Page 61 of Fated or Knot (UnseelieVerse: The Omega Masquerade #1)

61

LARK

I was submerged in a dark lake, the water’s embrace warm and all-encompassing. It welcomed me down and I fell with heavy limbs. I was made heavier from the weight pressed against my forehead. I descended head-first into the silt and my body settled in a sprawl. I was too heavy to move. But I had the feeling that I could , if I just surrendered to my instincts.

I just wanted to lay there for a while in the peaceful blackness, but I knew deep down I couldn’t. I had to wake up, and the part of me that knew how to do that was my feral side. I had to give it control. It was the only way I could get what I needed to survive the heat. Even now, fiery need was coursing through my veins and warming my blood to a boil.

What I needed was my mates. I was just a little afraid of what would happen once I succumbed. Would I become a different female completely? Would I lash out? I didn’t want to lose control and end up doing something that would make my mates regret their claim.

“Nonsense.” Marius’s strong presence spoke to me over our kelpie bond. Was he here with me? “No, you’re just not quite unconscious. I can still sense your mind moving.”

“Sorry.”

He responded with one of his gentle snorts. “You have no reason to fear the heat haze. Let go, p’nixie.”

“I don’t know how.”

“You do.”

I did, kind of. My instincts did. But if they led me to surface of this dark lake, then I would wake feral and unpredictable.

“All you’re doing right now is fighting yourself. And if you’ve noticed, I’ve done the same thing for years and have never come out on top. Don’t be afraid. I’ve spoken to your feral side dozens of times. I love her. She’s small, shy, and sweet. A little prey animal in need of protection. One who makes great nests, too. Sound familiar?”

That’s how he always described me. At least, it was how he seemed to see me, as a predatory feral alpha.

“Exactly. Because she is you, my sweet prey. Just like how Niall is me.”

“Oh.” I had an undercurrent of understanding all in that little sound. I aired my biggest worry to him. “You don’t think I’m going to be violent and angry when I wake up, do you?”

He laughed, deep and rich. “Nay. I know you. You want to submit to us. You want to be fucked and knotted like we’re trying to breed you.”

It wasn’t possible to blush right now, and even then, I wouldn’t. He’d so succinctly described my carnal desires.

“Come and take what you need…”

I followed him up through the muffling feeling of deep water. As consciousness returned, so did the pain deep within my core. I was so empty . That had to be fixed as soon as possible.

My eyes shot open. I was hot, hot, hot , my skin reddened from the pulsing, burning need that’d sunk its talons in me. But my limbs obeyed when I decided to move into a more comfortable position. I had control. Now I just needed a knot to sit on.

Most of what I knew about heats, I’d read in books. They were always beautiful in fiction. The swooning omega would take her chosen mate, or mates, to her nest and they’d make sweet love for exactly two days. The heat haze was a graceful veil between her and her body’s actions when her instincts take over. And she never felt the encroaching fog that marked her descent from a thinking, reasoning female into a breedable creature of insatiable need.

I felt creature-ish as I eased to a sitting position and folded my legs under me. My sight came back into focus slowly, along with my hearing and the throbbing pulse of my heartbeat in the twin punctures right above my breast. Like before when I was bitten by Marius, I was aware of the bite, but it didn’t hurt.

Together, my mates smelled incredible. Their combined pheromones were a spring evening by the lake, with fragrant wood smoking in the campfire. It reminded me of the time when wildflowers popped out of the grass in flashes of color and everything bloomed under the mantle of warm sunshine. It was graced by the elusive sprinkling of stardust; the promise of Always.

Standing at the bedside, Marius and Tormund were locked in a dominance match, nearly nose to nose as they stared one another down. Their postures weren’t quite aggressive. Fal passed them, humming and grinning as he sauntered to the foot of the nest with a stack of towels in his arms.

There was a gentle touch along my ass. I recognized that Kauz had just stealthily slipped an essence mesh spell in me while I was still gaining my bearings.

I turned toward him, my heart pattering with eagerness. He’s the one. Though my tongue felt heavy in my mouth, I managed to ask, “What are they doing?” I was the one with the rasping, feral voice now.

Kauz settled into a seated position next to me. I inched over to press to his side, rubbing against him with a loving purr. “The second most dominant alpha, behind Fal, gets to knot you next,” he explained in an undertone. “We’ve always assumed that would be Marius, but Tormund’s never challenged him. Until now.”

I growled softly. “That’s silly.” I would be deciding who mated me next.

He smiled and inclined his head in agreement. “Don’t get caught telling alphas their posturing is silly.”

An odd thing happened as I regarded Kauz with the full measure of lust burning within my core. I sensed four echoes of emotion. This was something new, something anchored in the horseshoe-shaped strip of flesh above my heart. Maybe…it was the pack bond already taking root in my soul.

What I felt only encouraged me. I launched myself at Kauz and hooked my legs around his waist. My weight and strength alone probably wouldn’t be enough to budge him, but I had surprise and a bit of leverage on my side. I grabbed his undamaged wing and with a determined pull and a twist of my hips, I rolled him onto his back and straddled him.

His eyes widened. “What’re you doing?”

I scooted back and rubbed his length through the wet seam of my pussy, making a pleased trill that he was already erect and throbbing. Yes yes yes.

“Lark, I…fuck. This isn’t a good idea. I don’t have a knot,” he said.

Didn’t he see? I loved him. I’d chosen him to be next. “I need you.”

“You need an alpha’s knot, sweetheart.”

I shook my head, frustrated. Too many words for a simple situation. “I need you ,” I repeated. And despite his mild protests, he hadn’t lifted a finger to move me off of him.

“Stop arguing and give her what she wants,” Marius growled. It seemed they’d determined a winner, as he shoved Tormund back a step as the other male bowed his head briefly. Dominance and need rolled off the kelpie through our bond.

He glanced my way and made a feral sound of greeting aloud, saying the equivalent of hello, sweet prey . I shivered in delight and made a trill back, inviting him to join us. I needed him too. He bared his fangs in a predatory smile, but murmured something to Tormund first.

I turned my attention to Kauz, inspecting him for any signs of unwillingness. He smiled back and reached up to stroke his fingertips down my cheek. “Well, if you insist that I’m what you want, I would never deny you.”

“Need. I need you,” I corrected. I sank onto Kauz’s shaft with a sigh of relief. Not so empty anymore. I rested my palms on his chest and rolled my hips to fuck myself on his cock. He touched me more, and the tingling he left in the wake of his fingertips was all the more potent when I was already feeling so exquisitely sensitive. When his magic brushed the side of my new omega mark, I nearly came on the spot. That strip of flesh was like a second, much larger clit. Pleasure resonated through me every time it’d been touched so far.

The nest dipped. “Is the mesh ready?” Tormund asked. His voice was roughened with need. Oh, sexy. I did love when he talked, especially in the deep tones of his more monstrous form.

Kauz caught my hips to still me. I contemplated biting him for that, and chose to play with myself instead, stroking my clit and folds stretched around the base of his shaft. He, in turn, seemed to turn his starry gaze to watch. I didn’t realize this would be something he enjoyed. Just proving himself to still be my kinky bat.

The gentle giant came up behind me, covering my back with redcap heat radiating from his skin. His big hands framed my torso, while his lips pressed to my neck.

“Should be. Prep her a little first, and start slow,” Kauz answered.

My head felt heavier as I tipped it back. Still, I leaned to meet Tormund’s lips for a sideways kiss. The thick tip of his finger circled the rim of my ass while he kissed me back. I muffled his moan of surprise with my mouth as I deepened the meeting of our lips, twining my tongue with his in wild abandon. My mouth filled with his rut scent, which had solidified into a heady mix of smoke and dark, fragrant wood. I needed more of him.

I practically vibrated with my need to ride Kauz more, as well. He drew little tingling swirls over my thighs and wings while he waited for Tormund to finish prepping me. The gentle attention was great in its own way, but I was burning up while I waited for more.

The redcap wiggled his finger up my ass and teased the inner walls. They flexed for him, already made ready by the essence mesh spell. My eyes rolled back just from the tease of one finger. My wings flicked impatiently. Stop playing around and fuck me. I need to be filled.

Tormund started working a second finger in my ass, and I made a higher pitched noise into our kiss as he stretched me further. I trembled and tried to roll my hips to get some friction between the three of us.

“I think she’s ready,” Kauz said. He was right. I was so ready.

Tormund pulled from my lips and literally smoldered as he looked at me. He’d stashed his spectacles somewhere, and his gray eyes held tiny twin flames in the center that left afterimages in my gaze as they darted over my expression and lingered on my forehead. “I’m so glad you’re finally ours, li’l bird,” he murmured, then kissed the space between my brows. “I’m going to lean you forward. Okay?”

I nodded. He repositioned me along with two more sets of hands, as Marius joined in. I shouldn’t have let them do this, because now I was angled in such a way that I couldn’t fuck them so easily. They would need to fuck me.

Marius guided my head to the side to face him in his spot beside the dream warden’s wing. Together, all three males angled my torso down and tilted my hips. I was still seated on Kauz’s cock, but now Tormund had access to claim my ass, and my head was in line with Marius. With some shuffling, he presented his erection about in line with my lips. I licked them and leaned forward, mouth already watering.

“Wait. Them first,” he instructed. He stroked my hair and the point of my ear, regarding me with fierce affection while his brothers shifted me around. I tilted my head into his touch.

Tormund’s heated length slid ever so carefully into my second entrance. Before, when we played back here, my ass was a close second to my pussy in terms of sensitivity. However, that was before my heat. All claims were sorely wanted, and I would’ve straightened to start pushing back against him and Kauz both, but they were stubbornly holding me in this position.

I rumbled a growl. They still weren’t really moving . “Oh, so menacing,” Marius teased in my mind. “Do that again. Show me your teeth.”

“Bold words.” I turned my gaze pointedly to his erect cock, nearly close enough for me to lick.

“You wouldn’t.” He had a level of confidence to rival Fal in that moment.

He’d distracted me. Kauz and Tormund were gesturing and whispering, coordinating how they wanted to take me. Once Tormund was fully seated, he made a rumble edged with a redcap’s crackling power. They lifted my hips together to hold me at the correct angle, and found a rhythm as they alternated their thrusts. Where one entered, the other withdrew. At no time did I not have the sensation of being full of one of my mates.

I trembled pleasurably, finally filled with exactly what I needed. I’d get everything but a knot from the two of them claiming me like this. Marius eased forward and nudged my lips with the crown of his cock. “Get me wet, mate. I’m going to be knotting that pretty pussy soon.”

I moaned in agreement. I wanted…no, needed, a knot soon. That didn’t mean I regretted picking my Always to mate with me next. It didn’t even occur to me that he was a beta. He was simply, well, mine .

I opened wide to accept as much of Marius as would fit in my mouth and sucked on him messily. He rolled his hips to slowly pass his cock through the seal of my lips. While I had one hand on Kauz’s chest for balance, I lifted the other to squeeze the base of the kelpie’s shaft. He rewarded me with a stream of his precome. Blooming waterlilies and mint tingled on my tongue, a taste I savored.

The pressure in my body was tightening all over. No wonder, with five hands covering most of my sensitive spots. Kauz spread tingles over my thighs and hips. Tormund’s warmth enveloped my breasts and belly. And Marius practically petted me one-handed down my back and wings, with his other hand closed around a glint of silver. The lady pleaser piercing, which otherwise could’ve hurt my mouth.

Pleasure overwhelmed me for a few blissful moments as I came. My thoughts slowed to a halt. I was suspended in dark water again, caressed by the current. Whoa. I returned to my head to find only a few moments had passed, and my body was still moving on instinct. My feral side knew exactly what to do and how to get what I needed.

I’d regained my awareness to Kauz spilling his seed in a liquid rush deep in my belly. My toes curled as the breeder’s delight stirred and fed my core pure pleasure. There seemed to be no such thing as overstimulation, just blinding, consuming need for more. This heat would extinguish if only I had more .

Marius pulled his cock from my mouth, easing back on his heels. Kauz withdrew from my pussy as he softened for now. I shot him a look of pure promise, sure to return to him for more, later.

Now that it was only Tormund inside of me for the moment, I straightened and glanced over my shoulder. My gentle giant was holding on by a thread, in only the best of ways. The rut glow in his eyes was intensifying as he let it take over. I swayed and met his last couple thrusts, before he spilled as well. His seed felt overheated in my second channel, slightly removed from the intensity of the blaze at my core. He flooded me as his knot pulsed, grinding against my ass cheeks.

He remained hard and seated within me, even once his shaft was done pulsing. Once he pulled himself free, he hugged me from behind, purring deeply. I tipped my head back again, nuzzling and purring back. What a fantastic mate. I soaked in the soothing vibrations, but I couldn’t find the same happy contentment as I usually did when he held me. I still needed to dampen my heat before I could lounge around.

“It’s my turn to knot her,” Marius prompted, reaching for me.

Tormund’s hold tightened for a moment, before I was the one to ease away from him. I winked, since I didn’t think I could find my words. The heat had stilled my tongue, though it hadn’t halted my mind so much that I couldn’t use the kelpie bond.

I straddled Marius’s lap. “I ride you,” I demanded.

His eyes dilated as he gave Niall a measure of control. My instincts quivered, recognizing the more dominant feral of the two of us, even in the depths of my heat. “Aye, mate. I always want you to take what you need from me. Then I’ll show you what your short absence has done to me.” He added a reassurance that I would quite like the results.

He bowed his head and licked my omega mark, tracing its whole curve in one hot glide. He filled my mind with incandescent pleasure and rumbled as he felt its echo. Doubling back, he took his time in licking it thoroughly again and took in my blissed-out expression with a pleased smile.

He nuzzled in, letting me feel the edges of his teeth. I gasped and tugged on his hair. “Do it.” At this point, he was merely returning the favor after I’d bitten his mark to start our bond.

“Allow me to welcome you into the pack properly.”

With that, he sank his fangs into the arch of my mark, toward the left. We were already tightly interwoven with the kelpie bond, but the magic that passed between us was something different. Suddenly, I could picture the pack bond in my mind’s eye. It was like an unbreakable circle, each of us a stone set in the foundation to complete it. Fal, and now Marius, anchored me into it permanently with their claiming bites.

My awareness of the pack bond faded to a dull hum in my omega mark. The whole thing tingled as Marius withdrew his fangs and covered my skin with kisses. “Mine,” he said aloud.

And in my mind, he added, “I knew your mark would be here.” Somehow, he had. Niall had traced this very spot the first time I’d come face-to-face with him. Even then, it seemed our instincts were communicating to one another.

He spun me unexpectedly to face Tormund. I thought we were going straight to fucking, but it seemed he had something else in mind. “Bite her. Finish claiming her for the pack,” the kelpie growled.

Kauz had stood and was in the process of refolding his hurt wing, though he was still watching intently. Fal got up from wherever he’d been witnessing all this and came around to help with the wing. Though his blue, feline gaze was extra intense when it met mine. He licked his lips at me, his cock kicking just from my attention when I noticed that he was already—or still—fully aroused.

I gave him a lingering look. He was definitely next. Maybe this time, I wouldn’t pass out and miss how well he could hold me on that knot of his. But for now, this moment belonged to Tormund, and he wouldn’t be denied. He took hold of my jaw and turned me away from the dark elf, to better focus on him.

“You’re okay with me biting you, li’l bird?”

I nodded enthusiastically and lifted my chest toward him. He didn’t hesitate or second-guess. When I already had the bite marks from his brothers, I supposed there was no point to questioning. Instead of bending over me, he lifted me with a grip around my waist and brought me up to the plumes of heat that rolled from his breath.

That heat always felt better than it should, augmenting my pleasure rather than adding to the furnace burning in my core. He covered my mark in more kisses, and the pleasantly scratchy texture of his facial hair, while skipping over the two patches where I’d already been bitten. “Mine,” he murmured. When he sank his fangs into my skin, he’d chosen to mirror Marius, so his bite landed on the right side of the arch.

I gasped from the heat of his fangs in me and the sensations digging deep in my soul. His claim finished setting my place in Pack Sorles, firmly nestled in with my four mates. Bonds of magic tied me to them, except in the case of Marius, who I’d already bitten. Extra bonds of magic wove between him and me, all permanent loops that bound our souls together.

“Ours,” Fal said huskily, once the transfer of magic was complete between the redcap and me. The other males echoed the word in agreement, and even in my needy state, I paused and blushed somewhere under the heavy flush of the heat haze. I’d feared this moment for so long, then longed for it with my proper mates. Now I was claimed, loved, and about to be knotted. Life was good.

I stole a quick kiss from Tormund before I turned back to Marius, pointing and saying the only thing I think I could say. “I need you.”

He growled in agreement and gestured for us to go to the head of the nest, where I’d made an inviting backrest worth of pillows. He usually claimed me on my hands and knees, or with me lying prone on a soft surface. It gave him easy access to biting my neck, quick submission to really stir his feral side. But this time, he reclined and I followed, having a seat on his throbbing shaft facing away from him. At some point, he’d put the lady pleaser piercing back in its place.

I started riding him eagerly, trembling each time the cool metal of his piercing glided through the ultra-sensitive intimate patch hiding along the walls of my pussy. Without him holding me still or helping pull me into his thrusts, I rolled my hips up and down his cock at my own pace. His heated gaze focused on the way my ass bounced. I knew that was why he liked this position, too.

I fondled my breasts, tipping my head back to moan as the pack bond echoed with the pleasure Marius and I were sharing. It probably wasn’t supposed to be this strong, but I had the sense I was leaking all my feelings into it. Not that anyone stopped me.

I didn’t get far before Fal was sliding onto the nest in front of me, replacing my hands with his own to pluck and twist at my nipples just right. His skimmed his lips over my face as I panted with exertion, lingering his kisses over my forehead and between my brows.

We nuzzled one another affectionately. “You know, mo stór ,” he purred in my ear. “When I first started going into rut, I pictured you between Marius and me.”

Oh, really? I knew where this was going. I pointed at my mouth and raised a brow.

He hummed in agreement, while Marius caught my hips. I sensed his eagerness as I got on my hands and knees. He covered my back as he waited, inside of me to the root, for Fal to guide his cock into my mouth. Instead of alternating, they thrust together, setting a fast and brutal pace since it seemed the dark elf matched the kelpie’s claim.

I had nowhere to go, except up. Or, I supposed down was the better term. The heat haze had been light so far, letting me see my mates in full clarity, but it filled my head like a fog as I shattered, tensing between them. I would let my instincts fully take over once they found their completion.

Now that I was fully claimed, there was little to fear. I trusted my mates would take care of me. And, if I did end up more of an angry, lashing feral than I wanted to be, Marius would keep me in line. My instincts would submit to his will. It felt natural, after letting him rut me with abandon in that inn by the sea. And it was amazing that, here we were, with him still claiming me with the same level of passion and need.

Fal, on the other hand, was a different male under the influence of the rut. There were no fancy overtures, fewer charming words. He’d threaded his fingers through my hair, keeping my head steady for the way he thrust into my mouth. At some point, he’d toweled off the excess slick and come that must’ve coated him from our first joining. He still tasted of us, though, and left behind an impression of wildflower pollen and chocolate on my tongue.

This was the alpha that lurked behind his courtly image. If I had my voice, I would see if he still became extra growly when I called him pack lead.

Marius shifted over me, his pace changing with urgency. His knot bumped my lower lips as it swelled. He teased me with an extra thrust rather than knotting me immediately, so the swollen ball of flesh made a wet pop in and out of my pussy before we were locked together.

My screams were muffled against the cock in my mouth. If I thought Fal would let up while I trembled with electrified pleasure from taking my first knot in full heat, I was wrong. He grabbed a fistful of my hair and fucked my mouth harder. It was all more bliss to me as my breeder’s delight went haywire.

I felt what my short absence had done to Marius. Nestled deep in my pussy, he unleashed a torrent of seed. It was the biggest one yet, and a wonder it all fit in my core. My heat dampened, if only by a fraction, but the little drop in temperature was noticeable when I was burning up. I understood now why alphas were so vital to heats.

My limbs felt like jelly while the kelpie and I traded aftershocks of pleasure. My pussy wouldn’t stop spasming, milking him for all he was worth. Which meant my hand was hardly steady as I reached for Fal’s growing knot. Once I had a hold of his shaft, I squeezed, and he spilled immediately. His irresistible rut-augmented pheromones coated my tongue in warmth as he flooded my mouth.

I couldn’t possibly swallow it all, but I tried, and gripped his knot harder for more anyway. Thank the stars for soak mats. Once he was done, Fal went to retrieve a towel to clean his release off my face and neck. I blinked at him appreciatively.

It was time for my surrender, and I let my instincts creep in. The fog filled my head, softening the edges around my senses. I was floating, painless. All I needed was to sate the burning need inside of me.

I pointed at Tormund while still panting from the intensity of my last release. “I need you.”