Page 157 of Fated or Knot

The stinging promise of bruises marked my hips and thighs and the bite marks on my shoulder throbbed to my heartbeat. A similar pulsing came from shallower bites over the other side of my neck and another that didn’t quite pierce all the way through my thin wing. Even fully taken by his rut, Marius had sputtered out a mouthful of pixie dust in surprise after he’d bitten me there and hadn’t done it again.

The bite marks didn’t hurt like I expected them to, unless I tilted my head too much or poked the punctures directly. I tookit as a benefit of my designation. If I wasn’t absolutely covered in the kelpie’s musk, I’d have been able to scent Marius’s mint and waterlily lingering in the bites for several days after the wounds healed.

I shivered, aware that a bit of his scent would be permanently intertwined with mine once he sank his fangs into my omega mark, once my heat arrived. I’d always carry him no matter where I went.How romantic.

Feeling warm, I wrapped my torso in a towel and cracked the door open. The hall was empty and a wicker basket full of lumps wrapped in waxed paper waited in front of the threshold. My belly grumbled as I took in the scents of seafood and bread.

A bolt of animal panic struck my chest a moment later. I grabbed the basket and dashed back to the bed, finding Marius awake and curled into a ball, clutching his face with both hands. “What happened? What is it?” I gasped.

He peeked at me through his fingers and groaned. My sense of his panic swiftly became his embarrassment. “I woke up and you weren’t there,” he mumbled.

I placed the towel aside and climbed back into bed with him, placing the basket between us. He scented the air and sat up, though he fixed a downcast expression on the wrapped-up food.

I snuggled into his side, purring to comfort him. He hadn’t pulled back from our bond, so I had the sense he needed to say something, though he didn’t want to utter it aloud. The feral side spoke for him.“You were hungry and I didn’t stop to care for you. I was too rough and now you carry the marks of our mating. For a moment, I woke without you and thought you’d left me.”

I released my tension in a slow sigh before fixing him with a fond smile.Oh, Marius.

“In case you missed it last night, I enjoyed everything you did. I’m not going anywhere. We’re bound until our end asstardust, remember?” I nuzzled against his shoulder, hoping he’d let go of this needless worry. He was starting to smell of fertile male again. Maybe the heightened need to claim and knot also came with a backlash of suppressed emotions once it faded. I’d experienced something similar with my pre-heat.

He rumbled agreement and pulled me into his lap, reaching for the pot of bruise salve he’d left by the bedside. “Still, I’m sorry, p’nixie. I’ll take care of you now, way after I should’ve.”

“Before the next wave of rut,”he thought loud enough for me to hear.

“Between care,” I suggested. And I was happy to enjoy some between care. We fed each other the small feast left for us before he rubbed away my hurts, though soon I was an enthusiastic partner with my legs spread for his rutting when the haze of need took him again.

Marius and I spent days in what the honored elders Henrik and Illia referred to as “newly bonded bliss.” The two of them moved like specters, leaving food and clean linens outside of our door. I reminded myself they were deaf and probably couldn’t hear my screams or Marius’s occasional roars. As the Seelie would put it, we fucked like brownies.

I’d notice when his urge to fill me ebbed because he’d feel a sudden and painful twist of dismay from taking me roughly and would follow it up with loving aftercare. I learned firsthand that the bruise salve sped up general healing as well as makingbruises disappear. The only bite mark we left to scar was the one from our bonding night.

It took a full day and a half after we arrived for us to part long enough to wash, dress, and leave our room. We said hello to Henrik, a kelpie elder so bent and wrinkled by age, it was hard to know whether he’d been an alpha or a beta in his prime. He asked Marius for help moving something, and I took the opportunity to admire the outside of the inn.

Marius was right, it was adorable. It was freshly painted in pastel green and crisp white fringe, resembling a two-story cottage with a peaked roof. The stand of trees around the inn gave the illusion of privacy, but I’d seen from one of our windows that there was a small settlement nearby. Hopefully the fae there dropped by to check on Henrik and Illia. I was going to visit it with Marius today while his rut was calm and the sun was high in the sky.

The little hairs on the back of my neck rose. Something big and hungry was behind me, watching my every move. The rest of my senses told me who it was a moment later, but I was already in motion. I blasted the ground with a small vortex spell, clearing three feet before my wings caught the air and propelled me toward the nearest tree branch. Marius stood where I’d just been, craning his head up at me.

“Come down, li’l bird,” he rumbled.

“I’m scared. A predator was behind me.”

His eyes hooded in a lusty smolder. Stars, the rut simply wasn’t calming down. His need to chase me around the branches to catch and fuck me radiated off him like rays of sunshine.

Yet I was intrigued as to how he’d catch me without wings of his own. I smirked and asked, “Can water horses even climb?”

His nostrils flared with a kelpie’s snort. “You did not just ask that.” He started powering up the tree, breaking bark to create handholds along the way.

I yelped and fluttered off, crossing to another tree. When I settled, he was sitting on my last perch, grinning lopsidedly. “Come back, p’nixie,” he practically crooned.

“Don’t you want the thrill of the chase?” I teased.

He tapped his lips in a thinking pose before launching into motion. I thought he might be too hefty to make use of the branches where the trees shook hands. Most of them were grown together, and he definitely used them to his advantage, swinging from one branch to the other. Despite his size, he was nimble, and locked onto his prey.

I didn’t fly too far, already slick for him. I could’ve gone to the top of a tree, or to the opposite edge of the stand to make it more difficult to catch me. It didn’t matter anyway, because by the fourth tree, he put too much of his weight on a too-small limb. Thecracksplit the air and his arms pinwheeled over a fifteen-foot drop.

I put on a burst of speed to fly over and save him, clutching his arms and fluttering fast to turn his descent into a controlled fall. His feet landed in the grass, feather light. Then he grabbed and slung me over his shoulder. “Caught you,” he said, smug.

Over our bond, he let me feel his calculated risk in putting his weight on a discolored branch. He’d known I loved him too much to let him fall. I smacked my lips. He’d tricked me, but I wasn’t too mad.“Smart, sexy predator,”I said while he carried me back into the inn and bounded up the stairs to our room, taking two at a time.

We spent four days in the inn by the sea. The between moments, where he’d care for me and we’d eat and recover, grew a little longer each time his rut calmed. We laid together and talked, growing closer over the small, overlooked things that’d been too insignificant for the magical process that’d bound us together. He told me about his military training and the ups and downs that came with it. And eventually, I told him everything he wanted to know about Osme Fen.

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