Page 224 of Fated or Knot

Marius scowled darkly, like he was envisioning my murder, and beat me to her side. He pulled her into a hug. “It’s all right. You’re safe,” he whispered.

She clutched his chest with both hands. “Where’s Kauz?”

“Getting stitches and cleaning himself up.”

“Tormund?”

“Should be here any moment.”

“The horses?”

“They’re fine.”

“Laurel?”

“Taken care of. She’s probably in the infirmary.”

I bit down on my lip to keep from pointing out the priority to her questions. Her tone turned more serious. “My stepmother’s dead.”

Marius nodded. “Aye.”

“And Floris and Dalstin…and Ellisar?”

“We let the faebane take him. Do you want me to share the memory of it?”

“The…the faebane. Oh, no. I killed him? I didn’t, I’m not…I’m not like that. He called it a bee sting…I didn’t realize…”

The kelpie’s face creased with concern as she started to scrabble against him, leaving scratches. He released her and she went over and grabbed two fistfuls of her new nest, tumbling itto the ground and sitting atop it. She clutched at her hair and mewled.

I took a seat on one side of her while he took the other. I gently disentangled one of her hands before she could pull any strands loose. “Hey. You did what you had to, and now you’re free of him,” I said, pitching my voice low and gentle to soothe her.

Marius went for a more blunt approach. “You didn’t kill him. The faebane did. You’re not a killer.”

Her star-flecked eyes darted left to right between us, maybe deciding which reassurance she liked better. She bowed her head, then curled further as a wave of warmth rose from her skin. She wrestled her hands free of us and wrapped them around her middle as she keened. I winced as the shrill noise skittered over my nerves. Thatsound. It was agonizing to my alpha instincts, just like she had to be in agony as her body clenched.

“Don’t fight it, it’s okay. Let the heat come,” Marius coaxed. His hands formed tight fists as he must’ve felt the echo of her pain.

“I need…no no no. My nest.” She lifted her head and glanced down at the mound of fabric we were sitting on. “This is wrong,wrong.”

Lark sprang up and fretted with the half-built nest before she started tossing nesting materials every which way with a frustrated growl. She then moaned out a feral sound of despair and picked up the first blanket she’d originally placed on the bed to restart building her nest. Marius replied softly with a noise of his own, while glaring at me. “I’ll shut up this time,” I whispered.

He snorted dismissively. “Impossible. It’d be better if you intercepted Tormund.”

That was smart. It seemed she needed her feral mate the most right now, anyway. I went into the adjoining bedroomto wait for the redcap, drawing the privacy curtain in the meantime.

When Tormund finally arrived, he took one look at me and started shedding clothes, folding them neatly to the side while I explained that Lark was building her nest. We waited, both of us uncomfortably aroused, and extra uneasy about it without our female between us.

I figured the nest was done when Lark poked her head out of the privacy curtain. She saw Tormund, her expression lit up, then she chirped at him. “Your pants,” Marius translated from somewhere behind her.

“You want my pants, li’l bird?” the redcap asked, puzzled.

She bobbed her head and snatched them from his hand when he came over, ducking back into the nest just as he was leaning down to kiss her. I had to chuckle at that. “Bet you she asks Kauz for his underwear,” I said offhandedly.

His brows clashed into one long line. “Why?”

“She has pretty much every other article of clothing in her nest now. And I don’t think she wants socks.”

I perked up as the privacy curtain was pushed to the side. It was just Marius, who looked at us, sighed, and started disrobing the rest of the way as well. “She kicked me out,” he said.

---