Page 17 of Fated or Knot (UnseelieVerse: The Omega Masquerade #1)

17

LARK

O nly moments after I had that thought, Tormund came in, announcing himself cheerfully. “Hello, li’l bird! I brought your sandwich. And a triple berry cookie. I know they’re your fav—what’s wrong?”

A plate clinked against the table, and fingertips landed on my shoulder. I released a helpless sob. I couldn’t tell him anything, after all. Stars, there was no avoiding more unpleasantness, was there?

“Nothing’s wrong,” I said, muffled by the fur I’d soaked through with tears.

“ Ach . Tell me,” he insisted, rubbing little circles over one of my wings. “Was it Fal? I tell him he has to be a better gentle male. He goes too far sometimes.”

I sniffed and wiped at my face, trying to make my eyes stop leaking. “No, Fal didn’t do anything,” I mumbled.

Tormund shifted uneasily. He scented the air and growled. “I smell fish. Cymora was here.”

My heart lurched at the anger underlying his words. I sat up and forced a dubiously convincing smile on my face, just for it to evaporate the moment I saw Tormund’s expression. One of his eyes twitched, before twin flames ignited in his pupils. “Did she say something to you?” His low voice was full of menace I would’ve thought was unlike him.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I…will be okay.”

In sitting up and swinging my legs to the floor, I’d exposed the rip she’d made in the bottom of my cloak. The afterimages of light in gaze streaked toward the stretch of ruined fibers, and a series of twitches spasmed through his fingers and face. “Tormund, are you all right?” I asked in a frightened hush.

What kind of question was that? He clearly wasn’t. His muscles began to harden and swell, stretching the seams of his clothes and revealing a molten yellow glow of an ignited furnace in his chest.

This kind of transformation was unique to only one kind of fae. I backed away as his fingernails and horns grew several inches spontaneously, developing dangerous points. He opened his mouth, revealing similarly elongated and sharpened teeth. Steam and plumes of smoke escaped his mouth as a guttural roar ripped from him.

I flinched in terror. I’d wondered what kind of fire fae he was, but he and his brothers had never been forthcoming. Stars, no wonder. He was a redcap . And beginning to rage as he snarled, “What did she do? Where is she? I’ll kill her!”

I did the only thing I could think of: I curled into a ball at the end of a couch and cowered. They say if you keep yourself quiet and still, a raging redcap may overlook you by mistaking you for already dead. As his rage mounted, he burned hotter and his form swelled further, exposing more of the white-hot heat inside of him.

He swung toward the door, which opened to admit a blue blur. Marius tackled Tormund’s back and grabbed his arms, pulling them while pressing his knee to the small of the redcap’s back. The kelpie’s skin sizzled on contact. “Calm down,” he growled.

“She hurt the li’l bird,” Tormund roared with crackling power in his voice. He bucked and slammed his skull into his brother’s jaw. Marius reeled and lost control of one of his arms.

“I’m sure there’s a perfectly good expla—” Fal cut off as he sidestepped a clumsy swing of Tormund’s claws.

The redcap lurched for the door, where Kauz stood in the threshold, hands twisting as he directed starry essence into a spell between his fingers. Magic rapidly unspooled from his fingers like a braided rope. Tormund roared and jerked, one meaty arm raised to slash him. I covered my eyes with a fearful wail.

“I don’t want explanations . I want blood ,” the redcap boomed, loosing a plume of flame from between his teeth. “Let go!”

I peeked between my fingers. Fal had caught Tormund’s arm, but without Marius’s trained strength behind his trembling restraint, those long claws were still descending toward Kauz in steady jerks. “You can’t just go shouting about blood on a public magirail,” Fal said from between his teeth.

Kauz finished his spell, his magical rope hardening into a shackle of essence that closed around Tormund’s wrist. He listed to the side with a thud as if the shackle weighed a ton. Despite the flexes and pulls of his bulked-out arm, he couldn’t lift it. He snarled and snapped his teeth like a rabid monster, straining against Marius to free his other arm.

Fal’s face entered my line of sight, his pupils panicked lines as he leaned over me. “He needs you,” he murmured before scooping me up. I’d made myself into the smallest ball I could, ripe for the plucking.

“What are you… Fal! Ahh!” I protested, my teary voice hitting a high, terrified octave as he jumped over Tormund’s grounded arm and pushed me into his chest. The redcap freed his other arm and swung it around, claws extended, just as Fal released me and stepped away.

Tormund’s arm closed around my torso, crushing me to the hardened muscles bursting out of his tunic. Heat sweltered over me. Just being this close to his chest was so hot, it was unbearable, and I sweated through my clothes. His breath was a mix of smoke and steam as it came out in jerking pants. The white-hot flames in his pupils swung down and fixed on my face.

I’m going to die. I stared into the face of death. It’d take one bite for him to liberate my throat, or just a blast of flame.

What? It’s still Tormund! Somewhere behind those eerily fiery eyes was the gentle giant who’d dusted me off after my fall in the castle gardens. Who held me like I was precious and purred without a hint of embarrassment for wanting to comfort me. The same one who took glee in making sure I had access to more food than I could eat.

And now, somehow, he needed me to call him back from this rage.

“T-Tormund,” I managed, lifting shaky fingers and cupping his cheek. It was like touching a heated plate, and I knew I would gain a burn from it. “This isn’t you. You have to calm down.”

Vibrating with unchecked fury, Tormund still tilted his head into my touch. He closed his eyes and breathed out smoke and embers. His body deflated and cooled, and his newly sharpened bits shrank until the only edged teeth in his broad mouth were his alpha fangs. Tormund cradled my sweaty body one-armed, nuzzling my hair and inhaling, trying to catch a hint of my scent.

“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.

“ Our mate?” 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.

“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 signature ach . “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. We are representatives 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.

I hadn’t heard fish and fishling from the princes before, but it was clear they were talking about Cymora and Laurel. I felt compelled to say, “Please don’t kill them.”

Fal and Marius exchanged a glance. “She probably doesn’t mean that,” the dark elf said.

“I do,” I said woodenly.

“See?” he said.

Marius responded with a kelpie’s snort, looking unconvinced.

Kauz helped support me as I limped toward the couches. Everyone scrambled to sit ahead of me, and three sets of hands reached out when I realized I needed to sit in someone’s lap to make this work. I picked Marius. He held me tight, nuzzling my neck with a soft sigh. “If we took care of Cymora and you never saw her again, would that really upset you?” he asked.

I nodded once, compelled by some order made long enough ago that I’d forgotten the wording.

His ear flicked. “Kauz is convinced she’s controlling you through a spell or a vow,” he said.

I dropped my gaze, unable to talk about it. “The ‘yes, Stepmother’ thing she does any time Cymora gives her an order,” Kauz said. My head snapped around to stare at him. He lifted his shoulder. “It benefits to be observant. And there’s no one I’ve paid closer attention to than you.”

Marius skimmed his callused fingertips down my wings. “Let’s let it go for now. We have a problem to solve. Fal’s plan didn’t work.”

“It was going so well, too,” Fal said.

“Plan goes well until it doesn’t. Like every other plan,” Tormund grumbled.

“We didn’t grasp how bad it was. But now we do, and we’re displacing the fishling from this room. I’ll take her place,” Fal declared.

“I’m moving in as well,” Kauz said. “Lark can sleep with me.”

The other three males protested at the same time.

“We can decide that part later,” I ventured. I was just relieved that they’d be coming here, leaving no room for my stepfamily. Even though two more days of being crammed together like this may be less fun soon, I was tentatively excited. Two days of nonstop cuddles awaited, as long as we could all get along.

Kauz and Fal started searching the room for Laurel’s things, putting them into her bag haphazardly before they left the room. I dozed against Marius in the quiet that followed, breathing in trace amounts of his waterlily and mint scent. It sent me straight to sleep.

Sometime later, I awoke still propped against his muscled chest. He had one arm around me and held his book open with the other. There was no way he was actually reading it. His eyes were dilated too much again.

Tormund stared at the ceiling beside us, while Kauz and Fal whispered intently in Serian on the other couch. Somehow, the sandwich and cookie Tormund had brought earlier were still on the table, and I brightened, finally feeling hungry enough to eat it.

“Welcome back, love. I have something for you,” Fal said in Theli. “Hold out your hand.”

I did so, and he dropped silver into my palm. My lips parted in surprise to see the necklace and earrings Laurel had taken from me earlier. I put them back on with an eager smile. “How?” I asked.

“Well, as I was moving out of the other room, I told Laurel in detail how my tongue had been on one of these three things without sharing which one. She searched the female’s bath and, lo and behold, found your jewelry.” He looked entirely too proud of himself. Marius didn’t stir, but the other two brothers looked at Fal with raised brows.

I picked at my fingertips nervously. “They didn’t mind you changing the room assignments?” I asked.

“I don’t give a single shit if they mind or not,” he answered, expression sobering. “You will never be alone with them again if any of us can help it. Not even to take a bath. We’re going to make sure the female’s bath is closed when you need to use it. We’ll be a little uncomfortable for a couple days, then we’ll soon be in Serian. Things will be different there.”

I nodded, my dry eyes stinging as my lip wobbled. “Thank you. It means so much that you’d do all this for me.”

“You’re worth it,” he said, giving me a warm look. We gazed at each other for a long moment before he clapped his hands. “Well! I don’t know about you all, but I’m ready to play one of Kauz and Marius’s endless card games.”

The kelpie finally seemed to acknowledge the conversation by asking in a roughened voice, “Which one?”

“Let’s teach the li’l bird Liar Liar. It’s my favorite,” Tormund suggested.

“I’m the champion at that game. Have the trophy to prove it, too,” Marius said to me as Kauz fished out a deck of cards and began dealing five piles. The kelpie explained the game efficiently while we waited. We split the deck evenly between us, except for the last card, which was flipped over. The objective was to put up to four cards from our hands face down on that card and suggest whether they matched its suit or color.

If no one challenged them, the cards were flipped and the next fae had their turn. But if they were challenged—called a liar—they flipped their cards right there. If the cards didn’t match what they suggested, they took every card in the pile except for one. But if they weren’t lying, the accuser took the pile instead.

I saw how someone like Marius, with his usual stony countenance, could be a champion at this. But I also agreed with Fal. This game was designed to never end. The fewer cards one had, the more likely one would need to lie when putting a card down.

It was a nice way to pass a few hours, and with each male taking a turn holding me, I eventually relaxed into a point of almost purring contentment. My anxiety over fibbing did get me poked on the nose and called a liar pretty much every time I tried to pass off a few cards that didn’t match, but the brothers were all much more invested in this card game than I’d expected them to get. It would’ve been just as fun to sit back and watch them play without me. No one ended up winning, though Marius and Tormund got within a few cards of it.

They took turns getting dinner, while I chose to eat my sandwich and cookie to stay in the room. When it was time to sleep, though, my mood dipped as I remembered there would be no warm nest for me, just a decision to share a cot…though all four males seemed eager to have me.

I wished I didn’t have to choose, but I ended up in Kauz’s arms, trusting the dream warden above the rest to guard my sleeping body.