Page 23 of Fated or Knot (UnseelieVerse: The Omega Masquerade #1)

23

MARIUS

I was the first to react when Lark started to faint. When she asked Mother, “What did you say?” in her little flute of a voice, she wavered on her feet. A lost, unfocused look entered her eyes.

Mother drew herself up as I launched into motion. “You don’t remember me? I was your godmother. I took you to my nest like my own child. I need every answer you have, Metalark!”

Cursing inwardly, I lunged the last few feet between us as Lark dropped like a stone. Her slight weight fell into my arms, and as I took in her slack face, my beast lost his starsdamned mind.

My brothers all reacted, shouting in surprise. I growled viciously at them, crouched over my mate’s body with my fangs bared. Mother stepped back on instinct.

“What did… Why did she… I didn’t mean…” Now that the one person benefiting from us speaking Theli wasn’t listening, she switched back to Serian and made a sound of distress. She backed into my father, Elion, who had abandoned his chair by the fire to draw her behind him. He protected his female with his size while I snarled at anyone trying to get too close to Lark.

Kauz stepped forward and crouched as close as anyone dared come. “Marius?” he asked. The ever-present cloak of calm he carried with him tried to settle over me.

No. Defend mate.

I chuffed at him in warning.

“Niall, then,” he said.

It’d been his idea to name my beast, to speak with it more personably when my feral side took over. “You’re like another person when he’s active, so he deserves a distinct name,” he’d reasoned.

It wasn’t that I was two people in one body, even though it seemed that way from the outside. I was simply always in conflict: Marius the prince versus Niall the feral beast, and it was closer to a fifty-fifty outcome per fight than I led others to believe.

“She’s going to be okay, Niall,” he murmured. “She’s experiencing some mental backlash from Mother triggering something she was forced to forget.”

I snorted, unimpressed with the explanation. Too many words. “Stay back,” I rasped.

“I need you to give her to me. The only way she’s going to get better is if I get that silencing band off her,” he coaxed, holding out his hands.

I stood with Lark still in my arms. Her limp body slumped in a way that made my beast even more upset. I glanced around, scenting the air. Home. I could take her to my rooms, let her recover there.

Yes. Then claim.

Yes, then I’d have her claim me…wait. I shook my head, and my wild side receded. “We have a plan, remember?” Kauz was saying.

“I remember,” I gritted out. He was going to take her to his father as soon as possible to remove the silencing band. We couldn’t talk to her about it, or anything else he’d dug up in Cymora’s mind, for fear of exactly what’d just happened to her. Mother had called her by her full name and implied that she was part nixie, and that’d been enough to pinch her consciousness.

I had to be strong for her. I had to give her to Kauz. But I didn’t want to.

P’nixie , my instincts whispered. They were quieter now that I’d acknowledged that Niall was right. But that side of me hadn’t been subtle when we met in a pawn shop. The smell of her perfume had shredded the bindings of my self-control until only a single thread remained.

Niall had screamed that it was her . She was in estrus , and I needed to breed her. Lark absolutely hadn’t needed me to bend her over a display case like my instincts had so desperately wanted to. I, in my eternal war with myself, had screamed back that was impossible and ensured that her heat didn’t fully develop. It was the only right thing to do for the poor, weak waif I’d first assumed Lark to be.

The p’nixie was dead. My true mate had died a long time ago.

Yet here she was, in my arms, her secret identity confirmed by Mother. “A seamless mix of pixie and nixie.” We’d met as kids, and my beast had known instantly that she was the one, just as he never let me forget that she was still alive. After all, we had never seen the body.

Word of her death had led to my scar and the damage in my right eye, and that had become what shaped the rest of my childhood. The adults in my life had mourned her and moved on, but a part of me never could. I saw the evidence of the one and only pixie-nixie’s death on my face every time I looked in the mirror.

How would I even begin to tell her this? I couldn’t even start if she would pass out within a few sentences.

“Marius,” Kauz prompted. Everyone else was staring at me with shades of the particular pity sprinkled my way when I didn’t mask the moments I lost control.

I breathed a gruff and low, “Thanks.” He always knew what to do when Niall took over. Well, he was going to get the silencing band off her, and then…we could talk, the p’nixie and I.

I passed her limp body into his arms, helping arrange her limbs to make it easier for him. He didn’t have alpha strength, but he wasn’t a slouch either. I’d helped him develop his muscles to rein in those wings, after all.

“I’ll get her back to you as soon as possible,” he whispered.

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 the olcanus .

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 of the 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 of them 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 his real growl, 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’m dying to 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.

“Well, we’ll do our best. We want to keep her alive long enough to grovel for forgiveness, after all,” Fal remarked before heading to the first stone box and entering. The rest of us followed, crowding the small observation area. It was dominated by a solid sheet of essence-treated glass serving as a one-way view into the sights and sounds of what happened inside the interrogation room beyond.

Cymora was tied to the single chair in the room, her head listing to one side. She was dirty and unkempt, her clothes torn from struggling her way off the train. There was probably a sizable bruise forming in her middle from when I’d elbowed her hard in the gut to prevent her from shouting an order at Lark during her forceful disembarking.

All told, she already looked like shit. The hollows under her eyes were deeply bruised from two days of Kauz’s dream tortures. Each sudden gasp and paranoid dart of her eyes as she jumped at nothing showed that he’d left his mark in her mind.

Not enough, my instincts insisted.

If she’d committed a fraction of what we suspected she’d done to Lark, forty-eight hours of nightmares was just a taste of the power of one of my packmates. She was about to deal with all four of us.

“May I borrow your sword?” I asked Theodred. He was always armed, today with one of his favorite swords on his hip. Usually, I was the same way, but weapons weren’t allowed on public magirails. He unsheathed his weapon and offered me the hilt without hesitation.

Thankfully, it was one of his shorter swords, so it didn’t look comically large in my grip like some of his weapons. I nodded at Fal and followed him into the room. He burst in suddenly, exclaiming in Theli, “Hello, Cymora!”

The mermaid in question startled so hard she nearly tipped over the chair. It was the newest thing in this room, as the walls were lined with torture implements in various cruddy states, stained with rust and blood. Most of them were there for ambiance, not that our guests realized that.

“Prince Falindel,” she said, sounding hopeful until her gaze found me next and she cringed. She already realized I despised her after throwing her off the train, but Fal had kept his true feelings about her concealed behind a courtly mask until now. “And…Prince Marius. I wish I could say I was glad to see you both. Where is my daughter?”

Fal raised a brow. “Which one?” he asked coldly.

This gave her pause. “Laurel. I know you’ve probably brought my stepdaughter to your chambers already,” she snapped.

Fal flicked his fangs with his tongue and jerked his chin at me. Even with our pack bond shielded, I understood. My role was to provide aggression, so I needed to respond, else we would go off script. He couldn’t let her see him flinch.

And I couldn’t escalate too much too quickly. I ignored Niall’s suggestion to use Theodred’s sword on her. Not yet.

The mermaid was watching us carefully, a calculating gleam in her eyes. I grabbed the back of her chair, pivoting it toward me with more force than necessary, and leaned into her personal space. She tilted back, nostrils flaring. Even a beta like her could smell the bitter anger wafting from me.

“Laurel is fine. She will be confined to her new room until we figure out what to do with her.” I pitched my deep voice lower, going for the same intimidating growl of a tone Theodred pulled off with such ease. “As for Lark, where she is and what she does is no longer your concern. Understand?”

Her throat clicked in a dry swallow. “It seems there’s been some kind of mistake,” she said with less venom.

“What mistake is that, hmm?” Fal prompted.

I drew back and pulled a kerchief out my pocket, feigning disinterest as I rubbed away any smudges on Theodred’s sword. In the process, I flashed its edges in the dim light of the essence lamp above us.

“Your brother, the…” She wheezed with a bit of remembered fear. “Prince Kauzden seems to believe I made some kind of confession about my darling Lark. In my sleep, no less.”

I rode out a spike of fury. Since fae couldn’t lie, there was more to it when she called Lark dear or darling . Her dear slave? Her darling servant? I sensed the falseness behind her platitudes each time, and it pissed me off so quickly. She used that pleasant mermaid voice to hide an ocean of malice in plain sight.

“Oh, interesting,” Fal said, circling around her chair. She shifted and tried to track his movements, but he stopped just out of her line of sight and let some malice creep into his tone. “We Unseelie trust our dream wardens to discover the darkest of acts in others. Fae are at their most forthcoming when they’re unconscious. But you know what, Cymora?”

“What?” she echoed.

“Dreams are short. Kauzden only shared one with you, so we’re all pretty sure there’s more to your deeds than what he discovered.” He leaned over, lowering his voice to a hissing whisper. “Are you willing to make a deal and tell us what you’ve done?”

“Or do we have to cut it out of you piece by piece?” I rumbled on cue, twirling the sword and pivoting. Its tip rested just under her chin, and I turned it so she would feel the edge just barely nicking her skin.

She gasped and tilted her head back. “I…I have done nothing wrong!”

Fal chuckled without humor. “I would let you out of this room right now if I could just hear you say the rest of that statement. Repeat after me, and you’re free to go.”

A bead of sweat rolled down Cymora’s temple. Her eyes were still fixed on the blade I held near her throat, and her breathing was shallow. I was tempted to slide it closer, until she felt the point at her neck.

Make her bleed.

“I have never once done anything wrong,” Fal was saying slowly while I suppressed the desire to prod her with the weapon, “to Metalark, rightful Lady of Osme Fen.”

Instead of speaking, the words choked her throat.

Liar! Make her suffer.

I bared my fangs. “Go on. Say it.”

“Say it, Cymora. Set yourself free,” Fal pressed too.

I mimed a jab at her neck, and she yelped, trying to scrabble away from me even with her limbs bound to the chair. Fal braced the back of it with both hands so she couldn’t go anywhere.

“Say something ,” I growled in her face.

“I…I cannot,” she said softly.

Fal made a patronizing hum. “What a surprise. Put you under a little pressure, and you forget that you have to look after Lark’s welfare too. Was it so hard to admit? Maybe a moment of dissonance? You must not have thought your actions were wrong until you had to justify them to us.”

“I’m not justifying anything,” she said out of gritted teeth. “If you want me to talk, I need a vow from you both first. And that sword away from my neck. I am a lady , and I deserve to be treated as such.”

“Marius, does a lady put a silencing band on anyone, let alone her stepdaughter?” Fal asked.

I made a show of thinking about it. My response took longer to piece together, as I had to swallow down a snarl. The silencing band…the reason I hadn’t recognized my p’nixie on first glance. It was Cymora’s worst crime to my feral instincts, who wanted my mate to have her fins and gills so we could swim together.

But there was one other thing she’d done, that I knew about, that was nearly as bad. “I don’t know. Does a lady force her stepdaughter into a vow of obedience?” My aggression rose further, emerging as a dangerous rumble from deep in my chest.

Much of that anger was self-directed. I’d thought Lark was spineless upon seeing how she acted when seated next to her stepmother. I hadn’t stopped to consider whether her spine had already been snapped and crushed under a caregiver’s heel. What kind of female forced a vow of obedience on her kin?

Fal smirked. He was enjoying this game of words, while I very much wanted to move on to the part where the fish felt real pain. “Ooh, that’s a hard one. How about this? Does a lady make her stepdaughter dump out her entire nest off the side of a?—”

“Stop. Stop. I get it,” Cymora blurted. Thank fuck.

Fal made a motion between his fists like he was snapping a branch. He’d been sure this would be easy. Kauz had already softened her up for us.

“I will make amends with Lark. Just…just take the weapon away,” she continued.

“Oh, you’re never speaking to her again. We don’t want amends from you, Cymora.” He walked two fingers up the side of her head, letting her feel the points of his claws. She twitched, but there wasn’t anywhere to go between the two of us. Fal plucked out a pearl-studded hairpin that’d survived her trip here. He left a lengthy pause for her to endure as he turned it over, tossed it aside, and repeated the motions until he’d found and discarded all four decorations left in her hair. “Just a confession. And I hope you know you’re not leaving here until you end every vow Lark’s ever made to you.”

“I want a vow from you both that you won’t harm me and that I will be leaving here when we’re done. Then you can have your precious omega,” she said.

“She is quite precious,” Fal said more pleasantly. He nodded at me, and I lowered the sword away from her, angling it toward the ground. She let out a sigh of relief.

Only a short reprieve. It was getting harder to focus on our end goal here. Torture? No. This was about breaking the vow of obedience and uncovering any other nasty surprises we could’ve missed. Having Mother listening in was unexpected, but she would see firsthand why we’d immediately imprisoned and intimidated a Seelie fae upon arriving here.

Fal had already devised the wording for our vows to put Cymora at ease while leaving gigantic loopholes for any other fae to manipulate. Considering the fish didn’t know the queen and two of her kings were listening in, we were fairly sure she wouldn’t try to amend them.

“In exchange for breaking every one of Lark’s vows, I vow to you, Cymora of Osme Fen, that I will do you no physical harm, from this moment into my last moment. When we are satisfied, you will walk out of this room,” Fal said without a hint of concern.

I was more loathed to make my practiced oath. “In exchange for cooperating and answering our questions with the whole truth, I vow to you, Cymora of Osme Fen, that I will do you no physical harm, from this moment into my last moment,” I said grudgingly, though I kept a hold of the sword anyway. Its heft felt right in my hand.

“Do these terms satisfy you?” Fal asked.

She considered for only a few moments. “They do,” she answered.

Magic tingled through my body as the vow was officially struck between us. It wasn’t essence, but something older, woven into the very fabric of the fae race. Seelie, Unseelie, we were all held to our word, or else we owed grievances. And the aggrieved or their family, in the case of their death, could ask for almost anything. The fae who’d broken their word would be compelled to do it.

One side of her mouth lifted, like she thought she’d won. She had no idea that she was trapped with the Blood King on the other side of the door out of this room. My feral side hummed with a sense of satisfaction.

“We’ll start with the vows. End every vow you have over Lark,” Fal said.

“Ah, there’s only the one. I never did need any others where she was concerned,” she said, a hint of her usual bluster returning now that she thought she wouldn’t come to harm. “I’ve never released a vow before.”

“It starts, ‘I hereby revoke,’” Fal prompted.

She cleared her throat primly. “I hereby revoke the vow Metalark of Osme Fen made to me, Cymora of Osme Fen. She vowed to be a good and obedient stepdaughter and do everything she was told with a perky ‘yes, Stepmother’ and no attitude. That is no more.”

We both eased up with relief to know our mate wouldn’t be compelled to answer to Cymora’s every order and whim. She was a servant no longer.

The mermaid smirked as she added, “I also hereby revoke all demands I made of her while she was under the effects of this vow.”

I tensed and snorted when Niall stirred within me, no longer so content. “The fuck does that addition mean?” I demanded.

She batted her lashes up at me. “I ordered her to forget a number of things. An essence spinner I used to dally with warned me to stop. He said if she ever received all those memories back all at once, it would probably break something in that silly little head of hers,” she simpered.

Fal and I exchanged a glance over her head. He gave me a warning look. “It’s bluster, Mar,” he said, switching languages.

“I did mean what I said, Prince,” she continued. “You can have your precious Metalark…however she turns out.”

The sword rattled in my hands. My lips peeled back in a slow snarl that wasn’t just for show. With one lunge and bite, I could crush her windpipe.

Fal put his palms up. “She’s with Kauz. You know he can get her through something like that,” he coaxed.

This malicious trick of hers could only be answered with blood. Maybe she wouldn’t feel so smug if I broke a few of her fingers. Or her ankle. See how she fared when every step was agony.

“Hit a nerve, did I?” Cymora taunted, though I only heard it distantly. My control was fading in and out while Niall was rising, directing my thoughts where they needed to go.

We couldn’t suffer the fish to live. Even now, she was too great a threat to Lark. If I couldn’t kill her, then I would ask Theodred to do it. It would be fast, efficient.

Protect the p’nixie.

I listened through a morass of feral instinct, barely hearing Cymora continue to mouth off. She didn’t realize what my unblinking stare and dilating eyes meant.

“You’re the ones who wanted a full confession. My misdeeds, as relates to Lark? Here we go.”

Fal was still trying to reason with me, a hint of urgency entering his tone as he caught on to what was about to happen. “Put the sword down, Mar.”

“I’ll tell you everything you need to know,” Cymora continued with malicious glee. “Starting with the vow. She made it when she was six, right after her father died.”

“You wrote the letter telling us she’d died, not her father,” I rasped.

“I did,” she said. She had the audacity to sound proud.

My growling deepened with pain. The letter . The turning point in my life. Mother’s agony at losing her godchild had hit her pack bond at the same time I’d been in a practice fight with Theodred. The all-encompassing hurt from his mate had triggered his rage and blinded him for a single swing, and that’s all it’d taken for him to nearly smash my face in.

“My first order to her was a test. I made her forget her full name, and it worked. The letter wasn’t a lie. She did die…in a way. There was no longer a Metalark of Osme Fen,” Cymora said.

“You are ill in the head, aren’t you?” Fal said to her in Theli. At this point, I was no longer listening. The implications…

While I’d teetered on the edge of life and death, Lark’s subservience to her stepmother was solidifying. She had died a little, doomed to fade into the gray shade of herself we had found the night of the Omega Masquerade.

But I had died a little as well. I’d later risen from my infirmary bed an angry boy, similarly doomed to be the feral male who’d fought his instincts until I was an unchivalrous ass to my p’nixie.

I was in another place and time entirely, dealing a blow to the rawest nerve my mate carried by asking her, “What do you know of pain?” I had thought only of my struggle, my past, and the prestige of my place as the future protector of Serian’s next queen.

When, in reality, I hadn’t protected her at all. She’d suffered, and I’d failed to be there for her. Stars, that moment was going to haunt me for the rest of my life.

As would her response. She had comforted me and sat in my lap like she wanted my gentling. Looked at me with hope rather than hurt. Smashed the fortifications between fae and beast until my thoughts had slowed to feral contentment. Warm. Soft. Mate.

She didn’t know much I yearned for her companionship. She had no idea that I’d struggled to finish The Battle of Marsh Hill because I couldn’t focus on the book with her sitting so close. I hung on her every musical word and giggle while she talked to my brothers. I dreamt I’d never thrown a golden opportunity away and taken her straight to my inn room after she perfumed not for either of my alpha brothers, but for me .

Yet I’d held myself back and pushed her away. I was a fool. I’d been the only one of my pack who’d believed Mother wouldn’t immediately love her, and she’d let my fears taint her.

“I wouldn’t ask any of you to give up everything because of me,” she’d whispered.

Fuck. I would give up anything for her. I didn’t need a stupid title, just her. She didn’t know that either, but I would tell her. I’d make things right with her somehow.

Theodred’s sword clattered to the ground beside Cymora’s chair, startling her. She’d been bracing herself for an impact while I’d held it in a white-knuckled grip.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice what you were trying to do.” I had the full feral voice but iron control within. I couldn’t have my p’nixie if I owed Cymora a grievance for harming her after vowing not to. Stars only knew what she’d ask for—though I suspected it would be whatever would cause Lark maximum pain.

No more.

The fish sucked in a breath, the whites of her eyes flashing. That was true, pants-pissing fear, and she wasn’t looking at me. I wrestled my senses back from my feral side just in time to hear the door slam behind the male who placed his palm on my shoulder. I looked up into Theodred’s blood-red eyes.

“I’m proud of you, son.” The rare affirmation soothed some of my chafing nerves. “It’s time for you to go. I can take it from here.”

A good soldier didn’t question orders, so I didn’t argue. We clasped forearms like warriors, and he slapped me on the back with the kind of force that had Fal wincing. He just didn’t understand.

I left the room without another word, just to see that the lineup of observers had grown while I was inside the interrogation room. Mother was so upset that she was being comforted by two of her kings at once. It was quite rare for me to hear her whine, as she had to keep her omega reactions in check outside of private spaces. I didn’t like the sounds she was making at all, but her males had it handled. My father had his arms around her, murmuring and rocking her, while Rennyn had found us and was petting all of her fins.

I turned to view the room I’d just left through the magic-treated glass, trying to give them privacy. I mostly saw Theodred’s broad back from this angle but heard what was happening without a problem.

“I’m not going to hurt you. But I will make you no vow,” Theodred said. His bass voice and presence were usually intimidation enough when I’d seen him work other interrogations. “Let us start from the beginning. We are about to be very well acquainted.”

“Psst. Marius.”

I reluctantly turned to Rennyn, who’d whispered my name.

“Thalas sent a page earlier. He needs a strapping alpha lad like yourself for help in his workshop.”

That was all he had to say. Had something happened with Lark? Was she okay? Were her memories harming her as they returned? I’d only know when I got there.

“Nice to see you,” the dark elf king called after me as I went into motion immediately. “Missed you, kid!”

I grunted and dashed out of the underground prison as if my fins were on fire. Since he was comforting his mate as I left him behind, surely he’d understand that I had to return to mine.

I had half the palace to cross to get to the observatory slash workshop slash clutter box Thalas practically lived in. The run reminded me of another mad race to get to a different dream warden. Crossing Ilysnor’s market had been far more pleasant with my senses absolutely clogged with Lark’s chocolate and honey cracker scent, plus the intoxicating sweetness of her heat. I’d hated the loss of control then. I missed the pleasant haze of impending pleasure now.

“Out of my way!” I roared more than once, scattering clusters of courtiers and servants. The echoes of gossip whispered behind me. So be it. Lark’s identity as the next princess wouldn’t be a secret for long, especially with my packmates all acting erratically after an unexpected shared absence.

Speaking of them… I unshielded my pack bond to find it quiet. Fal was still withdrawn from it, and the lack of anything from Kauz suggested he was either asleep or unconscious. Tormund was present, boredom and anxiety his only contributions. I should’ve been right there with him with how out of control my feral side had become today. He may have fared better than me if we’d swapped places.

Who was I kidding? Tormund would never hold a sword to a female’s throat willingly, not even Cymora’s.

His side of the bond perked up when he sensed me. He sent a questioning feeling toward me, and I sent him back the mental equivalent of a thumbs-up. Anything else would cause him unnecessary panic without me there to explain what I meant.

I was just reaching the workshop and breathed a sigh of relief to find the magic-sealed door already propped open. Thalas paced on the ground floor, fiddling with his glasses on their long chain.

“About time Rennyn sent help,” he said, puffing in frustration. “Hello, Marius. Your mother’s emotions are spikier than your fins. I have no idea what in the stars is going on, but I cannot go to her until I have help moving Kauz and Lark to the infirmary.”

“What happened to them?” I demanded, perhaps with a little too much force. My roughened voice bounced in the empty space between the many balconies above us.

He put his palms up. “They’re fine. Only sleeping off their ordeals. Kauz depleted himself to the barest edge of essence to get Lark through the removal. Did I mention the silencing band?”

My ear flicked impatiently. “I know about the silencing band.”

“It’s off now. The magical outburst that occurred afterward was quite fascinating. Now that’s a rare phenomenon I am eager to study in further depth?—”

Good news about the band, but too many words. “Where are they?” I interrupted.

He pointed upward. “I can fly them both down, but you will have to carry Kauz while we head to the infirmary.”

I pulled a face and prodded my pack bond with a quick thought. Tormund would feel it and come to where he sensed I was. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Thalas to hold Lark; I simply ached to be the one to carry her to a safe resting spot.

“And while we walk, perhaps you could fill me in on a few things?” he suggested.

“I can try.”

“Let’s get started, then, shall we?” he said in his gentle way. I sighed, taking in the sense of calm wafting off him, and nodded. I shouldn’t have been so gruff with Thalas. He only wanted to be with his mate, too.

He flew up and retrieved Kauz first, the two of them landing in a less-than-graceful tangle of extra limbs. My brother’s skin was ashen. I checked under his eyelids and…yes, he was that depleted. The whites were showing. I rumbled a soft approval of his sacrifice before arranging his wings closed and picking him up with a grunt.

Thalas returned shortly afterward with Lark in his arms. “Here’s your omega. Look, just resting.” He stopped and angled her toward my left side. A sleep spell’s glitter trail crossed from her forehead to her lips.

P’nixie.

She had a new addition that my beast fixated on: the shadow of closed gills along the side of her neck. She could swim with me now, which meant we could forge a kelpie bond. My heart pounded hard in my chest at the idea. I’d give her my knot under the waves, as nature intended.

Inhaling, I caught the first hints of her natural scent returning, plus an extra sweet note. Estrus. Niall estimated it’d arrive in a couple days. Just being able to sense her impending heat was a terrible sign that had me looking at her wrist and doing a double take at the ruin of smeared ink that circled her forearm.

“Have you gotten a good enough look?” Thalas was asking. I blinked, becoming aware that I’d been staring at her quite fixedly for several minutes.

I nodded, and we started walking. The infirmary was at the center of the old fortress, now the heart of the extended palace and extra fortified. I avoided it unless absolutely necessary, as the sight and smell of it was enough to send me back almost two decades to the time I was trapped there in endless-seeming recovery.

“What happened to her arm?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s part of the phenomenon I was mentioning. Taking off the band unleashed so much magic at once that it warped all existing magic on and in her body. I imagine it’s harmless. A little ink remover will rub it out,” he said with a careless wave.

I released an uneasy growl. “She had a few charms…”

“I’ll reapply them for Kauz. He probably won’t be spinning any essence for weeks.” He shook his head. “Lovestruck lad. Both of you are, actually.”

I snuck another look at her cradled in his arms. P’nixie…

If only I hadn’t panicked this morning when I’d fought off my instincts to mark and claim Lark. I should’ve at least learned the taste of her lips instead of pushing her away…again.

“Now, what can you tell me about what’s going on?” he asked, taking me out of the loop of regrets that threatened to choke me.

“Do you remember Mother taking a godchild to her nest?”

The specks of light in his eyes flickered. “Of course. Sweet Dorei’s baby girl. They’re both resting in the stars now. The girl had traits of both a pixie and…” He drifted off. “No, it can’t be.”

“It is. You’re holding her right now,” I confirmed. “Theodred and Fal are questioning her abuser as we speak. The rest of Pack Serian is listening in.”

“My bonus girl. I didn’t even realize,” he murmured.

I was in the process of telling him about the vow Cymora broke and the memories Lark might be stuck in when Tormund finally found us. He angled for Thalas, and I shouldered into the way, placing Kauz into his outstretched arms.

“But…” he protested.

“I need to be the greedy one right now,” I told him.

He must’ve checked our pack bond, because he didn’t argue too much. I didn’t hide the relief that rushed through me when I took her back into my arms. She was light and fragile as ever, but as long as I held her, she was safe. Bands of black and silver essence were woven around her right foot, obscuring what it looked like now that that awful olcanus was removed. There’d be time enough to inspect her wounds later.

“Well, as I was saying,” Thalas said once the three of us were back in motion. “I’ll check in with Kauz and Lark in their dreams tonight. He will help her with her memories, but if the situation is severe enough, I will keep them under for extra time. As many days as it will take for her to wake with her psyche intact.”

Niall did not like the idea of her staying asleep during her heat and raged and clawed in my head. I thought maybe it’d be for the best to get her through what she’d kept bottled up for four years.

“…with your mother,” Thalas was saying while I fought to keep my internal war a private one.

“Bye, Father,” Tormund replied.

Oh, he was leaving. “Thank you,” I murmured.

“See you soon.”

At the next juncture where the halls split, he went one way, and we went another. I could scent the infirmary from here, and my skin began to crawl. It only got worse when we arrived. It was the same white tunnel, with its sectioned-off areas for different levels of triage. Spotlights of essence lamps showed where the doctors were working, while patches of darkness in other places suggested resting patients or empty beds.

That smell . The sting of pure alcohol mixed with stale sheets and surgical tools, plus undertones of blood and sickly sweet illness. It still made me want to vomit.

We spoke with the squat goblin nurse who’d been one of my primary caregivers while I was bedbound here. She smiled with all her yellow teeth and greeted me warmly by name, even now. Once she saw her new patients were a prince and an omega, she bustled to the back of the infirmary and slid the curtains around until we had a private area with two beds.

I placed Lark in the bed against the wall while Tormund got Kauz situated.

Then we looked at each other. “What now?” he asked.

“The worst part,” I answered. I angled the chair next to Lark’s bed so I could see her with my good eye, laced my fingers through her limp hand, and waited.

And waited some more.

Time bled away. There was no telling the hour when Thalas visited to apply a powerful sleeping spell on both my brother and my mate. He then painted a fertility blocker and a heat suppressant on the inside of her wrist with essence-infused ink and left.

Day two, he kept them under with the same spell.

My beast tuned out most of the comings and goings of various fae who checked on both the bedbound dreamers. Maybe they tried to talk to me, but nothing got through the feral haze. I refused to move from her side.

Three days, then four. I marked them by Thalas’s visits.

The infirmary was the same nightmare as before. No windows meant no true understanding of day or night. I nodded off out of sheer exhaustion, just to startle awake to a new whiff of the smell around me. In those incoherent moments, I feared I was a boy again, trapped in some nightmare where the p’nixie was still alive but I hadn’t recognize her and was an ass to her.

No, that was real. And if she never woke up, I’d never have the opportunity to grovel for her forgiveness.

Wake up, Lark. You have to wake up…

On day five, Thalas reached over unexpectedly to apply a sleeping spell to me, too.