Page 62 of Fated or Knot (UnseelieVerse: The Omega Masquerade #1)

There were a few things I learned about experiencing a heat that’d never graced the pages of the books I’d read. In fact, I was of half a mind to go back and burn the novels that implied that heats were clean, quick, and relatively painless. They were wildly inaccurate.

My heat was pretty much none of those things. It was not, as some would put it, a magical time. After suppressing it for four years, it was truly brutal and all-encompassing. Omegas were built to experience their most fertile and vulnerable time for two days, twice a year. So, that was eight total heats that caught up to me, and my body was definitely keeping count.

Day one was the most painless. The heat haze settled over me and I was either constantly fucking one of my mates or sitting on one of their knots. I needed them, they knew it, and they met me kiss for kiss, passion for passion, and thrust for thrust.

Day two—and I marked the days by the needs of my nesting habits—started with me kicking my mates out of the nest and inspecting the bedding. Even with the soak mats, we’d soiled a couple layers with slick and come, and I tossed those into a corner and re-built the nest for the day of breeding ahead.

I came out of the nest to invite my mates back in, to find them prepared for me. Marius wrestled me into the rain room, though I stopped struggling when I realized he wanted to cleanse my body. Fal groomed my hair and inspected my skin, which he smeared with cool cream in places. I wasn’t a fan of this. But I still rubbed against his, prepared to forgive him if he mated me again.

He’d growled with interest, but steered me from the bathroom, saying, “You have to eat first.”

I most certainly did not . It wasn’t logical, but I didn’t want to chew anything. Marius had passed out in the pack bed outside my nest, and wouldn’t be roused even when I tried to tug on the kelpie bond. So, I had no way of telling Tormund I didn’t want what he was trying to offer, except to refuse it. He had cubes of meat and cheese, crackers, and other easy to eat items.

No food. Only fuck.

Fal ended up knotting me so I’d be stuck and forced to at least to eat something .

Throughout all this, Kauz had the water and offered me sips any time he could. He kept his head best out of all of us and made sure I didn’t shrivel up from ignoring all my needs except for the burning one in my core. At some point, he acquired fruit juice instead, and I think the sugar kept me going.

By the end of day two, when I was supposed to fade out of heat and back into my own wits, I’d instead exhausted Fal and Kauz. They went to sleep while Tormund alone remained in rut and kept me occupied through one exquisitely hot night between us. I howled and screamed each time he took his monstrous form. With my coaxing and enthusiasm, that was more than once, and he was too far into his rut to be hesitant about it.

Day three…I fixed up the nest again and left Tormund resting in a cocoon of clean fabric. Marius finally woke up, to find me sitting at the bottom of the rain room, under a steady fall of freezing cold water. I still hadn’t slept. The heat haze had lifted enough for me to think, as fun as this has been, it’s time for it to be over . Then the pain truly set in.

I found out firsthand that the two-day time for heats was the natural limit for omegas to mute their pain in a heat haze, and for all but the deepest of alpha ruts to play themselves out. The easy part was over, now it was time for suffering.

Marius sat down in the shower too and held me while I cried. The pain in my belly was just getting worse. I was still burning from the inside out and it hurt . Instead of being chilled off by the cold shower, I was soggy and miserable.

Not much fucking happened on day three. Truly the low point of the whole experience. My mates woke swiftly when I started having gut-twisting heat cramps. They didn’t ease or stop, either, no matter if I was knotted, snuggling up to a purring alpha, or just curled into a ball weeping in someone’s arms.

We exhausted almost all the options that could’ve soothed me, just for there to be no relief in sight. I whimpered with guilt when my mates ended up crying with me at one point or another. All four of them. We spent the day cuddling, kissing, and enduring the ravages of my body together.

Kauz had me in his lap, his undamaged wing around me, when it was his turn to hold me. It was just surreal to see tears in his eyes. They made the pinpricks of light in them gleam all the brighter. “This is not your fault,” he murmured, his calm voice layered with fatigue. He wiped my face clean with the soft, damp cloth he had pressed to my forehead. “We can all feel your pain and that there’s nothing we can do to ease it. It’s the definition of torture.”

I whined, before my breath hitched as my insides twisted again. I held my middle, listening to the chorus of cursing and snarling echoing back from my other mates where they’d settled around my nest.

If only I could get my connection to the pack bond under control. If I closed it off, they wouldn’t feel what I was feeling. But I’d floated the idea to Marius over our kelpie bond and received a hard no and an “it’s out of the question.” If I suffered, we would suffer together.

“Won’t you let me put you to sleep for a bit?” Kauz coaxed. I’d refused this offer multiple times before, since I hadn’t felt tired. I still wasn’t. But now it was a way out of misery, not just for me, but for the rest of the pack as well.

The only words I’d managed to utter since going into the heat haze were still “I need you” so I just nodded at him.

He sent me into unconsciousness and gave me dreams of the Serian winter. I laid myself down in a snowbank and melted a Lark-shaped hole in it.

Even a brutal Unseelie winter can’t cool me down? Unfair.

Day four…I woke up pink and sweltering, tucked in a light blanket atop my nest. My mates snoozed around me, probably catching some rest while they could. The bedding was still somewhat clean, considering how little sex we’d managed to have yesterday with the agony splitting my middle.

The pain was now under control, something I decided after a few minutes of wakefulness. Time to sit on a knot. I climbed atop Tormund, which woke him, and tilted my head with an inviting trill when he squinted at me.

He gasped and exclaimed, “You’re feeling better, li’l bird?” This, of course, woke up everyone else.

Fal pulled me off the gentle giant to cage me between them. He layered kisses over my neck and ears while Tormund stroked my curves.

“Maybe we should pace ourselves today?” Kauz suggested.

We didn’t pace ourselves. I took Tormund’s knot and we saturated the soak mats again. It was some time later that the males decided that I needed care. Shower, grooming, water, then… sigh . Food. Marius had the plate today.

“You know how I feel about this,” I complained.

He rolled his eyes and pushed a morsel toward my mouth. “Don’t fight. Eat.”

This time, it was a few flakes of fish. Cooked, sweet flesh. I batted my lashes and opened my mouth for more. That was actually good.

Marius’s emotions surged with triumph. “I thought it might be a texture thing.” Then he handed the plate to Tormund, who brightened and fed me fish and scallops with enthusiasm.

I rested against the redcap affectionately during the tail end of the meal, momentarily satisfied and happy. But instinct had me getting up and entering my nest again, to find that I hadn’t refreshed the bedding yet. That was important!

I tossed aside the whole thing and started building a new creation. Partway through, Fal laid down and folded his hands behind his head. He was naked and as unfairly attractive as ever, but also in the way. I growled in displeasure and pointed for him to get off the bed.

“Oh, you want me to leave?” he purred.

I nodded.

“You’re going to have to use your words, mo stór . Tell me to get up.”

I opened and closed my mouth without forming any sound, to show him I couldn’t. What he didn’t seem to understand was that the feral side was running the show. Until my heat passed, communication was optional.

But Fal, who’d fallen out of rut two days ago, just set his mouth in concern when I remained quiet. “I miss you. Talk to me…please,” he murmured.

How could I reassure him that I would, if I could? I settled for winking at him. And when he didn’t get up, I sighed and started folding him into my nest. He was part of one of the middle layers. It was a big bed, built for a pack, and he ended up getting enveloped in fabric up to his chin. He didn’t complain, only grinning in amusement as I packed in cushions, added a pillow for his head, and tucked the blankets around him.

He was probably quite comfortable. I was jealous I didn’t have anyone who’d fold me into a nest like this. Maybe I’d rouse Niall and ask him to try it.

“All right, now I’m part of your nest. What’s next?” he teased.

Too many words. I sat on his face so he’d put that mouth to work for something else. He almost drowned in my slick. No complaints, though, until Marius walked in on me enjoying the dark elf’s talented tongue and made a suggestion. The kelpie ended up knotting me right next to him while Fal tried to escape the nest to join in. I’d folded him in too well for a quick exit.

This kicked off hours of group sex. I was more comfortable than yesterday, but the heat had kept my body too hot for too long, and my joints ached.

Eventually, we took a break, and during it I had another heat cramp and gritted out a rough, “Fuck!”

Fal, who was resting at the foot of the nest, cracked an eye open with a little gasp. “Did you just say ‘fuck’?” he asked.

“No.” My tongue wasn’t quite cooperating with me, but I was determined to speak anyway. “No more fuck. Too much fuck.”

There was a hail of masculine laughter. “Now, I don’t know about that, li’l bird,” Tormund chuckled.

Kauz tilted my face toward him and pulled at my lower eyelids, before checking my temperature with the back of his hand. “Her fever hasn’t broken yet. Maybe it’s about to.” He sounded hopeful, and I agreed with that. I was ready to cool off and maybe not have any sex for a few weeks.

Marius made a few feral sounds. I recognized what he was saying, but…ah, my feral side was gone. I guessed once I was in heat long enough, even the heat haze deserted me. My body’s needs returned shortly afterward. I was hungry, thirsty, exhausted, sore, and unbearably horny all at the same time. C’mon. Couldn’t an omega catch a break?

“Fuck, I’m hungry,” I muttered.

Tormund’s head and shoulders popped up from the other side of the nest. “Is it time for a real dinner?” he exclaimed. “What do you want, li’l bird? I’ll have the house moths bring it.”

I worked my jaw. “More fish,” I managed to say. My tongue was getting used to this whole speaking thing a bit at a time. “Wait…house moth? No. We dismissed, right?”

“They’ve been coming by twice a day. How do you think you’ve gotten so much clean bedding, so fast?” Fal teased. He was beaming over at me. “Are you sure we’re doing ‘no more fuck’ or…?”

“Maybe a bit more,” I hedged. Though I felt my days’ worth of exertions when I parted my thighs for him, and whined when he knotted me. That rim of muscle that locked around knots felt tender from overuse. And by the groan that Fal uttered when it latched onto his pulsing knot, before he spilled, maybe there was some bruising going on.

“Worth it,” Marius said privately, in answer to my thoughts. “We ran out of bruise salve. We knew your heat would be a lot, but we weren’t prepared for how intense it’s ended up being.”

He was speaking in past tense, but I didn’t think my heat was past us yet. The fact that I was thinking again suggested the worst was behind us. At least, I sure hoped so. I ate a real dinner—a side of buttered fish and some root vegetables—and asked Kauz to put me under again. Sleep seemed like the key healing component I still needed.

Day five…I woke with a mild fever and a groan. Too much fuck, indeed. My mates helped me one last time with all my basic needs. I walked stiffly through the motions until Marius had me lay face down on the bed outside my nest. “Tormund, come over here,” he said.

“Aye?”

“I’m going to teach you something.”

The pack bond vibrated against my omega mark. It felt like the twinging of Tormund’s nerves.

“I had the mothkins deliver this for you. It’s massage oil. You have to heat it first,” the kelpie continued. I looked over my shoulder to see him handing a bottle full of amber liquid to the redcap.

“ Oh .”

Marius cleared his throat. “I figured someone else should know how to tend to her body. You know, if I can’t.”

“Aye, of course.” I could definitely hear the grin in Tormund’s voice. And I hid my face in the comforter, trying not to show that I was doing the same. Marius was smart and skilled, but this was the first time I’d heard him willing to teach and share. Especially with his jolly younger brother.

Plus, I was getting a massage. Tormund’s hands moved over my skin as he followed the kelpie’s instructions. They talked about muscle groups, or something. The gentle giant was always extra warm, so the oil he spread down my back lingered pleasantly. I relaxed for the first time in days, and purred like a kitten all the while.

Tormund started over from the top as he showed that he remembered what he’d just learned. As he worked, he said, “Hey, Marius.”

“Hmm.”

“Have you ever seen a shark? I’ve always wondered if that was a problem for kelpies.”

I imagined the annoyed ear flick that question received, as Marius didn’t answer for several moments.

“I’ve seen plenty of sharks. There’s more than one kind.”

My wings twitched nervously. I was probably envisioning the same kind of shark Tormund was when he asked the question. The big toothy gray ones that looked like they could swallow an omega in two gulps. There were more sharks than that? “Like, how many?” I asked.

I turned my head to look at Marius as he replied, and joined my gentle giant in fascination. There were apparently a lot of sharks. Small, spotted ones, shallow water ones, bottom feeding ones, and toothy ones all included.

“Be careful, he’s going to start showing you his sea bug collection next,” Fal put in. He was fresh from a shower and brushing his hair as he leaned against the wall indolently.

Well, it was nice to have peace while it lasted. I glanced at Marius, expecting annoyance. He raised a brow instead. “Seashells,” he corrected. “Also, if I start showing them my seashells, then you’re going to start talking about your rocks, and we’re going to be stuck here for hours.”

I was curious about both of these collections, actually. “For later, then. You’re teaching Tormund how to massage our mate, and not me?” Fal shook out his hair, then flipped it over one shoulder with his usual flair.

Finally, I saw the ear flick I’d been expecting. “When have you ever shown an interest in learning something from me?”

Fal rolled his eyes and twirled the hairbrush. “I’m sure I could teach you something else in return.”

“Whatever you were doing with your tongue, earlier, that drove Lark crazy.”

“Deal.”

I exchanged a glance with Tormund, who shrugged with both palms out.

Either way, I got massaged twice, so it was a victory for my sore body. “Next lesson time is with Kauz and me. I want to know this too,” I said to Marius privately. I was eventually going to get the kelpie to let me return the favor after he’d rubbed away my hurts so often.

“In exchange, I want to take you back to the sea. Apparently someone told Fal we didn’t fuck in the water.”

I giggled aloud. “Sorry. And deal.”

After we were done with massage time, Fal asked for a moment alone with me. We sat side by side at the foot of the pack bed. I tucked myself up against him. “While you’re still in heat, I wanted to ask for something,” he said. He took my hand and pulled it toward his groin.

While he was aroused, I’d learned it was an automatic reaction to my perfume. I’d been putting off fuck me pheromones for five days, but apparently they were tapering off. The house moths would still need to do a deep clean of my nest to get rid of the lingering perfume.

I expected him to put my hand on his shaft, but instead he placed it on his alpha mark. It was right under his belly button, a somewhat intimate place I’m sure I’d brushed dozens of times during the lusty frenzy of the early stages of my heat. My own mark tingled, especially in the healing spot where he’d bitten me. I could feel the resonant magic that connected me to him, and the rest of the pack bond.

“Will you claim me back? Your bite will strengthen our bond within the pack. I was hoping to do it during your heat, when your instincts are strongest, so we can be as tightly bound as possible.” His smile was without its usual mischief as he drew my hand up to his lips next. He kissed my fingers and looked at me with devotion shining in his eyes.

My heart skipped a beat, then pattered extra hard as I wiggled in excitement. “Oh…yes, of course. I would love to claim you back.”

“You’ve already bitten Marius, and now you have him around your li’l finger. I’ll take the next one, the ring finger.” He wiggled my fourth finger playfully. “This is where I want you to wear your stone match jewelry.”

He distracted me for a moment. “It’s going to be a ring?”

“Aye. It’s the first place a dark elf looks for the particular shine of stone match jewelry. I want all of my kind to know you’re mine. The world, too. But other dark elf males, especially.” His sharp teeth flashed as he took a more possessive tone, all alpha.

“Then that’s where I’ll wear it,” I said.

“Such a good omega,” he purred, adding in a bit of his alpha’s influence, so I felt the words like a stroke of affection on my skin. He also laid his torso back on the bed, so I could easily access his mark.

I stood and leaned over his hip, pressing a kiss to the sideways loop darkened on his skin. Fine trembles stirred over his skin. He seemed to hold his breath as he waited for me to line up my little fangs with the top of his mark, to bite him in a mirror to how he’d claimed me. We exchanged magic in the moments after I claimed him, and his sunshine and grass pheromones flooded my mouth.

The loops of magic that bound Fal and me together in the pack bond shifted and tightened, our souls permanently entwined. I released the bite and nuzzled against his mark, filled with euphoria. We might not be able to speak mind to mind, like I could with Marius, but we were still connected just as intimately, able to sense one another’s needs and emotions separately from the general pack bond.

“I love you,” I sighed out, climbing on top of him to hug him, needing to feel his skin against mine and his heartbeat under my palms.

He tilted my face up to kiss me. “I love you too, mo stór .” And the warmth of his emotions in my chest echoed his words. We laid together in an emotional afterglow, just wanting to be close without pushing our sore intimate areas unless my heat spiked again. Eventually, he asked, “Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

I shook my head and he ushered me into the bathroom. I nearly climbed onto the vanity to see myself closer, gasping as I poked the three pointed crown between my brows. “When did that get there?”

“Oh, you know, when you joined Pack Sorles. Five days ago,” he said playfully.

Stars. I’d been too busy being horny to notice. Not that any of my mates had interrupted said horniness to show this to me, until now. I had a pack mark! I did a little happy dance and he joined in.

“You’re going to teach me how to actually use the pack bond, right?” I asked.

We went back to the bed and talked about pack bond basics. He helped me figure out how to close off all but the stronger emotions from entering the circle of our bond, so I wasn’t constantly shoving my feelings directly into my mates’ heads at all times. I started practicing tapping into it. When I had more practice, it was supposed to be as easy as a thought.

Kauz, fully dressed, walked into the bedroom as I was still getting it down. I turned toward him, clutching my thighs. “How’d it go?”

He extended his wing. The wound that’d cut through it was reduced to a crescent-shaped patch with the shadow of stitches. “It’s going to scar, but I’ll wear the mark of protecting you proudly,” he said.

Fal put his hand over his mouth to whisper aside to me, “Bite his mark next. He’ll wear that scar proudly too.” He winked and got up, walking into my nest while he whistled a tune idly.

“Would you be okay with that?” I asked, not thinking for a moment that Kauz’s bat ears hadn’t picked up what Fal whispered.

“I thought you’d never ask.” He started taking his clothes off to rejoin the pack in our shared nakedness. I went over to help him with his shirt. “Would you be okay if I painted some art on you in return?”

“Yes, of course! I still miss the art you put on my arm.”

His eyes twinkled. “Well, we can’t have that,” he said in his mild way. “I ran into Laurel as I was leaving the infirmary, by the way.”

I stilled at the change of subject. “Oh? How is she doing?” I asked more guardedly.

He ran his fingers through my hair in soothing strokes. “Eletha helped her through regaining her memories, like I did for you. They may have become friends while we weren’t looking. She asked how you were doing, too, and wanted to come apologize when you’re ready to see her. Rennyn has offered her a job, and she’s considering accepting, but only if you, as the new princess, can stand having her around.”

“Offered her a…” I narrowed my eyes.

“As a spy. Though she doesn’t know that yet. She thinks she’s going to be a housekeeper,” he said, chuckling.

A mermaid with Serian loyalties and the siren’s song at her disposal would be quite the spy. If I didn’t try to send her away. “I’ll hear her out. See if we can give each other a second chance,” I said.

He inclined his head. “How does it go? As my mate demands, I echo.”

I wasn’t sure if I reddened any further, but I could feel myself blush.

“Can I see your beta mark now?” I murmured.

He lifted his healing wing, angling to show me the B-shaped mark nestled just below his shoulder blade. There was a healed scar in the center of it, from Fal biting him into the pack. “You know this won’t change our pack bond, right?” His wings shivered audibly when I kissed his mark.

“I know, but you’re still my Always. It means something to me if you’ll let me claim you.” I ran my tongue over the long tail at the end of his mark, enjoying seeing his stance tense and hands flex in reaction.

“Claim me, then,” he said in a huskier tone. “I don’t need to be an alpha for other fae to know I’ve claimed you too. They only need to see your wings for that.”

They fluttered behind me in awareness, now that he’d mentioned them. The beautiful patterns he’d inked in them with his silver magic would remain with me forever. I would practice until the brush fell out of my hand before I painted the rest of his wings, too. We’d do something special for the new scar. Until then, I bit the trailing tail of his beta mark and hugged his side while he gasped and flapped his wings on reflex, nearly toppling us both over.

Nothing magical happened, like he warned, nor did he taste of anything other than a hint of blood. However, now he would carry my claim. He twisted and pulled me into his arms, kissing me with open-mouthed passion that I met with a burst of warmth blooming over my skin. “Love you, sweetheart,” he murmured once we parted for air.

“Love you too,” I said, tilting my head toward the nest. “Shall we?”

I ended up coaxing all four of my mates into one last group fuck while I was still feeling heated, and squeezed some bruised knots. Tormund, I took first, and I cupped his face between my hands as he let me ride him. “May I claim you?” I asked, looking deep in his eyes. “Before my heat’s up…just so we bond as much as possible.”

“Aye. I’ve been hoping you would,” he admitted. “Just overcome by passion. It’s right here. Almost as easily biteable as yours.” He guided my head down to his mark, which was on the upper right side of his chest.

“What? I wouldn’t do that without asking,” I gasped. “You always ask.” From his claiming bite, to most of the times he’d knotted me, he tried to be polite.

He blinked at me, clearly considering how to respond while I was still riding him. He settled for igniting the little fires in his pupils and rumbling in his deepest tone, “Bite me, li’l bird.”

I nearly came on the spot. He’d been resistant to trusting his monstrous side, but he was learning how to use it for pleasure. I bit into his alpha mark, as commanded, and luxuriated in the feeling of our souls pressing together and us bonding separately from the pack bond as well. In the heat of the moment, we didn’t say it, but we swapped feelings of love and devotion from one heart to the other.

My heat burned itself out shortly after this moment. To my great relief, I descended into a deep, dreamless sleep untouched by the all-consuming need that’d ruled me for the better part of a week.

When I woke, I did so with great reluctance. One of my bonds was rattling, along with a male voice telling me that I needed to get ready. I exited deep sleep in a bleary daze, not even realizing that was Marius seated by my hip until his roughed fingertips skimmed over my cheek.

“Mother wants to speak with you once you’re showered and dressed, p’nixie,” he said.

He was already showered and dressed, himself, smelling of waterlily, mint, and clean cloth. My mind thought, unfortunately , and my body twinged the moment I shifted my legs. I was under a couple layers of my nest, tucked in.

Actually, I didn’t recognize my nest, as the soak mats and the layers that smelled of sex when I’d passed out were all gone. “I re-did your nest a bit, so you wouldn’t have such a big job ahead.” He winced as my lips parted in surprise. Males usually didn’t touch a nest, I thought. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“I…no, I don’t mind at all.” I huffed as I sat up, before scooting into his lap to snuggle up to his warm chest. The air around us felt cool on my skin. What a blessing, to be heat-free again.

He folded me into his arms and purred, nuzzling at my hair as he so often preferred. “Come on. We shouldn’t keep her waiting.” He stood, carrying me up with him.

“Wait,” I murmured. “Before you take me to the shower, there’s somewhere else I want to go.”

He raised a brow, confused.

“Take me up the stairs?” I giggled, pointing toward the back of my nest. This whole time, it’d been a two-story affair. But I’d been given this suite while I’d had a cast, and once it was off, he’d spirited me away to the sea. The mysterious, unused second story of my nesting space was one I wanted to see with at least one of my mates first.

“You and stairs,” he teased. He shook out his shaggy blue-green mane and the braid of my hair woven in it. It, and the hanging metalark feathers, had somehow survived my heat untouched.

“If it gets my protector to carry me…”

He snorted gently. “Please. I would carry you anywhere, stairs or no.”

With the way my legs and core felt, we would be testing that statement shortly. Until then, he took me to the top of the staircase for a rather anticlimactic reveal. The second floor of my nest had a high roof and was overall larger than I expected, with two windows looking out over the gardens outside. The wood flooring gleamed with a recent polish. But it was completely empty.

“I was thinking we could make it like a second library nest. Or, um, something,” I said uncertainly. “Somewhere you and the rest of the pack would want to be.”

“Whatever you want for it.” He smiled with lopsided charm. “The pack wants to be where you are, mate. Don’t stress over this.”

“I need you all with me as well. Can I ask you a question?”

He turned to start back down the stairs. “Like you need to ask permission.”

It was kind of personal and I didn’t know how private it was. But I went ahead and asked, “Is it true you started reading books for their happy endings?”

“Oh, did Kauz tell you that? Aye. His attempt to fix me.” He rolled his eyes. I decided not to correct his assumption. “While I tried to fix him by teaching him how to throw a punch. Look at us now, he’s in great shape, and I’m one of the library tower’s most loyal patrons.”

As he took me to the rain room, he tilted his head back and forth. “Yet friendship didn’t fix us. Well, fix me . Kauz was never really broken. The only happy ending I truly needed was you, mate.”

“I love you. I’m glad I could be the happy ending you needed,” I said. Before he could put me down so I could wash, I looped my arms around his neck and kissed him.

He growled and deepened the meeting of our mouths. “Love you more,” he answered in my mind, since his lips were occupied.

I wondered why he always responded that way. He set me down and closed the clear door to the rain room, putting it between us before he succumbed to the feral urge to have me one more time while we were alone.

Instead, he leaned on the edge of the shower casually and kept talking. “Because I love you more than my next breath, and I might irritate you with my devotion if I use too many words.”

My own breath caught. “No such thing,” I murmured.

“I’m trying not to give doubt a place in my life anymore. I can’t be a very good best friend for you if I allow a rain cloud to follow my every step.”

Well, it was a good thing I was taking a shower, because I could cry with joy to hear that from him. “You’re doing a great job,” I told him.

His teeth were a flash of white through the fog on the glass door. “It’s easy right now. Hard to be sad about anything after feeling how passionately you fucked me . However…” He shifted, casting his gaze away. Self-conscious, I sensed. “Now that my rut’s finally passed, I’m ready to make love to you gently and often, like the sweet li’l prey you are.”

I muffled a groan in the stream of water. He echoed the sound and straightened. “Sorry, it seems I still have sex on the mind. I’m leaving.”

“I’m going to take you up on that promise!” I called after him. “Later!” Much later, possibly. Five days of heat had left my pussy and inner thighs sore.

I cleaned and dressed myself…then re-dressed myself into something less tight. The fabric had to feel just right, as my skin was extra sensitive. In that private moment, I sniffed myself as thoroughly as I could, and swiped a finger over my neck to dab it on my tongue.

I purred in delight at what I scented. My pheromones were already changing. As a mated omega, I represented my pack by carrying a touch of every alpha’s scent in combination with my own. I was claimed by my mates in every way possible and it felt amazing. I wore that joy openly on my face as I headed for my receiving room and found my mates sitting with Nemensia.

Our whole mini eclipse of house moths was fluttering around, serving tea and cookies. They greeted me with extra enthusiasm. “Welcome back, Princess!”

“We missed you, Princess!” This was from Jani.

“Yay!” And this, delivered with a happy bounce, was from Lon.

“Thank you,” I giggled.

Nemensia herself stood and came over to me in a bustle of iridescent skirts. She caught my head between her hands, tilting my face this way and that as she stared at my new pack mark and gasped with delight. “ Mo stóirín ! Look at you. My heir, at last. Come, let’s sit.”

She guided me to the center of a couch, between her and Tormund. My gentle giant offered his hand, and I threaded my fingers with his. “I’m so sorry to call upon you this soon after your heat, Metalark. I just needed to see if you all had survived,” she said, covering the worry that broke through her words with a delicate laugh.

“Five days was quite the heat,” Fal said from his casual perch in an armchair across from us. He kept his own tone carefully neutral.

“I would certainly say so!” the queen exclaimed. “A routine heat will seem like a breeze after this.”

Stars, I didn’t want to think about going into heat again. Even though I knew, logically, that no heat would compare to how difficult this one had been.

“Anyway, I came here with a gift. Something I think you sorely need, Metalark. It was the biggest one I could find.” She gestured to the mothkin and one came forward with a small box, wrapped in a bow.

My face lit up immediately. I untied the bow and peeked inside, before pressing my lips together and closing the box. The pack bond was full of taps, which sent little vibrations over my omega mark. All four males were trying to get my attention with a reaction like that.

“Thanks, Mom,” I said, trying desperately not to laugh. Sorely needed, indeed. It was a pot of bruise salve. Something expensive, scarce, and in high demand, I’d learned.

“You are most welcome. Once you are recovered, we may as well pretend we’re still following tradition and have the king’s dinner,” she said with a vague wave. “Instead of presenting your prospective mate for your fathers to meet, boys, you’re just presenting your mate at this point.”

“So, just a dinner?” Tormund asked.

“Well, I suppose that’s right. And we can work out your tutoring schedule and duties from there, Metalark.”

Tutoring? Duties? Well, I’d been warned this was coming. Being a princess was about to be hard work, but I would do my best to meet the challenges ahead. My mates were counting on me.

“Okay, Mom. I won’t let you down,” I said.

“I know you won’t, mo stóirín . You’re here by fate, and fate doesn’t make mistakes.” She patted my shoulder with an approving nod.

The mothkin gave me tea and cookies, and I settled in with them happily. The queen stayed a while longer, making a point to share words and affirmations with each of her sons. I needed to follow in her example one day, as I felt how much this visit meant to them over our bonds, even if they’d never admit it aloud.

However, once she left, I had their full attention. “Well? What was in the box?” Fal prompted.

I took out the bruise salve to show them. “Maybe we should go use this,” I suggested.

“Thank the stars. Let’s go!”

He plucked the pot of salve out of my hand and started for the bedroom. Kauz kept pace, murmuring something that had the dark elf grinning. They both turned looks full of Unseelie mischief back at me.

The pack bond stirred with a signal I didn’t know yet. Marius tilted his head, before smiling too, while Tormund laughed and swept me up. “Let’s go, li’l bird!”

Whatever they’d just decided, I would find out soon enough. I couldn’t wait. I loved my mates, and their Unseelie mischief.

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