Page 86 of Fated or Knot

He usually walked me to the workshop, where my last bonus dad had a daily story time for the little kids—Kauz, Eletha, Tormund, and me, though the other girls in the family, Siora and Tanith, weren’t too old for story time yet. Marius occasionally joined us too and sat next to me, though he fidgeted like crazy from sitting still for so long toward the end.

Papa Thas—I couldn’t fully pronounce his name either—took the dreamlander kids aside weekly for an extra talk about dreams. That included Kauz and Eletha, his two children born back-to-back. We’d sit in the circle of his wings and discuss topics like Never, Ever, and Always.

Never, the path of nonsense at best and insanity at worst. The dreams of lost opportunities, of events that were yearned for but never occurred. These things and their inherent darkness had to be trimmed from the dreamlands.

Ever, dreams focusing on things that had already occurred, were harmonious. They could be beloved memories or terrible ones. The only commonality they needed to have was that they’d happened. Our brains tended to remember things for a reason, even if it was only to remind us not to fail in the same way twice.

And then Always. Thalas smiled to himself as he got to that part. “The rarest of them all, the path of fate. Some say our lives are already written and stamped into the dreamlands as Always. Fate smells incredible, little ones. It will lead you down the path you’re meant to walk or to the one you’re meant to be with.”

“Like you and Mom?” Kauz asked.

Thalas’s secretive smile only got wider. “That’s right, my boy. I still smell Always from her every night we dream together.”

I woke thinking, Stars, how romantic.I wasn’t awake-awake, but I took in the pile of fragmented memories waiting for me in the pit below with a new sense of purpose.

I wasn’t alone in this world, not anymore. Those had been my memories, my godfamily, and my future mates before any of us developed our designations and pheromones. I wasloved. I’d just forgotten it for a while.

“No one in my pack has forgotten you.”

I intended to find that out for myself and rebuild from there. Kauz joined me when I was in my second memory of the day, his face pinched with worry before relaxing at whatever he saw in me.

“I have to wake up,” I told him.

He nodded in agreement and stayed by my side. Though he faded in and out on the edge of depletion, he remained with me for the nine days it took to restore all my memories. Half of my newfound strength came from having his calm presence at my back. He got me through the ordeal and watched some of my darkest moments without flinching, all while keeping his silence unless I needed a few words of reassurance to keep going.

Most memories came with a sense of surprise from learning more things about myself than I’d realized existed. Hidden depths added nuance to my past and experiences. Like when we stepped into a moment from when I was eighteen. Cymora had taken me and my least favorite trio of barkfolk to the nearest city to sign a couple of contracts. I remembered one of them…but the other…

“I signed the lands of Osme Fen over to Cymora,” I narrated to Kauz while the memory played out in front of us.

The courthouse was empty of people except for the male overseeing the paperwork across the table from my younger self. She bent to sign her name several times throughout a sheaf of paper while Pack Ellisar leered at her ass. Her cheeks heated with humiliation all the while, tears pricking the corners of her eyes.

“I was her ward until this moment,” I mumbled. “She was my guardian until I came of age. Father had put it in the will.”

“Of course he did,” Kauz answered. His fingers laced with mine. “The title is yours by birthright. My brothers and I noticed that Cymora didn’t have a reason to be Lady of Osme Fen from the moment you clarified your relationships. This istheft.”

I nodded in agreement, clutching his hand tightly when the memory continued to play out. Cymora and Ellisar, the eldest of his brothers, crowded close to my past self while she looked over the second contract. I remembered reading it as closely as I could as…

Kauz breathed a low growl while Ellisar groped this memory of me. Shadows darkened the air around him, shivering with promises of terror and nightmares, as the stars in his eyes sparked like lightning strikes. My heart leapt to see him truly angry.

My past self had gone rigid and bitten down on a whine so the barkfolk wouldn’t take my reaction as any kind of arousal. The official was too busy congratulating Cymora as the new Lady of Osme Fen to notice what else was going on.

The memory wasn’t going to cut off until we saw the rest and the inevitable order by Cymora to forget signing over Osme Fen to her. That was the part of this that I’d forgotten, because I still remembered and dreaded the other contract, the one I still hadn’t told the princes about.

“Kauz, I should’ve told you about this. I just…” I fumbled for some kind of explanation, knowing it was way too late now.

“What are you waiting for, girl? Sign it,” Cymora snarled once she realized I was hesitating.

“Yes, Step?—”

Kauz tugged me to turn away from the scene, pressing kisses to my lips. The night terrors wrapped around him dissipated. “So, this is the pack you wanted to run from. I already know youwere forced to sign a breeding contract. You told me during our first dream together,” he murmured.

“I did?” I breathed.

“Aye. It was your strongest reason for running away to a sanctuary city. If this is how they treated you in public, I can’t blame you.”

Well, knowing about them hadn’t seemed to dampen his opinion of me. And if he knew, that meant his brothers did too, and they hadn’t said a word. I was still flooded with humiliation. “They’re also why I held my heat back for so long. They bought access to the heat but always threatened to make me their omega.”

Sparks darted across Kauz’s starlit eyes. “They will never touch you again, sweetheart. If they dare to show themselves in Serian, they’ll swiftly lose their heads,” he said through clenched teeth. “Breeding contracts areveryillegal.”

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