Page 47 of Fated or Knot (UnseelieVerse: The Omega Masquerade #1)

47

MARIUS

T he trap was set. All I had to do now was wait, though waiting was the worst part of any endeavor. It gave me way too much time to wallow in my own thoughts.

At least instead of reflecting on my doubts and fears until they became snapping, clawing nightmares, I dwelt on my p’nixie. Her absence was a fierce ache in my chest. I at last understood why my father called Mother his heart. It seemed I’d given Lark mine at some point in the bonding process and I’d no longer feel complete without her by my side.

I’d last slept in her arms and she lingered with me as the only sweet thing I’d ever crave. Her effortlessly musical voice and laugh haunted my ears, and I wanted the softness of her body against mine. She was mine , my mate, and the future mother of my children. I longed to return to that inn by the sea, just the two of us. It’d been what, two days? Three? This time without her just seemed to blur. I’d returned to Neslune after stealing one last kiss, and paced in her rooms that night, plotting how to hunt Pack Ellisar as efficiently as possible, so they would have no chance at troubling her.

I’d settled for creating a scent trap, since I’d brought home some of Lark’s underclothes, still stained with the heady smell of her slick. Her enemies knew what she smelled like. They’d probably embedded that scent in their nostrils, dreaming of claiming her against her will when they pawed at her.

The trio of barkfolk had to be fucking stupid. It was the only reasonable explanation for them watching Lark suffering from her pre-heat for four years without succumbing. Did they gawp at one another as they wondered what was taking so long? They’d certainly enjoyed bullying her when she was at her most vulnerable, limping and magicless.

I would take great joy in breaking all three of them. Even if Lark didn’t want to see their battered corpses laid at her feet, it would still be done and they would trouble her no longer.

My estimation of their intelligence was one of the reasons why I assumed a scent trap would work in the first place. I’d first washed with scent-blocking soap to dampen the heavy waves of musk I was still putting off from my rut. Then I’d tied a satchel to my side that leaked Lark’s scent, leading a deliberate looping trail through the Seelie side of Neslune, the Garden District. It was a beautifully maintained piece of land on the outskirts of the city, where Theli was the dominant language and most Seelie immigrants ended up living.

I’d loosened the satchel to leave a strong impression of chocolate and honey crackers in front of a general store at the end of the district. Just beyond this store, the oversized flowers grown and coaxed into place by Seelie magic met the scraggly Serian forest. If this worked, one of the barkfolk would emerge from hiding in the wilderness and run face-first into my mate’s scent. And since I was seated by a window in a tavern across the street, I would see the moment it happened.

Fal was already at work in the Garden District, doing things his own way. Making friends. He’d gotten Thalas’s help before I’d even arrived and had the Magician King transfer our Seelie disguises to rings. Thalas had changed my features more than the basic merman illusion, since my face was known around my home.

He’d advised I avoid speaking, as most mermen had melodic voices rather than my irritable growl, and the Garden District Seelie were on high alert for anything suspicious. As soon as the crown announced a sizable bounty for three barkfolk, a flood of would-be bounty hunters upturned this district and harassed our more plantlike citizens. Some Unseelie had to be thrown out by the police for ruining the business of the single barkfolk who already lived here, a beta female.

Fal had approached her in the guise of a forest elf to apologize for the damage done to her greenhouse and shopfront, then paid her handsomely to demonstrate how barkfolk magic worked. She’d called it treeshaping. A barkfolk could assimilate into the side of a tree and blend into its bark. With their eyes closed, a motionless barkfolk would be perfectly camouflaged.

From there, they could listen in to the network of tree roots to learn information about a forest’s surroundings and jump from tree to tree quickly. The barkfolk strongest in their magic could also command tree roots and branches to move at their command.

We assumed the bark brothers—as we now called Pack Ellisar—had seen the wanted posters going up and gotten the fuck out of the city. If they had more than two thoughts between them, they were still close, and waiting out the public’s attention. All magic had a weakness, though, and the beta female shared that even a perfectly assimilated barkfolk needed to eat.

Fal intended to pay her further, as Crown Prince Falindel, for her troubles with her business, and for giving us enough information to devise a strategy.

Fal thought the bark brothers were disguised via illusions and hiding in plain sight amongst the Seelie, working to get a foothold in the city and waiting for information on Lark. I figured that was giving them too much credit for forward thinking. If they’d managed to acquire a disguise, one of them would use it to tiptoe into town, buy supplies, and go back into hiding. We’d see who was right.

Thalas had given us identical gadgets and explained in detail how they worked, which had been entirely too many words. All I cared about was that mine was discreet, resembling a bronze timepiece, and already attuned to the magic that’d formed our Seelie illusions. Instead of telling time, the needle under its glass dome would point toward the next nearest concentration of essence, presumably an essence spinner or a full-body illusion.

It currently pointed toward a boisterous olive-skinned alpha orc behind me, pounding down beers with a group of laborers. He was probably an essence spinner, a conclusion I came to after listening in on his conversation for a while. I was a loner at a window by myself, by all appearances a lonely merman drinking the day away. I’d spent plenty of full moons after settling here.

I was into my fourth flagon of imported Theli wheat beer. The last time I’d drank this, I’d been watching Lark limp out of a Theli inn while thinking the locals had no taste. It was absolute swill, too sweet and fruity. But now it reminded me of her and it eased my feral side’s anxiety about her absence, just a little.

The staff left me be to daydream about my mate and suffer from the relentless pressure in my loins. I’d been in rut for an unusually long time and being away from Lark hadn’t made it fade like it should’ve. I should probably seek medical assistance soon.

Who was I kidding? I never went to the infirmary. I just needed to be knot-deep in my mate a couple dozen more times. That should fix me right up.

A forest elf came up to my left side and clunked his flagon against mine. I tensed, nearly snarling at him, before I recognized Fal’s disguise. No longer a lithe and elegant dark elf prince, he’d been given muscles and scars to better resemble a working class alpha. We wore the same fake pack mark, a wheel and anchor.

“Hey, brother,” he said gruffly, speaking Theli. I slapped him on the back in greeting, as he would be used to if he spent any time at all with the kind of alphas he was emulating. He winced and drew up the stool next to mine, taking a quick glance at my timepiece-like gadget.

“Any lead?” I asked in a low voice.

“Not yet. How goes this?” He couldn’t help a chuckle from entering the question. Perhaps he was right to be doubtful. There were three or four entrances to the Garden District straight off the forest, and the wind would have dispersed most of the scent trail by now. The sun was setting, and clearly, since Fal was here, the Seelie were turning in like flowers shuttering their blooms as daylight faded.

Fal smelled downright floral. The scent change was the only symptom of rut he was displaying so far, and probably helped him fit in amongst the Seelie he’d spent time befriending. I hadn’t deliberately rubbed my affliction into his side of the pack bond, yet he’d picked it up from me immediately. His side of the pack bond simmered with aimless lust. It’d probably boil over into a rut as persistent as mine the moment Lark returned to the city and he caught a whiff of her mouthwatering scent.

She’d be nudged into estrus and sandwiched between us so fast…

“Are you going to answer the question, or just drift off?” Fal grumbled.

I blinked, coming out of what Lark called ‘the feral stare,’ when my thoughts would dissociate from reality and my eyes would dilate. “Nothing’s happened yet.”

Fal took a long, overly obnoxious sip of his beer. His brows lifted in surprise. “It would be unfortunate to develop a taste for this,” he mused.

“It’s disgusting.”

He eyed the three empty flagons I’d shoved off to the side. “Uh huh.”

“It reminds me of her.”

He drummed his fingertips on the counter, though the illusion betrayed him by not masking the clicking of his growing claws as they struck the wood. I kept my gaze on the dirt path leading in from the forest, even as growing shadows lengthened into oncoming night outside. I tipped another swallow into my mouth and longing soured it going down.

P’nixie…

“I miss her too,” Fal said heavily.

The lack of a needling remark was unlike him. Any other day, he’d ask what it was about the disgusting beer reminded me of our mate. Instead, he hunched over his flagon in a mirror to how I sat. Loneliness was as disconcerting and ill-fitting a look on him as the stiff illusion he wore.

He hadn’t seen Lark in over a week. A self-imposed sacrifice he’d made for me. Yeah, he’d half-assed a deal to hide his intent, but he’d opened the way for me to bond with Lark first for a reason. To make sure we would bond. Tormund and Kauz had fallen for her immediately, and if my older brother was ever fully honest about it, so had he. I’d been the odd one out, denying for too long how drawn I was to my p’nixie.

Fal, as pack lead, would not accept Lark as our princess unless we were all in agreement. I’d wager the crown’s treasure that he hadn’t confessed how much he loved her yet, dancing on a fine ledge around the words as he waited for me to stop being fucking stupid. He may have let Pack Ellisar walk right past him, and that was a huge mistake, but I owed him too deeply to do anything but partner with him to fix the situation.

And to finally acknowledge him a little. “Thank you,” I said.

He raised a brow. “For what?”

“You know what.”

His usual mischievous smirk tugged on the side of his lips and he propped his chin on his fist as he regarded me. There was the brother I knew, about to say something annoying and ruin my attempt at gratitude.

The timepiece-like gadget locked onto a new target with a tiny ping . I snatched it up first, following the line of the needle to a hooded figure pacing back and forth outside, head tilted back to scent the air.

Fal and I exchanged a glance. “Well, fuck me sideways,” he remarked.

“Incoming.” The needle followed the path this male took to the front door of the tavern before I pocketed the gadget. Fal grabbed one of my old, empty flagons and got to his feet, heading to the bar behind the hooded stranger. I sat perfectly still, trying to catch the murmur of voices under the general revelry of the crowded taproom. It was still impossible to make out what my brother was murmuring to the newcomer.

Well, Fal’s role was always to be the persuader. There was a chance this newcomer was simply a powerful essence spinner, not our quarry. After a few tense minutes, Fal tapped our pack bond in a signal I’d been waiting for. I forced myself to take a sip of beer and loosen up as he showed the hooded stranger to the stool on my left and flanked him.

My nostrils flared. Maple tree sap, sullied by a bit of dirt. Lark had described the youngest bark brother, Floris, spot on to what I smelled from this male. She’d grown to fear catching a whiff of him, knowing he’d frequent the market during the hours she usually visited, hoping to corner her. I suppressed an aggressive growl by sheer force of will.

“My new friend tells me you have information,” he said in a hope-filled hush.

I regarded him over the rim of my flagon. His illusion was that of a dryad, replacing the tree bark shingles that grow over barkfolk like a suit of armor with skin the color and texture of wood grain. The cloak was pinned down his front, probably to conceal that he wasn’t actually wearing any clothing.

“Concerning what?” I asked, speaking low and slow to disguise the worst of my feral rasp. Niall seethed, close to the surface of my mind.

“I’ve been searching for a pixie. She was here recently.”

“There are many pixies who live in the Garden District. You’ll have to be more specific,” Fal said silkily.

The disguised barkfolk took a deep drink of his fresh beer. “She’s unique, if you saw her you’d know it. Petite, white hair, silvery-gray wings. Walks with a limp,” he listed out.

My grip tightened on my flagon. I didn’t smash him over the head with it, only because Fal signaled a victory the moment Floris took a drink. We just needed to keep him here for a few minutes.

As a reward for a bit of self-control, I would torture this male soon. It was only a matter of time.

“Information will cost you,” I drawled.

“I can pay. Have you seen her?” he pressed.

I thought of Lark as we’d first met her. The poor, weak waif in a grass stained servant’s gown, completely cowed to her stepmother’s will. This male asked about the pale shade of my p’nixie, a beaten-down omega he felt so fucking entitled to, here he was asking after her in a foreign country.

My fury didn’t fade, but calculation took its place. I could toy with my prey a bit before I tore out his throat. “I have, actually. Helped her with her bags when she first moved here.”

I put my palm out and he fumbled a few full moon coins into it. “Tell me everything, please,” he whispered.

Cheap bastard, I thought, nearly amused that he thought this was enough to buy any kind of access to my mate.

“Beautiful li’l female. Delicate but curved in all the right places.”

Floris practically started salivating as he nodded in agreement. My amusement with him and this game swiftly left. He’s aroused by my mate at her weakest. Disgusting.

I was ready to see him squirm. “She said she was scared of something back home. I don’t make such things my business, but it sounded like she was running from some unwanted male attention.” I eyed him, letting my usual scowl fall into place as I grunted, “You know anything about that?”

He scoffed. “You know females, they’re fickle sorts.”

“Are you the male she’s been running from? Is that why you’re asking about her?”

“She’s my mate. She signed a contract.” There was a hint of a slur in his words, like he was several pints in, rather than a few big gulps. Not too much longer.

“Oh, did she now?” I bared my fangs in a decidedly predatory smile.

He tried to say, “She’s mine by rights.” But the poison Fal had slipped in his drink made him sound unintelligible. A good thing, because I was about to tear out his throat with my teeth if he continued implying that he had any “rights” to Lark.

“My, my, too much to drink already,” my brother remarked, his tone dangerously close to a furious growl. “Where are you staying nowadays, friend ?”

“Out in the forest,” Floris slurred.

“Your pack is in the forest?” he pressed.

“That’s right.”

“Call them.” His bark threaded through the order, compelling him. Fal had trained extensively to turn his bark into a persuasive whisper, though he couldn’t lay it on too thick. It was quite noticeable above a subtle thrum of encouragement.

But Floris, whose mind was already addled, was guaranteed to obey. After a moment, he said, “They won’t come. They already said I’m on my own if I get caught.”

“What a shame. No matter what?”

“That’s right.”

I wasn’t too surprised. It would just make hunting the other bark brothers slightly more interesting, once they started to feel the pain we inflicted on this male. Floris would agree to anything, including a deal to lead us to the rest of his pack, with the right encouragement applied.

Fal flashed his fangs, unbothered as well. “Well, in that case, this has been fun, but you’re coming with us. Don’t put up a fuss. We have plenty more questions for you to answer.”

We practically carried Floris between us to a carriage we’d had waiting to take us home. The barkfolk acted for all the world like a real drunkard, even catching a short nap on the journey. I ripped the hooded cloak off of him, revealing his true form.

He seemed alien to me, an ambulatory tree fae with vines for hair. He was covered in bark over most of his body, though the majority of it formed smooth whorls over his limbs and face. The shingles across his chest stuck out, though. Did he have flesh and blood under those layers of bark? I’d have to pry some pieces loose and see for myself.

We took off our disguises and dragged him through a back entrance to the palace and straight into the dungeon. He woke from our rough treatment and gained enough of his bearings to realize he was undisguised and being dragged along by a pair of Unseelie. He shrieked like a banshee until I slapped him, full force. The smooth-looking bark across his cheek had filled my palm with stinging splinters.

“Shut the fuck up,” Fal said for me, while I gritted my teeth on a vicious curse.

The barkfolk shut his mouth, cringing. I’d cracked his cheek, actually, revealing two inches of broken wood and a trickle of blood. Interesting. He was more fragile than I thought.

We hauled him to the first interrogation room, just to nearly collide with Rennyn, who was on his way out. “Well, well! If it isn’t my sunshine lad and wild boy,” he said, recovering first. His ruby red gaze landed on the male struggling between us and his easygoing manner morphed into a rare glimpse of a bloodthirsty smirk and closed-off, calculating stare. He switched to speaking Theli. “But who’s this?”

“Floris of Osme Fen,” I said.

The barkfolk stopped trying to free himself to turn and stare at me. “How did you?—”

“Floris of Osme Fen!” Rennyn exclaimed. “No way. I’m a big fan.” I could feel Fal rolling his eyes through our pack bond.

The barkfolk blinked owlishly. “You are?”

“Certainly. Of the absolute faesteel balls you must have hidden…somewhere in all that”—Fal’s father looked over his body while Floris tensed—“to have the nerve to come all the way here with a piece of paper as your only protection.”

“My brothers and I haven’t even done anything wrong!”

“Shh. Listen.” Rennyn cupped his pointed ear. The distinct sound of a female hacking up her lungs came from the interrogation room he’d just left. “That, well-endowed one, is Cymora of Osme Fen receiving the latest dose of what she deserves. She told us about you, you know. You and your brothers.”

Floris drew breath to speak, then apparently thought better of it, as he released it in a huff. I shifted impatiently, simmering with aggression. Too many words. We didn’t need to apply intimidation. Just agony.

“The murderer suffers a slow death as her body fails her with illness, a fate she once inflicted on an innocent female. What shall we do to you, hmm?” Rennyn mused.

“Nothing,” Floris practically shouted. “I didn’t do anything!”

Fal sneered down at him. “Shall we list his crimes for him, then?”

“Sure,” Rennyn agreed. “The illegal breeding contract, for one.”

“She signed it herself?—”

Tired of hearing his voice, I backhanded his other cheek. The splinters were worth it.

“She signed it while compelled under a silencing band,” I snarled.

“Which you and your brothers knew about, and intended to use so she couldn’t escape you. You had a deal with Cymora. She was going to hand you the band’s key after you took Lark into your pack,” Fal added through gritted teeth.

The barkfolk went silent, eyes widening. Gawping. Stupid. Put him out of his misery, snarled my feral side.

I met Fal’s gaze with a questioning tilt of my head, and he nodded back grimly. What the fuck. Yet another thing I’d missed by losing my shit and leaving her interrogation early. I was tempted to return to the forest and take a torch to every tree until the other two bark brothers had nowhere to hide from me.

“You came here intending to rape her, body and soul.” Rennyn was the coolest head amongst us, regarding the Seelie with that cruel twist to his mouth. He tilted his head with a condescending hum. “You are not the first, nor last, idiot to think you can walk into my domain and force a bond on one of my daughters. Do you long for the sweet embrace of death, Floris of Osme Fen?”

The male in question trembled, just a little. His eyes darted around while the king waited expectantly. “N-no?—”

“You’re about to,” Rennyn said overtop him. He jerked his head toward the next interrogation room and switched to speaking Serian. “That one’s open. Do leave him alive, boys. You’ll have help wringing information out of him tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Father,” Fal said tightly. The two of us hustled the barkfolk along before anything else could get in our way.

The seriousness of the situation seemed to finally be sinking in, as Floris tried negotiating while we tied him to the chair. I let Niall have more control so the pleading was simply background noise while I worked. I pulled the rope as I made the final knot so it was as tight and chafing as possible.

This room was identical to the first, with rusting torture implements lining the walls. Fal, who had been privy to only a few sessions in rooms such as this, turned to me for direction. I had him wait for a moment. Over the pack bond, I sensed he was in the same state as I was. Ready to let his alpha instincts out rather than talk and reason like he usually did.

Maybe after this, he’d understand how satisfying it was to defeat an enemy by force rather than leave them humiliated but otherwise unscathed from witty wordplay.

There was the tool I was looking for. I took the pair of pliers off its hook and worked it open and closed a couple times. It was stiff with age and disrepair, but it would do the job.

Floris saw me coming with a flash of dull metal in my grip and tugged fruitlessly on his restraints, saying something I didn’t care to listen to about an “agreement.” Behind him, Fal waited, his cat eyes gleaming expectantly.

“Hold his mouth open,” I directed.

The barkfolk immediately tried to shut his jaws, but Fal pulled them open for me. The dark elf smiled with vicious delight when I clamped the pliers around one of Floris’s fangs. He tried to jerk away, but I caught his jaw and relished in the fear reflected in his eyes.

“If, by some miracle, you leave this room alive,” I said in a smoky feral voice. “You will never have a chance to claim my mate.”