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So dig two graves cause when you die, I swear I’ll be leaving by your side
So you can drag me through hell, if it meant I could hold your hand
I will follow you
Cause I’m under your spell
Her fingers were light when they curled, just for a moment, a heartbeat, around Cassian’s forearm.
Light— like those of a thief.
Nesta watched as the stranger at Rita’s laid a hand on Cassian’s arm, just beneath where his sleeves were rolled at his elbow - the way she liked - to expose a stretch of tan, tattooed skin. Her own hand tightened on her glass, flexing as she watched the dance floor, where the man who had woken up in her bed was dancing with his friends, waiting for her after she’d ducked away for a single minute to get a drink from the bar.
She had left all of them behind— Rhys and Feyre, wrapped up in one another - as usual - and seemingly content to forget the rest of the world existed; Mor, glittering and twirling, moving with the music next to Cassian, gold glinting at her wrists every time she shifted beneath the coloured fae-lights suspended from the ceiling. Only Azriel stood propped at the bar, offering Nesta one of his small smiles as, wordlessly, he slid a glass towards her. Nesta had just been patting the Shadowsinger on the shoulder in thanks when her eyes had drifted back to the dance floor.
For a moment she had just… watched. Watched the way the lights glided along Cassian’s face, sliding along his cheekbones, blue and purple and pink, and for a moment she was… content.
And then a fae with curling blonde hair had slipped through the crowd. Laid a palm on Cassian’s shoulder.
And it was ridiculous. Ludicrous. The most irrational and unfounded thing in the world, the way that Nesta suddenly felt something heavy in her gut, settling uncomfortably at the base of her stomach. A madness, in the way her jaw snapped shut, eyes narrowed.
Cassian only smiled— a polite smile, friendly, as he pulled back. Rejection in every line of his body; in the detached, disinterested smile he gave the stranger as he backed up a step. The music continued without missing a beat, the shifting lights moving in sequence, but Nesta suddenly felt her blood sluggish in her veins, something unfamiliar snaking through her as she slammed her glass back down on the bar.
She didn’t look to Azriel, with his writhing shadows and his half glass of whiskey.
Didn’t look at the stranger moving lithely back through the crowd.
Nesta didn’t speak at all as she made her way back to that dance floor, pushing her way through until she was stood before him, trying desperately to smother the urge to break the girl’s fingers for daring to touch what was hers.
In an instant his hazel eyes lit up— a fucking puppy, all wide-eyed and bright, shining beneath the fae-lights in their crystal bowls.
“There you are,” Cassian said, hands reaching for her, finding her, pulling her into his orbit even as his voice barely rose above the level of the music. His smile dimpled his cheeks, a slashing grin as he leaned close enough to speak directly into her ear. “I missed you.”
And it should have worked, shouldn’t it?
Nesta didn’t understand why the twisting in her gut didn’t cease, why she felt the need to rest her hands on his shoulders and press her palms against him, feeling the fabric of his shirt beneath her skin as something deep, deep inside her whispered:
Mine.
After a second - a split second, a heartbeat - she felt a finger curling beneath her chin, guiding her face towards his.
“Hey,” Cassian said, voice dripping with concern. “What’s wrong?”
The lights glided along his cheekbones and, really, Nesta didn’t even blame the stranger for approaching him. After all, with his cheeks flushed in the warmth of Rita’s, the smile on his face bright and lovely and open, and the way his hair curled to his shoulders, those wide, broad shoulders…
She cleared her throat; smiled tightly, curling her fingers around the curve of his shoulder.
“Nothing.”
Still.
He was hers, and so even though she didn’t blame the stranger for daring to smile at him, to simper, to try and weasel her way into his bed…
Nesta wanted to throw something.
The music ran through her, reverberating through her chest, and Cassian pulled her closer, his hands sliding down her ribs and coming to rest so comfortably at her waist, his thumb swiping a path back and forth across her side. It really was ridiculous, she mused, because she knew he didn’t have eyes for a single other soul in that damned bar besides her. Knew, when he dipped his head, breathing her in, like she was the air he needed to breathe. And when he lifted his head, face flushed and whiskey on his breath, he looked so damn happy that Nesta pressed a hand against his cheek and felt her own smile loosening, turning to something real as she took in his half-lidded eyes, that stupid grin on his face, and took comfort in the pressure of his hands on her waist.
“You have that look on your face,” he said.
“What look?”
“The one where you’re secretly plotting murder and don’t want anybody to know.”
“I do not—“
Cassian stopped her with a kiss— brief, light, almost chaste. His smile bloomed against her mouth as he murmured,
“You’re such a terrible liar.”
Netsa sniffed, forcing her face into a mask of neutrality as she looked past him, over his shoulder, and fixed her gaze on some innocuous point on the ceiling, the space between the fae-lights suddenly more interesting than it had ever been before.
“Who was the girl?” she asked, downright idly.
“The girl?”
“The one who came over to you.”
Cassian blinked, and gods, maybe it was the wine she’d drank, but Nesta might have laughed at the way his expression shifted, his whiskey-addled brain racing to keep up. She might have smiled, had she not been able to smell the girl— her scent lingering on his arm where she’d touched him.
She fucking hated having heightened senses.
“I have no idea,” Cassian answered. “I’ve never seen her before in my life, Nes. I didn’t—“
“I know,” Nesta cut in, resting a palm against his cheek, relishing the way he turned his face into her palm, pressing a kiss to the heel of her hand. “I saw you turn her down.”
Relief flickered across his face, replaced for a moment by confusion until—
“Wait, are you…” His eyes glinted. Scanned her face. “Nesta, are you jealous?”
“No,” Nesta scowled. But she wound her arms his neck a little further, let her fingers wander into his hair nevertheless.
He grinned again. An idiot— but her idiot.
“You are.”
“No, I am not.”
She huffed, even as she recognised it for what it was. A stupid little sound, almost petulant. But hadn’t he done the same, once? When she had danced with Eris? When he had cut in, his face as hard as hewn stone, and she had struggled to understand it, the force driving him that made him so desperate to stake his claim. She thought she might have understood it, now, what it must have been like for him to watch her dance with another.
His entire face softened now, the hands bracketing her waist squeezing once.
“I’ve never had anyone…” His voice trailed off, clearing his throat as he pressed a kiss to her cheek. His mouth lingered, lips moving to her ear. “Nobody’s ever gotten all that jealous over me before, that’s all.”
“I don’t plan on making a habit of it,” she muttered.
Triumphant, his smile lit up his whole damned face. “You admit it, then. You are jealous.”
“I won’t be if you keep this up.”
He laughed, tipping his head back. The music was so loud that Nesta could feel it in her bones, and the frantic, frenzied beat echoed the way her blood rushed through her veins. Cassian’s smile was electric, like lightning, flashing through the darkness.
“I mean it,” he said softly, his leaning to brush a kiss against the corner of her jaw, right beneath her ear. “Nobody’s ever gotten… territorial.”
Her eyes met his. Nesta’s narrowed.
“And?”
“And maybe I like it.” He shrugged. “Maybe for a bastard who grew up alone in the cold, it’s…”
He trailed off. And Nesta understood then, all at once. Why he always seemed to need her touch, to crave it, like he’d been starved of it. Because he had— all those years, when he’d been given no soft space to land. Her face softened, and Nesta felt herself melt against him, her entire body growing loose. Cassian shook his head, and Nesta took the opportunity to smooth an errant curl back from his face.
“Alright then,” she said slowly. “Maybe I was a little jealous.”
His eyes dipped to her mouth, that smile so damned infectious she felt it curve her own lips. Cassian’s arm tightened around her waist, pulling her so close that she could practically feel his heart beating beneath the palm she laid over his chest.
“Shall I prove it to you?” he asked, his voice dipping an octave or several as his hands slid lower, resting on her hips. “How little you have to fear from anyone else in this entire world?”
Nesta shrugged, leaning back in the circle of his arms, letting him take her weight. Slowly, he dragged his nose across her jaw, along her neck and when she swallowed, he pressed a kiss to the hollow of her throat.
“Shall I take you home, sweetheart, and prove it to you right now?”
Her fingers found their way into his hair, and she hummed as he practically purred against her.
“Gods, yes.”
He laughed again, the sound rich and heady and more potent than any kind of wine she’d ever had the pleasure to taste, and she wanted to savour it, to keep it, to taste it over and over and over again—
His hand slid down her spine, hauling her once more against him.
And she didn’t care that they were in Rita’s. That they were surrounded by people.
Cassian kissed her, taking her bottom lip between his teeth, and Nesta rose onto her toes, chasing his mouth as her fingers speared into his hair.
“Take me home, Cassian,” she breathed. “Immediately.”
His grin was wicked.
And as Cassian took her hand and lead her through the crowd, Nesta spared a single look back. Cassian did too— just one look over his shoulder before his eyes slid to hers.
Rhys had moved to a corner with Feyre; Mor still commandeered the dance floor, with Azriel wreathed in shadows by the bar.
It didn’t matter. Cassian’s hand was still twined with hers, and as they slipped through the crowd, his fingers squeeing hers, Nesta couldn’t help but feel like they were the only two souls in the world.
Still, she smothered the snort that escaped as he pulled her outside, into the night. As he pulled her into his arms and launched them skywards, towards the House in the distance.
Jealous, indeed.