Page 218 of Fated or Knot

At least, I thought that was what they were. They made a sound like a rope pulled taut as they whipped around my arm and waist next, before I was flung out of the carriage and skidded in the dirt and grass for several feet. I laid there, keening from the scrape burning down my side.

The roots didn’t throw Laurel out. Blinding light erupted in the branches above, held by a winged figure flapping above the carriage. “Freeze!” Kauz boomed. “You are all wanted enemies of the crown. Surrender, or face your fate!”

Three male figures turned their heads away from the orb of over bright essence in my mate’s hands. I recognized Ellisar, who was surrounded by the tips of dozens of tree roots slithering around his feet like living creatures. More uprooted as the moments passed. Big, small, sharp, and splintered alike.

Standing close to him was Dalstin, similarly cowering. But the hunched, muttering figure of Floris was in motion, rocking the carriage as he entered it with a cloth over his mouth. “No,” I rasped, thinking I saw a glint of sharp metal in his hand.

“No chance of that, bat boy,” Ellisar said. His hand leaked green essence as he whipped it in a circle overhead and pointed. Three huge roots wrapped together and shot at Kauz. The reinforced tip of his living weapon pierced through my mate’s heart.

Tears leaked from my stinging eyes as I gaped in shock.No!But I should’ve suspected that it wasn’t really him. His wings weren’t designed to hover like that. The illusion shattered, throwing us all into suffocating darkness.

“Fuck! I can’t see,” Dalstin muttered.

I rolled onto my front, biting down on another keen as I moved my scraped arm. I gave my wings a testing flutter to be sure they hadn’t been damaged in my fall too. They felt fine, but they were the second brightest glow in the night, past the essence lamp from the carriage. As Floris pulled a still-retchingLaurel out of the cloud of smoke, a knife held to her throat, a swarm of roots wrapped around my ankles and bare foot.

I flapped in a panic, but they held me to the ground. Dalstin produced a floating essence lamp to light our immediate area, and I blinked the spots from my eyes to see both intact alphas scenting the air and turning toward me.

“She’s finally in heat,” Dalstin remarked. I still wasn’t, too terrified to succumb to it, but they didn’t know the difference. With the bracelet that made me smell like lavender in Fal’s pocket, my chocolate and honey crackers scent ringed me in a halo of sweetness.

Ellisar nodded in agreement, licking his lips and fangs while he leered at me. “I didn’t expect to finallyfulfillthe contract tonight.”

“Wait. We could still have the princes fuck her for the grievance,” Dalstin whispered.

Ellisar opened his mouth to reply, before his attention shifted. “Don’t move, Cymora, or my brother slits her throat,” he said, gesturing to Floris and Laurel. My stepsister had a trail of blood leaking from the side of her mouth and down from her gills. The whites of her eyes were flashing with fear. The male behind her was still muttering something nearly inaudible. His fingers twitched occasionally, which was truly terrifying while he had a knife to her throat.

I didn’t know where Cymora was, but I should’ve guessed. She came up behind me, and the cool, sharp edge of another knife pressed to my throat. “Don’t hurt my daughter, or your precious omega dies.” She sounded more like herself. “You idiots. What do you think you’re doing?”

We were all very still with two hostages held at knife point.

“That wasPrince Kauzden. And this is a trap!” my stepmother exclaimed.

Breathing shallowly, I focused my gaze on the knife Floris held. I wove an illusion over it, working my magic faster than I ever had in my life.

“Release Lark, and we release Laurel. No one has to get hurt,” Ellisar said slowly. “I’ll even forgive you for trying to pull this stunt, as it seems we’ll finally have?—”

He jerked back. An arrow of white essence quivered where he’d been standing. Another hit the ground, and another, the air suddenly whistling with arrows. Cymora jerked me back with her toward the tree line as the barkfolk took cover too. I held onto her arm, trying to wrestle her arm, and the knife, away from me. But she was a female possessed, holding onto me doggedly.

“Hey, Kauzden!” Cymora screamed into the night. “Youterror! I haven’t forgotten what you did to me!”

Glancing down after an arrow grazed his shoulder, Floris shrieked like a small child and flung his knife away. He’d finally noticed the creeping flame I’d illusioned on its blade, creeping into the bark over his fingers and hand. Laurel jerked away from him, groaning in pain as she slumped to the ground.

Dalstin sent his essence lamp upward and Ellisar pointed further into the trees. “There he is, so you stop shrieking, you backstabbing female,” Ellisar grumbled. I tilted my head until the knife dimpled my skin just to spot the real Kauz standing on a low branch, his gloves glowing as he directed a new hail of arrows to strike the two alphas. He jumped, narrowly dodging a whipping root, and he opened his wings as far as he could to navigate flying between the trees and their branches.

A second root strike shot a spike of bundled rootsthroughone of those massive sails. Kauz, who’d been angled toward Cymora and me, immediately folded the damaged wing and pinwheeled into a crash landing.

Kauz rolled to a stop on the forest floor a few yards from my feet, limbs splayed. He’d landed on his side, momentarilystunned. Several roots rose around his prone form. Their sharp tips moved independently to aim for fatal strikes while he laid there. I keened in denial. This couldn’t be happening…

I had to do something.Anything! They couldn’t just kill my Always right in front of me.

“I haven’t forgotten,” Cymora said with a discordant laugh. “I haven’t. No. You started all of this. All for your precious Metalark. Now you get to watch her die.”

Kauz turned his head. His lips framed his usual knowing smile, though his face was marked with dirt and a few trickles of blood. “I do get to watch,” he whispered.

That starry gaze was on my right hand, which had fallen from Cymora’s wrist. I reached under my left sleeve and unlocked the knife from its sheath, drawing it in a bitter, wafting trail of faebane.

I could’ve struck two different targets. The female gloating behind me and shifting her hold on her own knife, preparing to draw it over my throat while she thought Kauz was watching. Or the male who directed countless sharp roots, which were drawing upward to plunge into his unprotected back.

The idea of using this poisoned knife had been unbearable, before I’d entered a situation where it could save one of my mates. Now, I didn’t hesitate.

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