Page 51 of Fated or Knot

“It worked,” Fal said with wonder, as if he wasn’t expecting it to.

“You bastard,” Marius snarled. Behind Tormund’s back, there was a heavy thump and the sound of someone choking.

That was it for me and my composure. I started to buck against the cage of Tormund’s arm. I scrabbled against his broad chest, feeling trapped as he struggled to keep a hold on me. “Sorry, li’l bird,” he whispered. “So sorry.”

Kauz had his hand on the door, trying to draw it closed. “Yes, everything’s fine,” he was saying in a tense voice. He winced when I shrieked and clawed, going increasingly feral when Tormund didn’t release me. “We have it handled!” He shut the door and locked it with that exclamation.

“I knew it would be…” Fal wheezed.

“You handed our mate to a raging redcap! You endangered her with no heed to what Tormund could’ve done,” Marius seethed.

Wincing, Tormund released me, and I backed away from all of them. “Sorry,” he kept whispering over and over.

There was nowhere to go. The walls of the room closed in, and pressure mounted in my chest as I looked around frantically for an escape.

“She soothed his rage. There’s no need for this.” Kauz spoke more calmly than anyone else in the room.

“Ourmate?” Even now, Fal managed to sound smug. “That was all it took for—” He cut off with a grunt of pain.

Marius snarled, “How fucking dare you?—”

I clutched my head and keened, sharp and shrill. Several cries erupted from me, as I was used to my distress going unanswered.

Silence. The males had all frozen. Tormund, who held his wrist as Kauz’s shackle spell dissipated, glanced up with a lost expression. Marius held Fal to the wall with a forearm, his razored fin extended just enough to secure him in place. His other arm was cocked back to punch. Kauz had a hold on his wrist, in the middle of trying to tug the kelpie away.

All of them had turned toward me, their eyes dilated, while I had my breakdown. I kept to the edge of the room and pulled at my hair while I paced, trapped. My nest was gone, my males were fighting—everything was wrong,wrong. A scream began to coil in my chest like a snake poised to strike.

The next thing I knew, Kauz was there. “Sweetheart,” he murmured, enveloping me in his wings.

I clung to him and took a ragged breath. When the scream came, it was muffled against his shoulder while I blindly clawed at his clothes. He didn’t restrict me fully, enduring the scratches without a sound of pain. The males’ voices faded to a masculine murmur.

Tormund begging me to stop, Marius demanding a chance to hold me, and Fal murmuring words of comfort and trying to touch me through the barrier of Kauz’s wings. And the dream warden hissing warnings, telling them to back off, that they were only going to make it worse.

I sagged eventually, exhausted and hoarse. Beyond the star-flecked purple leather of my safe haven, the alphas growled and snapped at one another. Instead of being distressed by it, I had finally found a bubble of peace where nothing else could bother me other than my own actions.

I’d lost myself and gone a little feral. It was…inevitable. It’d been something I’d felt forming inside of me in Osme Fen, during the long nights alone with my own thoughts. My inner omega threatened to take over and find me a pack that would treat me right. I’d fought it off, called myself needy and bratty, but the urges to run wild never fully went away. I didn’t think it would until I finally had my heat.

“Lark?” Kauz whispered. I answered with a soft mewl, too embarrassed to look at him. My nails were short, and I’d still ripped his tunic. He was probably bleeding.

“You’re safe. I have you,” he murmured. He stroked my hair and rested his lips against my crown. “Everything’s going to be all right. Tormund is calm.”

“I am. Very calm,” the giant reported, sounding miserable. “I am very, very sorry, li’l bird.”

I shook my head in denial. He was a redcap all this time, and they hadn’t breathed a word of it. I would’ve never suspected it either, had he not succumbed to a rage right in front of me.

Kauz tucked me closer and leaned back, supporting me so I could raise my foot and relieve some of the pain still throbbing up my leg.

“Marius and Fal are getting along,” he murmured.

“Opposite sides of the room,” Fal said, his voice coming from over my right shoulder.

“Not as far as Fal wishes it were,” Marius said from over my left shoulder.

Both of them were using gentling voices, calm and soothing, but there was definitely still an edge to their words.

“I don’t want to be anywhere but here with you, love,” Fal rushed to add.

Marius switched to speaking Serian. If they were arguing, at least I didn’t have to hear it. I shifted, picking up the mysterious but amazing scent of Always drifting from Kauz. Like dreams and promises, faint but present. He tilted his head and made a sound of pleasure when I leaned up and nuzzled against his neck, hoping to catch more than a fleeting hint of his scent. In the half-light filtering from his wings, starlight glimmered on his fingertips. Little pinpricks of light rested on my skin and hair, soaking into me.

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