Page 21 of Fated or Knot

“Double it,” the prince ordered.

Raising a mossy brow, he said, “Seven hundred.”

“You’re taking advantage of her.”

“Need I remind you that she is a thief, sir?”

“Seven hundred is fine,” I put in tentatively. More currency than I’d ever held, for certain. The most Cymora entrusted me with were a couple half-moons, usually silvers and chips for my trips to the market.

The prince released a most-unprincely snort. He sounded somewhat like an irritated horse. “You have no proof she stole anything. Nine hundred.”

“Deal.” The dryad began counting out coins.

Wow. I guess I really was getting taken advantage of on my own. I turned to the prince and worked up the nerve to thank him. He cut a forbidding form—arms crossed, brow knitted in a scowl—and watched the shopkeeper with intense focus. Was it to avoid looking at me? Maybe I wasn’t in danger of a trap after all. I was pretty sure he smelled like a scent match, but if this was how much interest he had…

Well, it was within the Unseelie princes’ rights to reject me as a scent match and bite a more suitable princess into their pack. It just made me feel a little small and then annoyed at myself at the same time. I didn’t need them. But my core tightened with another wave of unbearable warmth at the end of that thought, as if to sayyes you do.

I sneezed again. “Blessings,” the prince said, offering over a kerchief.

I was already dabbing my nose on my sleeve when I accepted it and felt the velvety material it was made of. No way was I blowing my nose into something so nice. I covertly rubbed it against my cheek, taking in the concentrated scent of him with the stirrings of a purr.

His smell triggered another cramp to seize my middle, insistent and somehow different than the others I’d suffered on and off for four years. It felt final. I clenched my eyes shut in denial, dreading the reaction building within me as heat spread into my veins like liquid lava. No matter how tightly I pressed my thighs together, I still perfumed, wafting the final sign of my pre-heat in a cloud of the sweetest chocolate and honey crackers.

When I peeled my eyelids up, I had the prince’s full attention. His jaw was tight enough to grind his teeth to powder, but his nostrils were flared and the yellow of his eyes reduced to the merest ring as his pupils expanded. “You’re going into heat,” he stated, his deep voice coarse with lust.

“I… I need…” I stuttered, backing away a step that he matched. My wings hit the icy metal edge of a display case, and I whimpered. He answered with a low growl, easing into the last inches of space between us. I was giving off a furnace but still felt the heat of his body, hyperaware of the way he stopped without actually touching me.

“I need…” I tried again. The air smelled too much like him, waterlilies, mint, and male musk becoming a heady mix I couldn’t get enough of. Desire wrapped around my spine. I wanted to feel his skin against mine more than anything. Those strong hands belonged on my curves, andI needed his knot inside me.

No. No, this couldn’t be happening. I clenched my fingernails into the pads of my hands and blurted, “I need…an essence spinner! Now!”

He startled, then recoiled, giving his head a shake. The sheer panic in my words must’ve woken him from the spell of my pheromones. “Now?” he demanded.

“Right now,” I confirmed.

Pivoting on his heel, he grabbed the dryad shopkeeper by the shoulder, who was watching us as if we were his afternoonentertainment. “I will be back,” the prince stated roughly. “And you will have her nine hundred full moons ready for me. I will be counting each and every one.”

“Of course,” he replied dryly.

Releasing him, the prince frowned at me. “If it’sright now, you walk too slowly.” It sounded like he was reasoning with himself before he lifted and tossed me over his shoulder like a sack of grain. I squeaked a short protest before his hand closed around my thigh and his arm become a band holding me in place as he strode out of the pawn shop.

He took off running down the street, announcing himself with a shout of “Out of the way!” I bounced on his shoulder, watching different fae’s reactions to the scene we made after we had already passed them by.

My cheeks were suffused, so red I couldn’t tell the difference between heat and embarrassment. Stars, it was a good thing I was leaving Ilysnor as soon as I could—I’d never be able to show my face again, just in case anyone recognized me as the pixie who’d been run through the marketplace in a mad dash and left a trail of perfume in her wake.

He picked up speed somehow, racing around and through the crowd. I tried to focus on not going into heat. The process was a lot faster, I’d heard, if an omega surrendered to it, preferably in the comfort of her nest with her chosen mates already marked with her scent. My body didn’t want to hold back any longer. When my first heat finally hit, be it in a few minutes or however much longer another suppressant tattoo could hold it, it was going to grip me in a fiery rage.

No. No no no.

I’d clenched my muscles and eyes shut again, noticing when the sunlight dimmed behind my lids. We bounced up several flights of stairs, and he jostled my too-sensitive body the entire way up, drawing a full-blown moan from me. The princerumbled low in his throat, sounding more like thunder than an alpha, and it was the hottest thing I’d ever heard. I perfumed again for him.

A few moments later, he was knocking furiously on a door. “Kauz!” he practically roared. “Open this door right now!”

I fluttered my wings, trying to get a look over his shoulder, but I was well and truly stuck in this compromised position. His grip on my thighs felt like a vice. But at least I recognized where we were—the same inn I’d just spent the night in. Just figures that Tormund would take me to a place where the rest of his pack was.

The hinges on the door creaked, and a much calmer male said, “It’s unlocked, you barbarian?—”

There was one last whirl of air as I was rushed into the room and plonked into a seat. Now upright, I reeled, dizzy with the sudden movement.

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