again, unable to be close enough, to express enough of her love for him.
Rhys kisses her back with all the controlled burn of the stars, hot and focused and blindingly bright. The beast of scales and feathers and talons that dwells beneath his skin purrs in her mind as it nuzzles up to her adamantine walls, settling happily against the barrier as Rhys slips his tongue along her lower lip to deepen the kiss for an indulgent moment. All too soon, he pulls away.
Thankfully, he doesn't go far. He stays with her body pressed against his, as close as they can be without slipping under each other's skin. A featherlight kiss drops to her forehead as she feels the soft disturbance of his deep inhale, and Feyre knows he's memorizing the new scent of this pregnancy. Her own, which she doesn't recognize but has been told is reminiscent of lilac and pear, with something new twined beneath. Their child, too small to have made a significant impact just yet, but she can just barely scent, fresh and clean and warm; something so uniquely newborn.
Another deep inhale, a sigh of contentment.
"I promise you," he begins out loud, voice thick with tears. "I promise you, Feyre, that I will do better this time. Be better."
"Just don't keep things from me, and we'll be fine," she repeats calmly, unwilling to ruin this sweetest of moments by rehashing an argument they've already resolved.
"I love you. And our son. And our babe… who I can't wait to meet."
His broad hand pats her abdomen, unchanged since before the conception, with gentle reverence the likes he rarely shows.
And Feyre can't help but snort in amusement. "You're going to have to wait, love. There's barely a shape to them yet."
A dramatic groan from her dramatic mate. But he doesn't complain. He just presses another sweet kiss to her forehead and wraps her back up in his arms. Held, secured, safe. There is nowhere she would ever rather be than pressed against Rhys like this, chaste but intimate—for he reads her in a way that she thought she should fear.
To be known by Rhys is to be loved more deeply than she imagined possible, Feyre knows. She wouldn't trade it for the world.