Page 30 of Fated or Knot

The lingering anger on the kelpie’s face made me into a trembling creature. I made a small whimper before saying, “I…I’ll go. She told me to get the bags.”

“Ridiculous,” Marius sighed. “I’m going to domy duty—” His gaze cut pointedly toward Kauz. “—and retrieve them for you.”

“She didn’t say your name. Technically, any one of us could fulfill her request,” Kauz murmured.

“No…I have to,” I insisted.

Marius hadn’t stopped staring at my face. “It would be no trouble for me.”

I shook my head. “That’s okay. My legs work.”

The kelpie’s lips pressed into a tight white line.

“Mostly,” I added in a mumble.

“I see what you mean,” he said, his expression shading with understanding. Kauz nodded. I wonder what else they’d said in Serian during their argument, because I was a little lost.

“Look, Lark. I will get the bags, and your stepmother will be none the wiser. Fal will have her out of the inn for as long as possible. So, the bags can stay with the innkeeper, and I’ll give him coin to say you brought them. Will that work?” Marius said. This felt like the most he’d actually said at one time, rather than grunting and growling through a conversation. He’d also lost the air of alpha aggression which had my chest pinched so tight with fear.

“Marius won’t do anything else before he retrieves the bags,” Kauz added.

I guess I felt like looking this meat-eating horse in the mouth. “You’d do that for me?” I asked, practically reeling from the change in his tone.

One of Marius’s ears flicked. Even illusioned to look like a merman, that tell of his remained. “If you would give me a hint as to where the cottage is,” he said irritably. Well, he wasn’t doing this to be nice; Kauz had somehow talked him into it.

I told him the name of the rental cottages and the general idea of where they were. That was apparently enough for him to go off of, as he strode off without another word.

As the moments passed, my shoulders lowered from their defensive hunch. I’d missed my chance to more heavily imply that there was a vow between Cymora and me. Maybe one of the princes knew of a way I could break it. I’d never figured out if it was possible, other than if Cymora willingly released me from it. Something she’d never do.

Instead of interrupting my thoughts, Kauz waited for me to resurface from my musing. His eyes sparkled with purple stars, glimmering this way and that as his gaze roved over me. They really were pretty. I’d already lost any unsettled feeling at looking at his lack of pupils.

Since he was a beta, he was only a few inches taller than me. While his brothers had alpha height and muscles, he was lean, with the illusion of being broader than he was due to his wings. I wondered how heavy they were since he usually kept them furled tight like a trailing cloak of leather and stars.

“Kauz,” I murmured, mustering my nerve to ask to see his wings again. I hoped it wasn’t weird. Maybe he got the question a lot and would handle it with the same grace as he had when talking about his beta designation with Cymora.

“Aye,” he answered, shifting his weight. “Ready to go? I only have a few hours to spoil you.” He was serene again, calm in a way that had me relaxing too. I think it was just something about him, despite the fact I’d seen that he had a temper even Marius respected.

My mind blanked. “Uh…spoil? No,” I protested. Once Cymora noticed anything of interest in what he bought me, she’d demand it for herself or Laurel.

I didn’t have much money to make many purchases for myself. The nine hundred fulls from my stolen goods were still waiting at a pawn shop, and I’d combined the coin pouches I’d nicked last night to come up with a sum of about fifty fulls, with more than half of it being loose slivers.

“Come along.” He smiled, motioning me out of the alleyway. “I have my brothers to answer to if we don’t return with more bags than I can carry.”

We walked into the midday crowd, swinging around to the expensive side of the market I’d walked through earlier in search of a pawn shop. “First stop should certainly be clothes,” he said, heading into one of the first shops before I could talk him out of it.

If the beta who greeted us was surprised to see an Unseelie, she kept it under a bright smile as she greeted Kauz and then side-eyed what I was wearing. She modeled clothes from this shop, bright colors offsetting her light brown skin. They were altered to fit her form perfectly.

“We have a train to catch this evening,” Kauz said. “I know it’s short notice, but is there a seamstress here who can alter clothes for pixie wings within the next few hours?”

“Of course, sir,” she simpered. “If you will follow me, we have some ready-made clothing for omegas that may be of interest…”

Kauz fell into step with me, saying, “We’re going to get you a set of winter wear. Serian, Neslune especially, will still be cold for another month or more. Plenty of time for us to have lighter clothes tailor-made for you. There are a few designers that would murder for a chance to dress the next princess.”

I fidgeted with my fingers, releasing a nervous laugh. “Oh, but I’m a pixie. That must be a big change for Unseelie tailors.”

“The good kind of challenge. Do you know how many different slits and folds there have to be in nixie fashion for all their flashy fins?” He laughed, resting a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

I didn’t know, actually. I hadn’t met a nixie, but I’d heard they were vicious and toothy, the beastly opposite to the ethereal charm most pixies possessed.

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