Page 59 of Fated or Knot (UnseelieVerse: The Omega Masquerade #1)

59

FAL

I t was Marius who pressured Ellisar the most. With his twin axes in hand, he was leaving gouges behind in every tree that Ellisar touched. He’d picked his weapons tonight for wood cutting, and our enemy had to move hastily to keep from being split.

The kelpie had the best nose out of all of us. However, I could smell the barkfolk too. More specifically, the bitter odor of faebane poison that wafted from him. He could assimilate into as many trees as he wanted, but he wasn’t getting away, and the scant minutes he had left were ticking away as he fled.

As the poison spread through his bloodstream, he grew sloppy, until he remained against a tree long enough for Kauz to reach out with magic and rip him away. It looked remarkably like peeling a leech from a wound, except it was a Seelie fae off of something natural. Ellisar thudded on his back into a patch of grass and was instantly surrounded by all four of us.

I held up my hand, stopping Tormund before he incinerated the barkfolk.

I inspected Ellisar off the light of an essence lamp bobbing just over Kauz’s shoulder. His lips and the inside of his mouth were already turning gray as he laid there, panting. His head turned back and forth from dizziness, and he probably couldn’t see a single one of us clearly. A pity.

Faebane was a mix of two poisons. It went for the nerves and a fae’s essence reserves, delivering a swift but agonizing death. A fitting end for the male that’d tormented my mate for so long. But if he wasn’t already afflicted with faebane, I would’ve opted to have him die far more slowly.

“Why don’t we let Lark have this kill?” I offered the idea to my brothers and read their immediate reactions in the pack bond. I needed to stop calling a consensus amongst us rare, as they all seemed to like it.

“She stabbed him?” Marius asked Kauz.

“Better. She used the dagger-throwing trick you taught her. His bark ruined the weapon, but she hit him with enough force to pierce through to his skin.”

The kelpie practically purred. “I’m so fucking proud of her.”

That made four of us. As Ellisar wheezed and twitched from the poison assaulting his nerves and draining away his magic, he was ringed by four Unseelie smiles.

With his means of death secured, I recovered from the insane levels of bloodlust that’d spiked between me and the other two alphas in our pack bond. I turned to stare at Kauz. He wasn’t supposed to be here…he was supposed to be protecting Lark. That was his only job tonight. Yet he’d run a distraction, gotten himself injured, and here he was now, gloating over our mate’s fallen enemy.

None of us were with Lark. Fuck . I took hold of Marius’s shoulder. “You’re in charge here. Make sure he dies,” I said briskly.

Before they could ask questions, I spun around to sprint back the way we’d come. I was able to see in low light conditions without trouble due to my race and the cat’s eyes I’d inherited from Mother’s side of the family. My sight adjusted after I left the halo of Kauz’s lamp. The forest was bathed in shades of gray and I used this to weave around undergrowth, roots, and trees while barely breaking my stride.

I ran toward the smell of smoke, as it was the most obvious indicator of where we’d left her. There should be no danger left to threaten her, but her scent was undisguised and she had to be afraid. I should’ve never left her side.

Several worst-case scenarios flashed through my head as I ran. Hopefully she didn’t flee up a tree, as we’d originally discussed as one of the options for her to avoid any fighting. I had to skirt a serious amount of fire to find our makeshift battleground. All this smoke made that the worst place for her to hide.

“Lark?” I called in a panic. “Lark!”

She didn’t hear me, but I spotted her. She had Marius and Tormund’s horses by their reins in either hand, and was making encouraging noises at my noble steed to try to get him to back away from the growing blaze. Villi had somehow turned the carriage around, and had pulled it a safe distance from the fire.

I stopped just out of her line of sight and watched her for a moment, both relieved and impressed. Most omegas would’ve completely fled after watching several fae die right in front of them, especially with a heat so close. And even though the undisguised scent of her was filling me to the brim with lusty thoughts, she still wasn’t in heat. Her scent had not fully changed.

More significantly, she wasn’t acting lost and overcome by her own body, as she had during our last dance. Without knowing if she’d perfumed or not, I’d been sure she’d succumbed. I was beyond glad she hadn’t. Just the idea of her so vulnerable while enduring the events that’d occurred after we left the revel…I shuddered at the thought.

Nay, add in that my father wanted me to keep her in the dark about the plan and push her into heat on purpose . That was unconscionable. My mouth ached from how hard I’d been clenching my teeth. I was going to look into the mirror when we got home and see dozens of gray hairs from the stress of putting her into this situation at all.

I was ready to give my father a piece of my mind, even though he’d brush it off. I already knew what he’d say. Lark was fine, her enemies were dead, and I was in rut, so of course I’m feeling overly protective.

After we helped her through her heat, I was giving him a piece of my mind anyway .

With that decided, I was done staring at my mate wistfully. I emerged from the forest and Lark’s head whipped my way, before she breathed a visible sigh of relief. “You’re back.”

I forced a lighthearted smile for her, while my horse trotted up to me as soon as he spotted me. Taking his reins, I said, “You know, when a beautiful female makes kissy noises at you, you go to her.”

Lark made a few of them at me, on cue. I went to her immediately, taking in her state with a once-over. She was scraped along her right side, and her once-beautiful dress was torn and dirty from a fall. But she regarded me as calmly as could be expected. Her star-flecked eyes darted with nerves and she was tensed to bolt if anything else went wrong, but she wasn’t seized by feral panic.

“Fal, where’s the rest of the pack? The fire’s getting out of control.” She gestured toward it.

I tapped into the pack bond to check. I could sense my brothers approaching us as we spoke. “They’re right behind me, mo stór .” Three different taps responded in our usual signal to ask if everything was all right and I gave them a thumbs up in reply.

“Oh, before I forget.” I reached into my jacket pocket, pulling out the slipper she’d lost. “I can hardly believe your feet are this small. Look how tiny this thing is. Either that, or I have cloddish alpha feet.”

I lifted my foot to put her slipper’s sole against mine in comparison. She didn’t quite giggle, but her expression grew a shade less serious, and that was progress. “Thank you for bringing it. At least something from my outfit survived.” She looked down at her dress with a pout.

“I’ll buy you five more dresses just like it.” I knelt and dusted off the dirt and clinging grass from her foot before slipping the shoe back on for her. “In different colors. With matching itty bitty shoes.”

My ears perked as she rewarded me with a single musical laugh. I straightened and kissed the tip of her nose while reaching under her sleeve to get the leather knife strap off her arm. She didn’t seem all that bothered to have it removed, though I felt her curious gaze on me as I went looking for the deadly knife I’d given her.

The scent of faebane made it easy to find. It was horribly bent, but a dot of drying blood marked the tip. Got him. I bent the knife back into some semblance of shape against a tree trunk, to at least lock it in its sheath to dispose of later.

I looked up from my work, hearing the sound of hoof beats and wheels in the dirt. Another carriage was approaching. Hmm, wonder who that might be, I thought sarcastically.

“Stay here for a moment, mo stór ,” I said, going to check. I also led my horse, since he’d follow me anyway. We needed to go out together more—and now I had the perfect reason to. I had to keep up with my treasured omega.

I’d recognize Pack Serian’s carriage even blindfolded. It stopped at a distance from Villi’s team of yoked horses, in a stretch of clearing where it wouldn’t be too challenging to turn around. Right now, it couldn’t be a less welcome sight, even though it was Theodred who exited first with a lit essence lamp bobbing just above his shoulder.

“It’s safe. They’re dead,” I told him.

“Safe is relative,” he rumbled. “Thalas! Come put out this fire.”

Kauz’s father came out next and retrieved his glasses from the chain around his neck. He adjusted them high on the bridge of his nose and his eyebrows lifted. “Oh my. Looks like you were right,” he said to the redcap king. He was soon in the air, flying toward the wildfire.

“Tor-Tor has some redcap in him after all!” This, of course, was from my father. I bit down on a growl.

“Enough to start a fire. It remains to be determined if he finally made his first honorable kill,” Theodred remarked. Oh, he was going to be thrilled when he learned he’d get to slap a tattoo on Tormund. I wondered where the very first one went.

The carriage rocked and out of it emerged my father and Elion. They approached, while Theodred kept watch where he stood. Mother and my sisters were probably all in there.

My alpha instincts went a little wild as the two alphas neared me. Lark was only a few yards behind me, and I wouldn’t allow them any closer. Not after everything else she’d gone through tonight. “Fathers. Do you need something?” I asked coolly.

Elion reached out to grab my father’s shoulder and stop him a few feet away. “We’re here for a simple retrieval,” he answered.

“As long as you tell us it went well. Otherwise, I send Theo out to cleave some heads,” Father added.

“It went well,” I said, deliberately talking to Elion. “We’ve neutralized any chance I will owe a grievance for the act of claiming my mate.”

“Yes, about that. Now I owe a grievance as well as a life debt, so I need to start paying that off to my new fish. Where is she?”

“Why did you bargain to take the grievance if I killed Cymora?” Feeling the weight of my broken word had been suffocating, but only for a moment. I was going to be more careful with my vows, in the future, so the old magic never sought fit to punish me again.

Father blinked. His surprise wiped off his face in a split-second, but I’d caught it. “ You killed her?”

I bared my fangs, unrepentant. “I swore to protect Lark, so I did. Cymora had a knife to her throat. Mercy was out of the question.”

I’d been warned countless times that the act of taking a life was a heavy burden and that the first kill was earth-shattering in its implications. That I would be haunted by that fae’s last gasp, the feel of the knife sliding against bone, or even the sight of the body going slack.

And to that, I would say, not in this case . Her death wouldn’t keep me up at night. She was the female that’d tormented Lark since she was little more than a baby, and had finally gotten what she deserved. I hoped, once Lark healed from tonight, the fact that Cymora was dead would give my mate a sense of peace.

“Good job, kid,” Father said, working his jaw. “Where’s Laurel?”

I actually wasn’t sure. I thrust my horse’s reins into his hand and went back to ask Lark. She was where I’d left her, her eyes wide and lips parted as she watched Thalas’s winged form circling overhead and the spell work he wove around the shrinking fire. It was contained behind a blackened ring of vegetation and shrinking as night-dark magic wove amongst the flames.

“Hey, Larkie!” Father was right behind me. I spun and snarled. Elion was taking care of my horse, while my father waved enthusiastically to my mate. He took a few steps back from her when he noticed my reaction. “I’m here for Laurel. Do you know where she is?”

Lark smiled, before shooting me an uncertain look. She pointed at our carriage.

I put myself between her and him as he went up and opened the door. The end of Laurel’s caudal fin flopped out onto the steps. “She’s really a fish!” Father exclaimed with a laugh. “Why is she in mermaid form?”

As Lark explained Laurel’s transformation, so she could scream for everyone to stop, he reached into the carriage to retrieve the mermaid and throw her blue and teal form over his shoulder.

I gave the unconscious girl a grudgingly appreciative look. I’d have to thank the brat, later. She was the reason Lark had decided to go along with the plan, and she’d upheld her end of the bargain in the process. “She’s trapped in the same fate that I used to be. Under Cymora’s thumb, compelled to use her magic in ways she doesn’t want, and threatened with a forced mating to Pack Ellisar. Don’t you see, Fal? If I choose not help her, then I’ll be just as bad as she was. I’d be willfully letting her suffer so I can be happy. After it’s all done, we can say goodbye to her forever.”

I’d accepted her reasoning and thought it would give her valuable closure. But deep down, I knew with Lark empathizing with her and with my father taking a shine to her, I’d never be quite rid of my new stepsister.

“It stinks in there, by the way. You’d better overpower it with your odorous natural scent to make the ride home more bearable,” Father said, carrying Laurel off with him.

I went with him, saying, “You know, the last time you were in rut, I wasn’t constantly making remarks about how you smelled.”

“The last time I was in rut, I wasn’t posturing over Nemensia like you were some rival.”

“She’s my mother!”

“And Lark’s my daughter. My first instinct is to go hug the traumatized thing.” He sure as fuck was not going to be doing that. I’d lose my starsdamned mind at this point if any alpha except for one of her mates touched her.

We passed Elion. His lips thinned in disapproval. “I wonder whose fault it is that she was put into danger,” he said pointedly.

Father shrugged. “Pack Ellisar.”

My mouth ached…I was grinding my teeth again, trying to keep myself from snapping at him.

“Hey, I get it. I was pissed the first time my mentor told me to put Nemensia adjacent to danger for one of his schemes,” he said as I turned my back.

I shot a glare over my shoulder. “And what did you do?”

“Same thing you did, I’d wager. I saw it had to be done, so I told her everything, shared why it was happening, and cut a few corners to make sure she was as comfortable as possible.”

Taking a deep breath, I said through gritted teeth, “If you’re about to say this was a test…”

“Nay, I value my life too much,” he said cheerfully. “Bye, sunshine lad.”

“If no one else has said it, happy mating day. We’ll handle the details from here, including the horses. Have Tormund bring the others over here. Your mate needs your full attention,” Elion said. He patted my noble steed’s neck and nodded when I shot him an appreciative glance.

My brothers were clustered around Lark when I returned to her side. Now that everyone was together, we went into a flurry of activity to get her home and comfortable in her nest.