Page 2 of Fated or Knot (UnseelieVerse: The Omega Masquerade #1)

2

LARK

I ’d already completed the more unsightly prep work on Laurel the night before we left for the capital, so grooming her today wouldn’t require anymore waxing or plucking. Tending to her when Cymora wasn’t around was like wrestling with a wet fish. She was slippery and very much wanted to sulk in the nearest source of standing water rather than face any sort of work or pain.

With my stepmother hovering nearby, Laurel didn’t shift her legs into a mermaid tail and splash me out of malice for my firm treatment of combing, brushing, and scrubbing her body to get her ready for the evening. Thank the stars for small miracles. After Cymora dismissed the last of our servants, this set of duties had fallen to me, amongst other tasks, and Laurel never made any of it pleasant.

“I don’t understand why you can’t just illusion me perfect,” she complained while I pinned locks of her hair into curlers and pulled them tight. She winced. Maybe I’d tugged a little too hard on that last one.

“My magic only works on sight,” I said, suppressing a sigh. How many times had I explained this to her? “You don’t want a handsome alpha running his fingers through your curls just to feel straight hair or a snarl of knots.”

“Hehe. Knots,” she repeated. Cymora, who was applying purple stain to her lips, shot her a scowl emphasized by her arched brow.

“Her magic has its limits and does its best work on enhancing what’s already there,” my stepmother said. “It’s already going to be hard work to hide this.” She reached out and pinched the side of Laurel’s belly, causing her to squawk in protest.

“Mom! It’s not so bad!”

“You’re beyond lucky the modiste could alter your dress so it still fits,” Cymora scoffed.

I ducked my head and bit my lip to stifle any hint of a laugh. There was no way I wanted them to notice how funny I found the sight of Laurel justifying herself. But on the inside, I was bent over with mirth.

Laurel’s love of rich food clashed with the style of dress pixies traditionally wore to the Omega Masquerade. It wasn’t her fault mermaids carried extra weight on their thighs, but she was finally getting some kind of consequence for eating off my plate when her restricted portions weren’t enough.

“Well, she could’ve put an illusion over the dress,” Laurel muttered.

Cymora caught her cheeks between her hands, and I got back to work with the curlers once my face was a perfect mask of composure. “No, baby. All of her effort is going to make you stunning. Stun-ing .” She gave my stepsister a little shake for emphasis. “Every alpha in that room will be salivating to leave their mark on you. There is no chance you’ll leave the party without a new pack.”

Unless the alphas get a moment to talk to her first, I thought uncharitably.

Cymora released Laurel so I could finish preparing her. Laurel had replaced her usual pout with a smug smile through the powdering and painting to get her face as flawless as possible. She hadn’t been in her full mermaid form ever since my stepmother had hatched this plan of hers, which meant the scales that usually lined her cheeks and neck were small and soft. I hid them under a layer of paste that matched the blue of her skin. The scales on her arms and legs received the same treatment.

“She’s ready for the scent, Stepmother,” I said, not quite meeting Cymora’s eyes.

“Step back,” she ordered. She bustled to the bag filled with her things to retrieve the bottles I wasn’t allowed to handle.

Our local apothecary had taken a sample of sweat from my neck and a touch of my essence to make the jelly and perfume spray. He’d called his creation “concentrated pheromones” and guaranteed that it would make Laurel smell like me. As soon as Cymora opened the bottle and rubbed jelly between her fingers, a sugary scent wafted through the air.

My omega smell was of chocolate and honey crackers, and the recreation that she rubbed vigorously over Laurel’s wrists and neck had an undertone of sickly sweet chemicals. I secretly hoped an alpha would pick up on it and this lie would be exposed—once I was safely away from Cymora’s wrath.

She snapped her fingers at me. “Bring the dress,” she instructed.

“Yes, Stepmother,” I said.

Stars, the dress . It was a unique torture to retrieve it from our things and undo the garment bag to reveal it in a waterfall of deep green fabric. I ran my fingers over the velvety soft material, reverent with the silken ties and decorative bells that tinkled from the tiniest touch. It was a traditional omega dress, two scraps of cloth a female had to be tied into. As the style was meant to be cinched tight, it left little about the body to the imagination.

Also tucked in the garment bag was a set of fabric pixie wings. I set them and the decorative lantern that was part of the presenting ceremony on the vanity and started lacing Laurel into her exquisite dress. If she had wings, it would fit right under the base of the lower pair, with an extra tie to fit in between her top and bottom wings to ensure it wouldn’t fall off.

The style left her shoulders bare, and the fabric stopped after covering a few inches of her thighs. The silken ties crisscrossed down her sides, tied off at the ends with a set of three bells that rested just past the hem of the dress.

I handed her the fabric wings, and she shrugged them on while I inspected her from top to bottom. Yes, she looked like a mermaid beta wearing a pixie’s dress.

She was ready for the final touch. Cymora placed a decorative mask over Laurel’s face and nodded to me. “Remember, Lark. Stunning,” she said in a warning tone.

“Yes, Stepmother,” I repeated.

I’d imbued their masks over the last few weeks, flooding them with my essence until raw power stuck in every fiber of the cloth. When I reached out to touch the edge of the feathers decorating one side of Laurel’s mask, I was really tapping into that power to give it a purpose. As long as she wore the mask, the illusion I spun over her would remain in place no matter how far apart we were.

The fabric wings brightened with an inner glow, twitching occasionally like real pixie wings. My magic smoothed her curves and embedded sparkles in her skin, erasing any lingering evidence that she was a mermaid beta. I even changed the beta mark that’d come in low on her back when she hit adulthood to resemble an omega symbol instead.

I tried for stunning. As numbness threaded up my arms, starting from my fingertips, I brushed away any blemishes to make Laurel as pretty as possible. Not exactly stunning, but as close as I could get.

Save some essence. Don’t use everything.

Once it was done, I cradled my belly and hunched, riding a wave of vertigo with my eyes tightly shut. Laurel turned around with the tinkling of bells to see her reflection in the mirror. She gasped and quickly exclaimed, “Look at me! I make such a beautiful pixie. I bet you wish you were this gorgeous, huh, Lark?”

A cool hand gripped my shoulder. I opened my eyes just a crack to make sure the world wasn’t still spinning, just for Cymora to jostle me. “An adequate job. Finish my illusion now,” she said.

She gestured toward the master bedroom just through the door, adding something about being allowed to sleep there, rather than the floor, until they returned from the event tonight. So generous .

I took a few shaking breaths. Their voices were like white noise, an undercurrent of disdain woven into the melody of my life. Laurel’s illusion had needed more essence than I’d already placed into her mask. If I ran out of magic now, I would fall into an exhausted sleep for days, long enough to close my eyes here and wake up on the floor of a coach bringing us back to Osme Fen and the looming threat of Pack Ellisar.

Stars, I couldn’t let that happen. I blinked away the bleariness of fatigue and refocused on Cymora, whose lips were still moving. She released me before I registered what she said, returning wearing a matching mask to Laurel’s. The decorative feathers rose on the opposite side, but I’d painted them with the same swirls.

Just a little more. You can do this. I pictured the freedom I’d have if I managed to stay awake after casting this spell.

Her illusion would not be as difficult. I didn’t need to alter the cut of her dress, just her size and the points of a couple of her teeth to make proper alpha fangs. I touched the side of her mask and used the essence already imbued there, shaping and molding this illusion more carefully so it didn’t require more than a few drops of the limited magic I had left.

Numbness crept up to my elbows, but I was upright, and Cymora seemed pleased.

“Rest up,” she said, shoving me toward the bed. It looked very soft, with heaps of sheets and pillows. I wanted to test the plushness of the pile, imagining for a moment a nest made with them. But if I lay down, I wouldn’t have the energy to get back up. “Maybe your heat will finally arrive. Wouldn’t that be lovely?”

I grimaced for half a moment, barely a flinch. Oh yes, so great, I wanted to say in a biting tone. A response like that would have me punished severely, but she was already turning away without noticing a thing, gathering up Laurel and everything they’d need.

“Good luck,” I croaked.

Laurel glanced back at me and scoffed. “I don’t need it,” she said and sashayed out the door.

I stood by a window and combed my hair to pass the time. The simple motion tugged my scalp, and each knot I encountered created just enough pain to keep me awake. Feeling slowly circulated into my arms again too.

I didn’t dare sneak a peek outside, afraid Cymora would spot me. I just listened for the telltale clop of hooves and the creak of wooden wheels to let me know my stepfamily and the wealthy visitors who’d rented the other cottages were off to attend the Omega Masquerade.

Only then did I draw a new bath. It was time for me to prepare to go to the event, too. When Cymora began plotting Laurel’s place in a wealthy pack, I’d planned as well. Waiting for this moment.

I had one night to change my fate.

I cleaned the grime of travel from my skin and inspected the mark right under my belly button. It was a small circle of enchanted ink painted there by the most discreet essence spinner in Osme Fen. Already, lines of skin threatened to split it in half… As I’d been warned, the longer I pushed off my heat, the less time the suppressant tattoos would last. I’d only gotten this one reapplied three months ago.

I paid dearly for the magical charm, trading anything of value I could take from the estate to pay the essence spinner. It was worth it, especially when his magic had helped me stave off my first heat for four years. Pack Ellisar was prepared, breeding contract in hand, to claim me when it finally arrived, but the trio of barkfolk would wait fruitlessly once I escaped tonight.

The thought of them waiting for me in Osme Fen drew a shudder through my wet wings. I wouldn’t go back. They’d never grab me in the market again. Never force another kiss on my lips. Never pull my hair to expose my neck to another slimy lick and to whisper lewdly in my ear about dessert. Cymora may have agreed to sell me to them once I went into my first heat, but they’d never see that moment to claim me permanently.

I finished cleaning myself and limped over to view my reflection in the mirror. My determination faltered as I really inspected what I saw there. Four years ago, I’d thought I’d rather die than see myself bitten into Pack Ellisar, but…I was fading.

My essence, the purple hue I’d once carried in my wings and hair, was almost gone. The shoulder-length strands hanging down around my face were a snowy white, my wings ashen. Even now, I regretted how naive my six-year-old self had been for not realizing Cymora was going to trick me into a deal after my father’s funeral. And now I could tell no one why I was fading, not even myself, since she’d forbidden me from speaking of it.

I had to get away from her and her orders before they destroyed me for good. There was still a chance I could start over in a sanctuary city, where only omegas and betas were allowed to live. But first, I had to hide the dark circles under my eyes and the fact I didn’t have a traditional dress to wear to the Omega Masquerade. I used the makeup spread across the vanity to cover up what I could and to put some color back on my lips.

Next, I dressed in my newest servant’s dress and put my smock back on, then dug around the bags until I found what I needed—a pair of Laurel’s amethyst studs and the spare mask I’d snuck into a side pocket and hidden under my nightclothes.

The mask was the first one I’d designed for my stepsister, but she’d turned her nose up at it, saying it wasn’t fit for a mermaid or what she’d appear to be at the event, a pixie with water fae parentage. I’d kept it and poured my essence into it when there was some to be spared. The fabric was designed in the shape of leaves around the eyeholes, with a butterfly made of genuine silver on the brow, large enough to cover the skin where a pack mark would rest.

Travel, or Laurel’s rough handling, had warped the butterfly’s slender wings and bent its little wire antennae, but it was still the key to my freedom. I tied it to my face and activated the essence imbued within it. In the mirror, I adjusted myself. I made my servant’s clothes into a pixie dress, silver and purple hugging the curve of my waist. Soundless bells rested against my thighs.

There was still a bit of magic left in the mask to complete the illusion. With the amethysts pinned to my ears, I copied their color to spread to my wings. Numbness returned to my arms, creeping swiftly from my fingertips this time, but I cut off the magic before I grew too dizzy.

A lavender pixie glowed in the mirror, chest rising as I gasped. “It’s not real,” I whispered to ground myself.

However, I couldn’t help a shimmy to admire the fake dress and the washed-out purple I’d coated my wings with. There was nothing I could do for my hair color, but that was okay. For a few short hours before I ran, I could have one of the things Cymora didn’t want for me: to be myself, an omega. I would be seen .

I’d meet the same wealthy alphas as Laurel. Maybe even let them get close enough for a sniff so my scent would distract them. I’d been practicing my pickpocketing skills, after all. How else was I going to get the coin required to leave Ilysnor before my stepfamily recaptured me?