Page 25 of Fated or Knot (UnseelieVerse: The Omega Masquerade #1)

25

LARK

“ F irst, you should see this,” Thalas whispered before the dream fully formed.

It was one of his memories. Somehow, I could sense that, like his presence in the room was a little firmer than the other fae. I stood behind his seat at a circular table, where seven fae ate and laughed together through a generous dinner. Queen Nemensia gave her full attention to another nixie seated to her right. She was smaller and daintier than the queen, but considering how Nemensia’s presence commanded a room, it wasn’t hard to seem little next to her.

Next to this other nixie was a younger version of my father, Kellam. Well, maybe not too much younger than what I remembered. Just a more carefree version of him. He looked at her like she’d hung the moon. No wonder—she had his cloud-formed pack mark between her brows.

I’d already learned that, no matter what, I couldn’t get the attention of anyone to disrupt a memory. What happened would happen. I circled around the table to get a better look at her, Dorei, my mother. She had a sweet, tinkling laugh, and her fingers twined with my father’s. Her hair was braided behind her head in a fancy style, the white strands glimmering with stars. She was a dreamlander, then, made more obvious by the specks twinkling in the whites of her eyes and the blue of her irises.

She was still a nixie, though, with light purple skin. The trailing fins resting on her back glowed with indigo swirls, motifs of comets through them all. “You’re so beautiful,” I murmured.

Then she coughed. A deep, nasty cough that cut through the hum of conversation in the room.

“Oh dear. Should we call for a healer?” Thalas asked.

“No, no. It’s okay,” Dorei said past the napkin she held over her mouth.

“She’s picked up an allergy or something.” Kellam glanced over at her with a hint of concern tightening his mouth.

Nemensia tutted. “She’s allergic to that farm town you stole her away to.”

“The whole town?” asked the dark elf sitting next to Thalas. He didn’t look familiar, with his dusky skin, ruby-red eyes, and horns, but his smile sure did. I’d seen that level of Unseelie mischief on Fal’s face every day.

“The whole town,” the queen echoed in agreement. She rubbed her stomach idly, and the fabric of her dress pulled, revealing the curve of a belly bump half hidden under the table.

“Or it could be…” Kellam drifted off, and Dorei met his gaze meaningfully as she finished dabbing at her lips.

As she started to smile and cup her belly too, I noticed something. That button nose, the shape of her mouth and the apples of her cheeks. I looked in the mirror every day and saw my mother in my features. What an unexpected blessing.

Stars, she seemed so kind. I was hanging on her every word and gesture by this point. She’d passed away before my memories even started, ended as I began. This dream was a gift. A chance to see her as she was.

“We came here to tell you something special,” Dorei said. She was practically glowing with happiness as she and Kellam announced together, “We’re expecting!”

Nemensia purred with delight and grabbed her in a big hug. “It’s about time!”

“Ah, first-time parents,” the dark elf king remarked, tilting his head toward Kellam as the two nixies held one another tightly. Nemensia rubbed her own belly again and said something that had Dorei giggling. “Just a bit of advice. The female is expecting. There’s very little ‘we’ to the whole matter.”

Kellam hummed. “Sure, Ren.”

“Congratulations,” rumbled out the gigantic redcap, who nearly knocked the dark elf from his seat slapping the back of it in an unsubtle gesture.

“Okay, here’s the plan,” Nemesia was saying. “You sell your farm town and move into the palace with us. We have room and an entire puddle of children to raise your baby with!”

Dorei and Kellam exchanged an amused glance. This wasn’t the first time Nemensia had suggested they do something like this, I bet.

“I believe it’s more of a lake at this point, my heart,” remarked the last king, a kelpie with half his head shaved. The other half was partially braided, making him resemble his second form even more strongly mixed with his solid features and gray, dappled skin. His name for her was in Serian… They’d all been speaking it this whole time, and I’d understood them perfectly.

“More to come,” the queen said. She whipped her head toward her redcap mate. “Right? Even more? You still owe me a son.”

He gave her such an intense look of promise that I blushed and glanced away. “Then a son you will have,” he answered.

“Anyway,” Dorei put in with a musical laugh. “Before we leave, I was hoping to ask…ah, you all must get this a lot.” She fidgeted nervously with her fingers. “We spoke to an auracle and learned that we’re having a little girl. I just can’t imagine a world where we’d leave her, but?—”

Another nasty cough wracked her frame. Nemensia frowned, and she wasn’t the only one. It seemed like everyone at this table was worried for Dorei.

“Go on,” the queen urged.

Dorei took a sip of water and cleared her throat. “Sorry. I was hoping you would be her godmother, Nemensia. And one of your males could be her godfather?” She glanced across the table with a hopeful look. “Thalas, perhaps? She will be part dreamlander. Maybe she’ll have my dream warden magic.”

Thalas sat straighter in surprise. “Me?”

“Don’t leave the rest of us out,” the dark elf king murmured. He, along with his brothers, had all turned to Nemensia, waiting for her decision.

She stood and walked to the space between my parents’ chairs, putting an arm around either of them. “I wouldn’t dream of taking any bonus child to my nest except for one born from you two,” she said.

“Then I’ll speak for the rest of my pack in saying, what our omega does, we wholeheartedly echo. We will be the child’s godfamily,” the kelpie king declared.

As Dorei cried tears of joy and Kellam beamed and thanked them all, I stood behind them, gaping in shock. I had a whole godfamily?

Where have they been?

The dream transformed into a retelling of my own memories, which were crisper than one would expect a three-year-old’s to be but still covered by the pleasant haze of innocence. Dad and I had taken a magirail ride! I’d smushed my face on the glass to watch the world go by, only getting bored when I realized there was mostly water between the fae nations.

Then we’d taken a long walk with my hand in his, up to the biggest building I’d ever seen. It was late springtime, and the Serian winter was finally gone, revealing a field of growing grass and flowers on the path to the palace. “Remember, Metalark. You want to be on your best behavior,” Dad prompted.

“Okay,” I giggled agreeably.

I was meeting my godfamily, and Dad was nervous. We reviewed what best behavior meant, because he knew I was about to meet the most powerful Unseelie fae in Serian, while I was blissfully unaware of what that meant.

Once I’d promised to be polite to anyone I met, he lifted me up above his head and let some of his wind magic ruffle my wings as I flapped them eagerly. I couldn’t fly yet, but someday!

We met Nemensia in the entry foyer. Dad tried to introduce us formally. I practically vibrated at his side, fascinated by the pretty nixie and her glowing fins that flowed behind her when she moved.

There were more subtle instincts at play. Little omegas wanted the safety and comfort of their mother’s nest and the softness of their hugs. I’d yearned for these things without knowing what I was missing, and Nemensia had the right kind of milky smell that said Mom .

I wandered from my father’s side mid-introduction and toddled over with my arms out. She dropped to her knees, on the end of her expensive dress, and swept me up.

“Hello, baby Metalark,” she murmured. Unshed tears glimmered in her eyes as I snuggled into her with full trust.

That was all it took for her to work to convince Dad to let me sleep in her nest during our stay. We were spending a fortnight here, a rare vacation for Dad and an opportunity for me to meet my godfamily. She became Mama Nem, as my tongue didn’t have the agility for the full grandeur of “Nemensia” yet. Though I often forgot and just called her Mom. She never corrected me.

Her nest had seemed beyond massive. It had multiple levels and was full of soft materials I’d never touched before but loved. The ground floor had been designed for kids, while Nemensia disappeared upstairs if she ever needed a break or a moment with her males. One always stayed below to watch us. There were three of their kids still young enough to live in the nest, and they tossed me in with them without hesitation.

The youngest was Tormund, who was an energetic and playful tot with a tendency to grab and hold on to things with his full strength. He became a lot gentler after I screeched when he grabbed one of my wings. He’d pet it in apology. There was also Eletha, a tiny purple nixie with white markings on her fins. She was my age and cuter than most dolls, with wide eyes that took up most of her face. The last kid still in the nest was Kauz, who, at four, was mostly wings. He had almost no control of them, so they dragged behind him and tangled with everything, including his other limbs.

At night, the royal pack would carry us to the biggest bed I’d ever seen, and I slept in various spots. Along with Mama Nem’s instant acceptance of me had come that of her mates. They called me their bonus child, and each spent some time with me.

Dad had raised me bilingual, but at that age, everything I said was a jumble of two languages that required some finesse in interpretation. The best at understanding me was Papa Rennie, also known as the dark elf king Rennyn, who ran the palace for his mate. I followed him like a duckling “helping” him if I found him, which wasn’t very often, considering how he was always in motion and I was usually in the gaggle of the royal pack’s youngest kids.

He’d hum or whistle and snap his fingers, walking to his own rhythm in the halls as he went to and from what were probably very serious matters Nemensia didn’t have time to address personally. He had a lucky coin he’d flip, which, with a little sleight of hand, would become a candy or a shiny chocolate made from a beetle-shaped mold that he simply called a bug, conditioning me to say “Yes, I want a bug!” I was more than a little peeved when he handed me a real bug once.

The Unseelie called him the Clever King, and even at that age, I noticed that many of the adults he interacted with were overly polite when he was around. He tried to teach me some cleverness in idle moments, like little cheats for card tricks or just the subtlest of word changes for hiding inconvenient truths. I failed at following his lead each time, and he’d ended up ruffling my hair, saying, “We’ll wake the Unseelie in you yet. Maybe in a few years, p’nixie.”

P’nixie started as his shorthand for what I was after a lighthearted discussion of what exactly to call a pixie-nixie hybrid. As far as they knew, I was the only one so clearly possessing traits of both of the most sought-after fae races in Thelis and Serian. Very special indeed.

I met the royal pack’s other, older kids mostly in passing. There was Fal, who, at eleven, was a tired, cat-eyed elf boy clearly sick of being the eldest kid of a gigantic family. He avoided the little kids when he could, so he and I barely interacted. He was deep in study with various tutors to be the next queen’s lord, with all the expectations that came with it.

The next eldest, Marius, more than made up for his disinterest. He was seven, almost eight, at the awkward in-between phase of early childhood and the start of his training as the next queen’s protector. With little to do until he got bigger, he was the family’s wild boy, and by day two of my stay at Serian Palace, he’d presented me with the biggest flowering weed in the queen’s garden—roots, dirt clots, and all. “Want to be friends, p’nixie?” he’d giggled.

This had been before he’d gotten his scar. He had a chubby, often dirt-streaked face, and fast feet to avoid the gaggle of servants assigned to try to keep him clean and safe. I was too small for some of his mischief, but we sought each other out when the whole family was together. He was, perhaps, my best friend. The one with all the fun ideas and the extra set of hands when I was playing, especially on beach day.

And beach day was the best one of my stay. We’d built sandcastles, chased crabs and sandpipers, collected shells, and, of course, played in the sea. His father lurked underwater in kelpie form while we floated around, surfacing at random under a kid to send them into the air from a gentle toss of his snout. My wings had been saturated with water and sagged into fins, but I still attempted to flap them with a gleeful giggle each time he launched me before I fell back into the sea with a splash.

The kelpie king, Papa El, was a very busy male. However, every time I was with him, I sensed his fatherly affection on omega instinct. It was a good thing my father wasn’t around when we first met, though, because I broke the news to Elion that his features resembled a horse’s. He reminded me of a noble animal that was both strong and graceful, with half his blue- green hair shaved off, his gray skin dappled like his kelpie form’s coat, and gold rings glinting on his nose and ears.

Which was great, because I loved horses! Dad had the gentlest mare, Meya, and we went for rides together. When I was older, he promised I’d get to ride Meya on my own!

Elion listened to my whole horse speech with the most amused expression before saying, “I’m glad you like horses so much, p’nixie. I hope you never lose that.”

I mostly saw him at night and during his morning walk, as he was usually hearing petitions, hosting meetings, or conferring with Nemensia on important-sounding matters. He was nothing like his son, neither the wild boy nor the grumpy male I knew, possessing easy charm to the point it seemed like everyone liked him.

The morning walk was a favorite of mine since that was one of the only times Papa Theo wasn’t working either. The redcap king wore shorts and a sleeveless vest most days, plus some of the largest weapons forged, strapped to either his back or hip. The clothes did nothing to hide the blood-red heritage tattoos wrapped around his limbs like chains of stylized knots. He was the biggest male I’d seen before or since, a mountain of muscle with one expression carved deep in his craggy face, but I’d taken one look at him and lifted my arms up to be held.

I spent the morning walk on his shoulders, holding the Unseelie’s fearsome Blood King’s ears for balance while flapping my wings and looking around at the world from a seven-plus-foot vantage. I felt quite safe up there.

He usually walked me to the workshop, where my last bonus dad had a daily story time for the little kids—Kauz, Eletha, Tormund, and me, though the other girls in the family, Siora and Tanith, weren’t too old for story time yet. Marius occasionally joined us too and sat next to me, though he fidgeted like crazy from sitting still for so long toward the end.

Papa Thas—I couldn’t fully pronounce his name either—took the dreamlander kids aside weekly for an extra talk about dreams. That included Kauz and Eletha, his two children born back-to-back. We’d sit in the circle of his wings and discuss topics like Never, Ever, and Always.

Never, the path of nonsense at best and insanity at worst. The dreams of lost opportunities, of events that were yearned for but never occurred. These things and their inherent darkness had to be trimmed from the dreamlands.

Ever, dreams focusing on things that had already occurred, were harmonious. They could be beloved memories or terrible ones. The only commonality they needed to have was that they’d happened. Our brains tended to remember things for a reason, even if it was only to remind us not to fail in the same way twice.

And then Always. Thalas smiled to himself as he got to that part. “The rarest of them all, the path of fate. Some say our lives are already written and stamped into the dreamlands as Always. Fate smells incredible, little ones. It will lead you down the path you’re meant to walk or to the one you’re meant to be with.”

“Like you and Mom?” Kauz asked.

Thalas’s secretive smile only got wider. “That’s right, my boy. I still smell Always from her every night we dream together.”

I woke thinking, S tars, how romantic. I wasn’t awake-awake, but I took in the pile of fragmented memories waiting for me in the pit below with a new sense of purpose.

I wasn’t alone in this world, not anymore. Those had been my memories, my godfamily, and my future mates before any of us developed our designations and pheromones. I was loved . I’d just forgotten it for a while.

“No one in my pack has forgotten you.”

I intended to find that out for myself and rebuild from there. Kauz joined me when I was in my second memory of the day, his face pinched with worry before relaxing at whatever he saw in me.

“I have to wake up,” I told him.

He nodded in agreement and stayed by my side. Though he faded in and out on the edge of depletion, he remained with me for the nine days it took to restore all my memories. Half of my newfound strength came from having his calm presence at my back. He got me through the ordeal and watched some of my darkest moments without flinching, all while keeping his silence unless I needed a few words of reassurance to keep going.

Most memories came with a sense of surprise from learning more things about myself than I’d realized existed. Hidden depths added nuance to my past and experiences. Like when we stepped into a moment from when I was eighteen. Cymora had taken me and my least favorite trio of barkfolk to the nearest city to sign a couple of contracts. I remembered one of them…but the other…

“I signed the lands of Osme Fen over to Cymora,” I narrated to Kauz while the memory played out in front of us.

The courthouse was empty of people except for the male overseeing the paperwork across the table from my younger self. She bent to sign her name several times throughout a sheaf of paper while Pack Ellisar leered at her ass. Her cheeks heated with humiliation all the while, tears pricking the corners of her eyes.

“I was her ward until this moment,” I mumbled. “She was my guardian until I came of age. Father had put it in the will.”

“Of course he did,” Kauz answered. His fingers laced with mine. “The title is yours by birthright. My brothers and I noticed that Cymora didn’t have a reason to be Lady of Osme Fen from the moment you clarified your relationships. This is theft .”

I nodded in agreement, clutching his hand tightly when the memory continued to play out. Cymora and Ellisar, the eldest of his brothers, crowded close to my past self while she looked over the second contract. I remembered reading it as closely as I could as…

Kauz breathed a low growl while Ellisar groped this memory of me. Shadows darkened the air around him, shivering with promises of terror and nightmares, as the stars in his eyes sparked like lightning strikes. My heart leapt to see him truly angry.

My past self had gone rigid and bitten down on a whine so the barkfolk wouldn’t take my reaction as any kind of arousal. The official was too busy congratulating Cymora as the new Lady of Osme Fen to notice what else was going on.

The memory wasn’t going to cut off until we saw the rest and the inevitable order by Cymora to forget signing over Osme Fen to her. That was the part of this that I’d forgotten, because I still remembered and dreaded the other contract, the one I still hadn’t told the princes about.

“Kauz, I should’ve told you about this. I just…” I fumbled for some kind of explanation, knowing it was way too late now.

“What are you waiting for, girl? Sign it,” Cymora snarled once she realized I was hesitating.

“Yes, Step?—”

Kauz tugged me to turn away from the scene, pressing kisses to my lips. The night terrors wrapped around him dissipated. “So, this is the pack you wanted to run from. I already know you were forced to sign a breeding contract. You told me during our first dream together,” he murmured.

“I did?” I breathed.

“Aye. It was your strongest reason for running away to a sanctuary city. If this is how they treated you in public, I can’t blame you.”

Well, knowing about them hadn’t seemed to dampen his opinion of me. And if he knew, that meant his brothers did too, and they hadn’t said a word. I was still flooded with humiliation. “They’re also why I held my heat back for so long. They bought access to the heat but always threatened to make me their omega.”

Sparks darted across Kauz’s starlit eyes. “They will never touch you again, sweetheart. If they dare to show themselves in Serian, they’ll swiftly lose their heads,” he said through clenched teeth. “Breeding contracts are very illegal.”

It was such welcome news that I wept with relief and clung to him between memories. I peppered him with questions, and yes, his brothers knew already and none of them considered Pack Ellisar even a remote threat. Kauz had even sent off a spy to be sure they wouldn’t meddle with me joining Pack Sorles.

Stars, Kauz was incredible. I… needed him. Like a caged lark yearning for its song or a night sky awaiting its stars, I wanted him. Even without a hint of my heat here, I wanted him to lay me down and help me forget the clarity of some of the things we had just witnessed. And while he’d be a willing partner, by the end of our time together, he was so exhausted he could barely speak.

He’d pushed the end of his limits for me. And I was hopelessly in love with him for it.

Thalas arrived to send us away from this corner of my mind yet glanced aside to give us a bit of privacy when Kauz cupped my face. We kissed for the last time before we’d go our separate ways. I’d go up to wakefulness and he’d go down into rest to recover his essence.

“Come visit me,” he murmured.

“I will,” I promised.

“Visit my dreams,” he clarified, tapping me lightly on the nose.

I hesitated. It wasn’t like I had any practice or control over any dream warden magic I’d inherited from my mother, but… “I’ll try. And Kauz?”

“Mmm?” He was losing definition, fading out of my mind.

I should’ve told him how I felt. I had the opportunity, but it didn’t feel like the right time. Not with his father crammed into our little alcove, his hearing still bat-sharp even with his head turned.

I settled for saying, “Thank you for setting me free.” I put as much affection into those words as they could hold.

He attempted a knowing smile and dipped his chin. The next moment, he was gone, dropping into a much-needed rest. And the heartbeat after that, I was opening my eyes to the start of my new life.