Page 221 of Fated or Knot

I tapped into the pack bond to check. I could sense my brothers approaching us as we spoke. “They’re right behind me,mo stór.” Three different taps responded in our usual signal to ask if everything was all right and I gave them a thumbs up in reply.

“Oh, before I forget.” I reached into my jacket pocket, pulling out the slipper she’d lost. “I can hardly believe your feet are this small. Look how tiny this thing is. Either that, or I have cloddish alpha feet.”

I lifted my foot to put her slipper’s sole against mine in comparison. She didn’t quite giggle, but her expression grew a shade less serious, and that was progress. “Thank you for bringing it. At least something from my outfit survived.” She looked down at her dress with a pout.

“I’ll buy you five more dresses just like it.” I knelt and dusted off the dirt and clinging grass from her foot before slipping the shoe back on for her. “In different colors. With matching itty bitty shoes.”

My ears perked as she rewarded me with a single musical laugh. I straightened and kissed the tip of her nose while reaching under her sleeve to get the leather knife strap off her arm. She didn’t seem all that bothered to have it removed, though I felt her curious gaze on me as I went looking for the deadly knife I’d given her.

The scent of faebane made it easy to find. It was horribly bent, but a dot of drying blood marked the tip.Got him.I bent the knife back into some semblance of shape against a tree trunk, to at least lock it in its sheath to dispose of later.

I looked up from my work, hearing the sound of hoof beats and wheels in the dirt. Another carriage was approaching.Hmm, wonder who that might be,I thought sarcastically.

“Stay here for a moment,mo stór,” I said, going to check. I also led my horse, since he’d follow me anyway. We needed to go out together more—and now I had the perfect reason to. I had to keep up with my treasured omega.

I’d recognize Pack Serian’s carriage even blindfolded. It stopped at a distance from Villi’s team of yoked horses, in a stretch of clearing where it wouldn’t be too challenging to turn around. Right now, it couldn’t be a less welcome sight, even though it was Theodred who exited first with a lit essence lamp bobbing just above his shoulder.

“It’s safe. They’re dead,” I told him.

“Safe is relative,” he rumbled. “Thalas! Come put out this fire.”

Kauz’s father came out next and retrieved his glasses from the chain around his neck. He adjusted them high on the bridge of his nose and his eyebrows lifted. “Oh my. Looks like you were right,” he said to the redcap king. He was soon in the air, flying toward the wildfire.

“Tor-Tor has some redcap in him after all!” This, of course, was from my father. I bit down on a growl.

“Enough to start a fire. It remains to be determined if he finally made his first honorable kill,” Theodred remarked. Oh, he was going to be thrilled when he learned he’d get to slap a tattoo on Tormund. I wondered where the very first one went.

The carriage rocked and out of it emerged my father and Elion. They approached, while Theodred kept watch where he stood. Mother and my sisters were probably all in there.

My alpha instincts went a little wild as the two alphas neared me. Lark was only a few yards behind me, and I wouldn’t allow them any closer. Not after everything else she’d gone through tonight. “Fathers. Do you need something?” I asked coolly.

Elion reached out to grab my father’s shoulder and stop him a few feet away. “We’re here for a simple retrieval,” he answered.

“As long as you tell us it went well. Otherwise, I send Theo out to cleave some heads,” Father added.

“It went well,” I said, deliberately talking to Elion. “We’ve neutralized any chance I will owe a grievance for the act of claiming my mate.”

“Yes, about that. Now I owe a grievance as well as a life debt, so I need to start paying that off to my new fish. Where is she?”

“Why did you bargain to take the grievance if I killed Cymora?” Feeling the weight of my broken word had been suffocating, but only for a moment. I was going to be more careful with my vows, in the future, so the old magic never sought fit to punish me again.

Father blinked. His surprise wiped off his face in a split-second, but I’d caught it. “Youkilled her?”

I bared my fangs, unrepentant. “I swore to protect Lark, so I did. Cymora had a knife to her throat. Mercy was out of the question.”

I’d been warned countless times that the act of taking a life was a heavy burden and that the first kill was earth-shattering in its implications. That I would be haunted by that fae’s last gasp, the feel of the knife sliding against bone, or even the sight of the body going slack.

And to that, I would say,not in this case. Her death wouldn’t keep me up at night. She was the female that’d tormented Lark since she was little more than a baby, and had finally gotten what she deserved. I hoped, once Lark healed from tonight, the fact that Cymora was dead would give my mate a sense of peace.

“Good job, kid,” Father said, working his jaw. “Where’s Laurel?”

I actually wasn’t sure. I thrust my horse’s reins into his hand and went back to ask Lark. She was where I’d left her, her eyes wide and lips parted as she watched Thalas’s winged form circling overhead and the spell work he wove around the shrinking fire. It was contained behind a blackened ring ofvegetation and shrinking as night-dark magic wove amongst the flames.

“Hey, Larkie!” Father was right behind me. I spun and snarled. Elion was taking care of my horse, while my father waved enthusiastically to my mate. He took a few steps back from her when he noticed my reaction. “I’m here for Laurel. Do you know where she is?”

Lark smiled, before shooting me an uncertain look. She pointed at our carriage.

I put myself between her and him as he went up and opened the door. The end of Laurel’s caudal fin flopped out onto the steps. “She’s really a fish!” Father exclaimed with a laugh. “Why is she in mermaid form?”

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