Page 156 of Fated or Knot

Oh, well, now that’s a kick in the gut.A reminder that for as viciously as we tore Cymora down, she still had someone relying on her for everything. “Nay,” I answered.

“Not yet, at least,” Fal said at the same time.

She stiffened with a disappointed sigh at my answer and gained a glimmer of something like hope in her eyes at Fal’s. How strange. As I drew breath to ask a follow-up question, Fal beat me to it. “I trust that someone gave you a final visit with her?”

“Yes.” She twisted her lips with displeasure. “I…I understand why…” Laurel swallowed and worked her jaw. I assumed she was choked up with emotion.

Fal watched her struggle to speak with all the sympathy of a spider eyeing a fly struggling in its web. “It must be difficult to lose her, but she has done unspeakable things to Lark. She is quite fortunate my people are past the ‘dance to death on hot coals’ method of execution. Her death will be more painless than she deserves.”

“It’s not…” She blew out a frustrated breath and stomped her foot like a child, tears welling in her eyes. Laurel’s face crumpled as she started to cry.

I exchanged a glance with my brother. He smirked, ready to deliver a finishing blow to send her away from here with a verbal knife stuck through her loss. But I hesitated and reached out to nudge him, shaking my head. I just needed a moment to think. There might be something we were missing here.

“Don’t you remember when Lark couldn’t finish her sentences either?” I asked him in Serian.

A line appeared between his brows, cutting through his pack mark. “She’s just being a brat. We saw it a hundred times on the train ride here,” he answered in kind.

It’d be easy just to accept his explanation, but I still had a niggling sense in my gut of something amiss. “Take a deep breath,” I encouraged her. “Finish your thought. Talk to me, not Fal.”

She sniffled and fixed watery sea green eyes on me. “It’s notjust—” Her voice broke on another sob. Ah, stars. I hated when females cried. I awkwardly patted her atop her head, hoping she’d stop.

“Why couldn’t you all just—” she tried to ask, just to cut herself off again.

“Just what?” I asked quietly and shot a pointed look at my brother. This wasjustlike Lark when she’d been under Cymora’s control. Our mate had experience navigating around what she could and could not say, though, and avoided choking herself on things she couldn’t utter like her stepsister was doing. A hint of a troubled frown graced the corner of Fal’s lips as he watched her.

Laurel couldn’t seem to form a coherent thought, leaving those statements hanging as the magirail we were watching vibrated from an incoming train. Our hidden allies shifted, some reaching for weapons. Fal straightened with a low growl, the mermaid forgotten.

She watched the train coast into the station with one last hiss of magic as it slowed smoothly to a stop. “So, this is it, huh?” she asked after another hiccupped sob and looked at me for confirmation. “Pack Ellisar is on that train.”

I squinted at her suspiciously, nearly knocking my spectacles askew.

“You haven’t exactly been subtle, even if you’ve been talking in another language,” she said in a wobbly voice. “I’m sorry about this.”

She drew a deep breath and began to belt out a wordless, haunting tune. It warped through the train station, threading into the ears of guards, police, and innocent passersby alike. Everyone stopped what they were doing to listen, even Fal and me.

Still singing, Laurel bent to retrieve her bags. Tears made new trails down her cheeks as she sang and sang, and the world bent to her whims. The eyes watching the train from Thelis looked away. Fal relaxed, and I surrendered to thoughtless nothingness as my eyes saw what was happening right in front of me without my mind comprehending a moment of it.

Three woodlands fae, alphas with whorled, gray-brown bark for clothes and mossy vines for hair, disembarked and looked at the frozen figures around them in bewilderment. Their leader pointed at Laurel, who approached them after wiping her face clean. She beckoned with both hands, and they walked away with her.

She spared us one last glance on the way by, and her song changed only briefly. A beautiful melody wrapped around me. When my senses returned and the station resumed its usual bustle, a trickle of warmth escaped the corner of my eye.

I dabbed away the tear, moved by something elusive, a melody that sounded a little likeI understand why you were waiting, but it’s not just Lark who suffered. Why couldn’t you all just end this when you had a chance?

I watched the drop of liquid roll off my fingertip, seized by a hollow sense of alarm as the melody faded from my mind. Laurel was in danger? But…Laurel was going back to Thelis, where all Seelie belonged. She’d just gotten on the train.

I turned to Fal, who usually had all the answers, just to see his expression twisted into a troubled frown. “I’m wrong about…?” he asked himself.

“My princes,” interrupted a female voice. It belonged to a panicked-looking winged beta, who began to prostrate herself in apology. “They’ve disappeared. I don’t know how they did it.”

Fal shook off his daze and bared his fangs in a snarl. “Well, don’t just stand there,” he announced to our allies. “Three barkfolk alphas, all of the same pack. Find them! Neslune is no haven for enemies of the crown.”

44

LARK

Marius didn’t stop breeding me until the early hours of the morning, but only because he’d passed out. I promptly followed him into unconsciousness and stirred before him to the rhythmic sound of waves crashing against the cliffs near the inn. The curtains closed off all but the cheery outline of sunshine.

I disentangled from my mate slowly, not wanting to wake him from his dead sleep. I expected my pussy to be sore, but perhaps it was a testament to my coming heat that my core only ached for more. If he woke up still in the throes of a rut haze, I’d gladly submit all over again.

---