Page 142 of Fated or Knot

I remembered days spent in Osme Fen’s lake. This was a similar experience, though I knew the body of water I swam in was magnitudes larger than that relatively safe lake. I used topretend I was one with the water until the sun started setting and my dad called out my name. We’d eat dinner by the water on those nights, listening to the insects sing and…

And the air smelled of my favorite things while I rested, content after a day spent in the water. Sun-drenched grass, mint, and waterlily. Roasted mallows, smoke, and starshine. Everything I loved of my males echoed the ending to those perfect childhood days. It only made sense that my scent matches would forever remind me of my carefree life.

Marius had disappeared for a minute, sweeping away to the surface. When he returned, he swept around me where I’d stopped to tread water, slowing until we were nearly face-to-face. He tilted his equine head in a clear question. My heart pounded in my chest as I nodded at him. I was ready to take the next step to complete our bond.

He dove further into the sea, just to execute a turn and rise under me. My legs bumped his torso. I had a moment to get comfortable before his mane gripped my right arm and several tendrils wrapped around my hips to hold me to his back. Without the strong grip of all that hair, I probably would’ve been swept away the moment he tried to swim away with me.

I held his mane just as hard as it had me for balance. Marius tilted so we were heading further out to sea, kicking up bubbles with a silent snort. His tail undulated slowly at first, and he accelerated as I moved with him, leaning over his neck to help us cut through the water. We descended until the sunlight was halved, and my ears popped from the pressure around us.

Our bond strengthened slowly. At first, it was a tickle of static in the back of my mind. It was the same sensation I’d gotten when he’d first accepted my claim, but it became more intense as he carried me along until it felt like the back of my head had gone numb.

The magic at work didn’t feel like essence, but something more unknowable. Ancient forces had woven the first fae into existence from starlight, or so it was said. We mimicked those forces with our magic to this day, spinning essence like it was made of strands and weaving them into intricate spell works.

A tiny piece of ancient magic must’ve remained in the sea, ready to bind kelpies and their mates together. That was my only explanation for the connection that opened up between Marius and me, mind-to-mind. He anchored the thread of it on one side, his mind already holding it while mine grasped for the other end. Once we finished this process with him knot-deep in me—joinedwith me—maybe that thread would become a loop between us, creating our unbreakable bond.

But maybe that was a fanciful explanation. All I really understood was that the numbness faded from my head, and in its place was a magic-formed connection. My essence perceived it as a single, thick strand with my kelpie at the other end. His fierce joy filled my chest, and my excitement echoed it.

Then everything else he felt and thought tumbled into my head, mixing up with what was already there. It was overwhelming, and I sank into who he was, leaving myself behind until I figured out what we were experiencing.

I sensed the tug of the tide and currents streaming around us. A thread of blood in the water. Whatever it was from had died and dropped to the seafloor as a feast for the critters that skittered amongst the silt. I couldn’t see them, but I could smell them and other signs of life. There were sea creatures all around us, but they swam a hasty retreat from the apex predator in their midst.

Even now, Marius worried, and those thoughts intruded on the peaceful nature of our underwater adventure. I had the scope of what he was anxious about this time and had to sigh to myself. He thought I would peek into his mind and find that he wasnot nearly as complex as I kept thinking he was. There were few things he liked more than an entertaining book, a bloody feast, a challenging fight, and, as of recently, a couple uninterrupted hours in bed with me. He was a male of few words because he often couldn’t think of what to say.“Will she find me dull-witted?”

Or perhaps our bond wouldn’t form right.

Or maybe I’d back out of the bonding process at the last minute and leave him bereft.

He corrected his own thought.“Nay. The p’nixie wouldn’t do that. She loves me.”Not that he’d done enough to earn it, he added to himself.

I wanted to respond and reassure him. This triggered something else, tangling our headspaces together to the point that Marius groaned,“Oh no, what’s this?”We glided through the water on a current as he bowed his head, throwing off bubbles from his muzzle.

He’d experienced something this before, after accepting my claim, but thought it was much more overwhelming the second time around. I happened to agree, feeling ill as my thoughts mixed with his and we traded emotions in a whirl where nothing quite made sense. Then our headspaces socketed together like puzzle pieces.

We were stripped bare to our truths. He knew I saw him as an immovable wall of muscle and feral instincts. A straightforward, honest provider of a male. And he saw me as prey, just as he’d once said, small and fragile, but so resilient it humbled him. I was his p’nixie to cherish and protect, and he would not fail me again.

Worries met answers next. I had my chance to tell him,“Dull-witted? Please. Your wit is faster than mine unless you’re doing the feral stare.”

What was going on in his head during his prolonged staring sessions anyway?“Thinking, mostly. Just drifting off,”he answered.“Also, I love you more than my next breath. Just because I haven’tsaidit doesn’t mean I don’t forget to take that breath every time you look at me.”

My usual wing flap of happiness ended up steering us a little adrift. Right. They were fins underwater. I still wasn’t used to that.“Stars, Marius, that was romantic. I love you too.”He’d just sensed why I was observing him so closely for signs of how he felt.“I’m not going to leave you bereft. How much you overanalyze things and pick out the worst-case scenarios to dwell on does concern me, though.”

“It’s a bad habit. I think our bond will help me stop.”

We continued on like this. Nothing was a secret, and that should’ve made me feel vulnerable, but his deepest concerns were also exposed. There was only one he posed that I couldn’t answer: what if he wasn’t enough to protect me? What if I died prematurely?

“I can only promise to be careful. I still need to carry our colt someday.”When we were ready as a pack, we could welcome kids and continue the Serian royal line. This led into one of my own deep concerns, if I would birth Seelie children and what that’d mean for them.

“Seelie or not, they will be ours. Anyone who questions their legitimacy will know my fists and fangs,”he growled.

There was a surge of feral excitement at the mention of kids. Niall wanted to say something, but Marius held it back. Our mind spaces were so tightly intertwined at this point that it gave me a headache for him to even try.“It’s okay. I know it’s your instincts,”I assured him.

He pictured me round around the middle, only it was a comically large pregnancy compared to my size. I flushed all over when I realized this was a rare omega’s litter, not just asingle baby.“I could breed you just right to make this happen. Feral alphas have a higher chance of making litters with their mates,”he said in his smoky voice.

In this fantasy, he was imagining all those babies were his, when usually an omega’s litter was one baby from each of her mates. Niall was sure he could sire all of them even with competition.

Oh, okay. I immediately saw why he was going to hold this back.“Um. Very generous. You know, in the future?”

“I know. It would be ridiculous,”he agreed without his feral side’s influence.“Just don’t mind if I picture it on occasion. Niall’s been obsessed with breeding you since you perfumed for me. No wonder I’m going into rut.”

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