Page 52 of Fated or Knot

“I’m trying to give you some of my essence,” he said in a low voice.

My eyelids flicked up. Kauz had reddened scratch lines over his collar, but he seemed fine. “It smells nice,” I whispered back.

His lips lifted. “Hmm.” He seemed to know exactly what he was doing when I nuzzled him again. “My brothers are going to search the room now. We’re looking for anything amiss. What can you tell us?”

“You will not say a word of this to the princes.”

I whimpered, feeling my tenuous peace slip. Kauz seemed to take that as answer enough. “Do you want us to switch to languages so you don’t have to hear us talking about you?” he offered.

I shook my head, clutching him harder. I wanted to know what they were saying, even if they figured out nothing. Then they could soothe out the last ragged edges roughing up my inner omega. “I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart. I’m going to hold you for as long as you need,” he promised.

“Well, let’s start with the obvious.” Fal said, keeping his voice low and gentle. “What set you off, Tormund?”

“I come in here, and the li’l bird is crying, face down. Very odd,” he answered, trying to also have a low and gentle tone, but he just sounded deeply upset. “I smelled that the fish was here recently and saw the damage to Lark’s cloak. Then I lost control.”

“I tripped,” I said miserably. Though I was compelled to say it, it wasn’t a lie. Cymora had tripped me in this room earlier.

There was a rustle of fabric, and Tormund releasing his signatureach. “Does that print match Lark’s foot?” Kauz asked. He loosened the seal of his wings, peeling one back over my right side.

“Bend your knee, Lark.” This came from Marius, who tisked when I did. Fabric rustled again. “The print doesn’t match her foot. Also, looks like she was helped to the ground. She has a bruise forming right above her ankle.”

The room was filled with repressed rumbling from the three alphas. “So, Cymora tripped her and damaged her cloak,” Fal stated.

“That can’t be all. Not with her going feral for a moment there,” Kauz murmured.

“I thought she did that because of me,” Tormund said guiltily.

The dream warden stroked my hair again, shaking his head. “Omegas don’t go feral at the flip of a coin. She suffered a wound to her instincts, and recently. Hmm…try checking her things, and her bed.”

He closed his wing back around me. I waited, stunned he’d thought to check my nest so quickly. I also braced myself for the reaction of the male who climbed up there as the bunk creaked with its descent.

There was a single, sharp “foc” from Marius less than a minute later. “It’s empty,” he said.

“Empty?” Fal echoed in disbelief.

“Just a fucking mattress. See for yourself.”

I scrunched my face and hid it in Kauz’s tunic, whimpering.

“We’ll build you a new nest,” he whispered. My inner omega perked her ears.

The ladder creaked as an alpha went up and down from my former nest. Then a third time, punctuated by a dangerous-sounding growl. “Easy there, big guy,” Fal said.

“One with all our scents and a real mattress. Plus all the fleece we can layer on top. It’ll be your epic dream nest come to life,” Kauz was still promising.

I pictured it and yearned to see it filled. “Would you sleep there with me?” I asked in a small voice.

“Every single night, sweetheart.”

“I’d kill her in a heartbeat,” Tormund harsh growl countered Kauz’s tender tone.

“I think we all can agree the fish is a frigid bitch. However, we can’t just murder her,” Fal said. “Not without a legal reason. Wearerepresentatives of the new Unseelie order, after all.”

A charged silence fell amongst the males. Kauz shifted, withdrawing his wings, and I looked up to see two of the alphas staring at him. Tormund was seated at one of the couches, looking down at his hands.

“I thought it was a mistake to entertain her minutes after she introduced herself,” Marius said. He hesitated for only a couple moments. “We could dump the fish’s body in the Doras. No one but the fishling would notice.”

Fal’s lips twisted as he considered it. “Unless she met a similar fate,” he reasoned.

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