Page 75 of Fated or Knot

She’d be fine. They’d be fine.

They’ll be fine,I repeated to myself more firmly when he turned and carried my mate away. His steady presence faded from our pack bond as he shielded his emotions. I did the same a moment later, as did my other brothers. The last thing we needed right now was to multiply each other’s feelings, as the empathy of the pack bond could make Tormund or me violently unstable in the worst circumstances.

The mood in the room was awkward as the rest of us exchanged glances afterward. Mother drew herself up. “All right. Someone else had better explain,” she demanded.

“Perhaps it would be easier to show you?” Fal suggested, raising a brow in my direction. We still had something to do while Kauz sought out Thalas for help removing theolcanus.

I considered, then nodded at Fal. “Your answers are waiting in the dungeon,” I said to her.

“Then we’ll go to the dungeon,” she said, tugging on my father’s arm. “We’ll all go together.”

“As you wish, my heart,” Elion murmured back.

That settled it, then. Tormund went to get our stuff arranged, as he knew he couldn’t watch what was about to happen without triggering a rage. But the rest of us headed toward the back ofthe palace, where the underground prison wing was situated. Mother was uncharacteristically quiet on the way there, walking by my father’s side.

Fal and I fell in step to go over our plan together one more time. Well, Fal spoke. I just made the appropriate agreements and grunts at the right places. Those were our trained roles, and we did them well enough. I was simply distracted.

He walked by my left side, where I could see him clearly. But I wasn’t seeing much of anything right now, the world just as blurry on one side as the other.

My mate…

I was heading in the wrong direction. I should’ve gone with Kauz, even though his essence-spinning bullshit only became more incoherent with his father around. Thalas was a genius by all accounts, but he lacked the awareness that not everyone without magic could understand the advanced terms and mathematics he worked with daily.

There’s nothing I could do to help her there.All my presence in the Magician King’s workshop would do would be to increase the anxiety in the room.

But the dungeons. More specifically, the interrogation rooms. I could help Lark there.

I exited my daze when we descended into the freezing nightmare that was the palace prison. The underground wing was hewn straight from the stone, including the rough-cut stairs to and from the blocks of cells. Though the temperature helped cut down on the smell, nothing could stop my senses from picking up on the lingering stench of piss, blood, and death. Enemies of the more capricious queens of Unseelie infamy had died down here, and their suffering still haunted the place.

My father was the lord of the current royal pack, Serian’s beloved Wave King, a male of refinement and poise. Fal had trained with him extensively to one day take his job. Neither ofthem came here often, and when they did, they had the same expressions of barely restrained disgust as they did now. I was more used to it, as I was the apprentice of the male waiting for us to arrive.

We did interrogations and torture in the first few enclosed rooms, acts Theodred, the Blood King, specialized in. “The guards say the mermaid awaits the tender mercies of our sons. I was not aware they’d finally returned,” he remarked.

He was so large that his voice was heard more than felt, a bass rumble that our more skittish citizens mistook for growling. Until they felt the absolute menace that was hisrealgrowl, something I’d endured enough in my training until I no longer flinched away from it.

“You’re going to interrogate a mermaid?” Mother asked, grimacing. “Swear to the stars, boys, you had better not create an even bigger fiasco for me than Princess Glory’s disappearance.”

“We really had nothing to do with that, Mother,” Fal said, holding up his hands. “I swear it.”

“I swear it as well. We don’t have Glory,” I echoed.

We called Glory by her scent, muttering about how her intense nature matched the abrasiveness of her cinnamon. If we were scent matches, we’d already know by now. Our parents had collectively taken a fancy to uniting our nations for a short spell and tried to push us together, but we repelled like magnets. My pack needed someone a lot sweeter than cinnamon girl, and we’d found her. Glory was meant for an extra special Seelie pack if her fathers’ lines were to really end with them.

“But you stole away a mermaid too?” Mother pressed, drawing me out of my thoughts about the fiery red pixie.

“Two, actually. In our defense, they tagged along,” Fal said.

My father turned to Theodred. “Do you get the feeling there is just a…” He held his hands out at his sides. “…massive gulf of things they’re not telling us?”

“I wonder where they learned that from,” the huge redcap replied.

They considered for half a moment. “Rennyn,” Theodred said, naming Fal’s father.

“Definitely Rennyn,” Elion agreed.

“I’mdyingto know what’s going on here,” Mother put in with an impatient gesture. “Go do what you have to do. If it’s not informative enough, I’ll send in Theo.”

The redcap cracked his knuckles with an eager smile. On him, that barely looked like a lift of his lips.

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