Page 161 of Fated or Knot

He pulled out a sketchpad and a charcoal pencil and started working. I snuggled against his chest to watch him. He drew two sets of my wings, brainstorming what his mist and stardust tattoos might look like with me wearing them, front or back. Just watching him form art from nothing was quite satisfying.

It was only while tipsy and dosing did I realize something. “Kauz,” I murmured.

“Hmm?”

“Wouldn’t you just be painting over my wing scales?”

He chuckled and pressed a kiss to my temple. “Not with magic, sweetheart.”

“Being observant isn’t magic,” I said sleepily. “But art is.”

“When words on a page or paint on a canvas can make youfeel, what could it be but magic?” he reasoned.

“That is very wise.” I nodded in agreement a few extra times. “Have I told you how pretty your eyes are today? They’resoextra sparkly. I just want to watch them rather than the night sky.”

He abandoned his sketches to wrap his arms around me, nuzzling my neck. “That’s enough wine for today.” He stole my glass while I purred, distracted.

“Hey! I meant that.” I pouted and giggled at the same time. “I like your eyes.”

“Oh, thank you. I’m rather taken by your gaze, as well. Still, too much wine,” he said.

When it was clear I wasn’t getting the rest of my drink back, I took his encouragement to head to the bathroom to see myself in the mirror. The same dreamlands mystique that’d magnified the size and amount of stars in his eyes was doing the same to mine, though I still had my blue irises while his were obscured by his fancy magic. It was still pretty, though.

I paid the rain room a visit, happy to have a shower again, and settled into bed with Kauz. “Fun fact,” he said after we’d turned off the essence lamps. I was snuggled into his side, my eyes already closed. “You can reach pretty much anyone’s dream from the dreamlands, without a token of something they own. You just have to fall asleep with one fae in mind.”

“Oh, okay.”

With countless possibilities, I still picked his dream to infiltrate. Or he picked mine. The details were a little fuzzy at first, but I knew some things for sure.

We made love until sunrise in a space without consequences, and he talked me into trying a few new things once I had two males in my bed tomorrow.

Kauz and I spent the better half of the next day wandering Once Else, shadowing the places my mother used to pass time in. Some of the fae who still lived here were as close to Dorei as family and they helped me piece together what her life had been like.

She’d been adopted by a potter and his pack, who’d raised her with the secrets of clay, paint, and glaze. One of her best works, a painted platter, was still displayed in the shop in a glass case, even though the shop was now under the ownership of a cousin who, while friendly, was a little distant as I asked questions and admired Dorei’s old work.

She’d painted a metalark over that platter, rendering every feather in meticulous detail. Light gleamed off its beady eye and the little clusters of blood red berries and springs that decorated the outside rim. A small sign was propped next to it, declaring it not for sale.

“You could fetch quite the sum for that,” Kauz said to the cousin, while I stood there admiring it. He offered a sum that had me twitching. Too much for something like this, and yet, it was possibly one of the only things of my mother’s that’d survived past Cymora’s hostile takeover of Osme Fen. It was priceless.

Kauz carried the platter out, padded and wrapped twice. He’d followed the breadcrumbs of Dorei’s life only so far, since she’d become a trader upon coming of age. Trading pottery to settlements outside of the dreamlands was how she’d metNemensia, and they’d traveled together for years before the future queen crossed paths with her pack, and Dorei met Kellam to settle at last in a faraway farm town. The rest, as they say, was history.

After we dropped off the platter in our inn room, we went outside of Once Else’s magical barrier to sit in a patch of grassland together. Sunshine and wind stirred the long blades from the angle we sat at, while the ever-present purplish half-night hung overhead. It was odd, but beautiful, and I sat in silence just thinking of what I’d learned of my mother today.

I missed someone I’d never truly met, her loss still an echo in my soul that couldn’t fully heal. Kauz put an arm around me and didn’t say anything. As always, it seemed he understood exactly what I needed.

Eventually, I leaned my head on his shoulder and murmured, “Thank you.” He hadn’t had to share this time with Dorei, though I was beyond glad he had.

His expression and those glimmering eyes were gentle on mine. “Anything for you, my Always.”

“Consider me smitten,” I murmured, gazing at him adoringly.

We kissed for a long time under the dreamland stars. He’d mastered the perfect lip lock too, coaxing a soft purr of pleasure from me and a tender ache in my core. I didn’t want him to fall on me in animal passion, after all. If my heat wasn’t so close, he’d slowly strip our clothes off to lay skin to skin, heart to heart, the kind of love he filled my dreams with. I yearned for it now, even if there were consequences in how my body may react.

Kauz pulled away first, humming. I cracked open my eyes, catching the confusion in that sound. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s the pack bond. I’m being summoned,” he said dryly. “Oddly enough, by two brothers. They are rather insistently trying to get my attention.” He shared that it was about asannoying as being poked in either cheek. Whatever it was, both Marius and Tormund thought it was important enough to signal for Kauz to come to them.

“Tormund’s here?” I asked, confused but hopeful in the same breath. Hopefully he’d figured out what he needed to do to get his rage back under control. I missed him and his bear hugs quite fiercely.

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