Page 19 of Fated or Knot

I wanted to give him something in return for this. “My name is Lark.”

He nodded, unsurprised. “What kind of lark were you named for?” he asked.

What an odd question. “I don’t know. I don’t think I was named after a specific type,” I said.

“No shame in that. I am rather partial to the”—he said a word I didn’t quite catch—“that fly through the dreamlands. Maybe I’ll show you one day,” he suggested.

“Implying I will see you again.” I drew my new blanket tighter around me, already knowing I wanted to meet the star-eyed stranger in another dream.

He flashed a surprisingly tender smile. “I don’t think that will be much of an issue. But our time together tonight draws short. Tell me something before you wake. Why do you want to go to Zemosia? What is waiting there for you?”

It was just a dream, there was nothing stopping me from revealing things I’d left unsaid for so long. “Freedom. It’s a place I could go, free of everyone who wants a piece of me. I can open a shop or just find some other job for myself. And only betas and omegas live there, so I don’t have to worry about being forced into a pack or made to do…other things against my will.”

His growl was soft and unpracticed. “You won’t be forced into a pack, ever,” he said firmly.

“The ink is dry.” I ducked my head, staring at my lap out of old habit. “Running is my only option.”

“No, Lark.” He knelt beside my seat, taking my hands in his. He’d moved to this spot abruptly, bending some kind of dream logic. “You can trust your new pack to free you of anything that would get between you and us.”

I released a sad laugh, trying to tug my fingers free. “What new pack?” I asked in despair. Reality leaked in, softening the edges of the dream. I was waking up to the day after I’d stolenfrom a scent match and fled. There was no pack to turn to, only a disaster to continue running from.

The stranger shook his head. “Promise me you’ll hear out Fal and Tormund tomorrow. Let us take you to Serian, li’l omega.”

The last of his plea was an echo of a memory as I jerked awake with a gasp. The sun was higher in the sky than I would’ve expected, casting full bars of light over my face as I lay there in my makeshift nest, heart thumping hard in my chest.

What a wild dream…

“Let us take you to Serian, li’l omega.”

The accented voice lingered in my mind. A noble Unseelie asked before he whisked a pixie away to his homeland, I guessed.

What else had happened in the dream? My brow crinkled as I struggled to remember anything else past a feeling of incredible softness against my palms.

8

LARK

“You survived the Omega Masquerade,” I told myself after scooting to the edge of the bed and hanging my legs over the edge. I hesitated, knowing exactly what was waiting for me the moment I stood. “You can do anything, which means you can—ow!” The moment I put weight on my feet, I nearly fell as sensation returned and lanced up both legs.

It was going to be a bad walking day. The pre-heat symptoms had only worsened overnight, making my skin feel tight and sensitive all over. I couldn’t believe other omegas enjoyed going into heat. Maybe the sex made it worth it. For me, it would be torture until I found an essence spinner to give me a new suppressant tattoo. The sooner, the better.

I inspected the grass stains on my dress and made a pledge that, if I had any money to spare after buying my magirail ticket, I’d get a change of clothes. With the heat spreading from my core out to my limbs, I was liable to sweat through this dress by the end of the day.Gross. I wasn’t at the point of no return, though, not yet perfuming or dripping slick. I could still push my heat back.

Before I left the room, I ate as much as I could of the cold leftovers from last night’s feast. Tormund has bought me at least four meals worth of food, and it felt so wasteful to leave a lot of it behind, but I had to move. I donned my smock and tucked in Fal’s mask and the piece of Tormund’s cloak into the pocket, then I checked the hall with a poke of my head out the door.

There was no one in the hall, so nobody witnessed my limping, which was worse than usual. I regretted agreeing to dance last night. My lame foot was not made for that kind of motion, and it ached. I reached the stairs and gulped a swallow, checking the pool of essence within me that was still dangerously low but not quite as depleted as yesterday.

I no longer had to worry about Cymora demanding illusions with little warning, yet I still took a guilty look around as if I was doing something wrong. Cupping the railing with one hand, I flapped my wings and loosed tiny shimmers of essence as I floated down one staircase at a time. By the last one, where the innkeeper and the few patrons at the bar could see me, I hobbled to the ground floor the wingless way.

“Stairs are the worst,” I muttered. I bet Zemosia, utopia that I’d built it up to be, didn’t have stairs.

After turning in my room key, I felt eyes on me. A handful of alphas were eating and talking in small, animated clusters. One sat alone, tracking my progress toward the exit over the rim of a copper mug. He was distinctly merman blue, with a shaggy mane of cerulean hair shot through with green highlights.

That was about all of him I needed to see. I gritted my teeth and increased my stride to put distance between myself and the too-interested merman. Hopefully he hadn’t caught more than a whiff of my scent and was a disappointed suitor from the masquerade, due to return home at any hour.

I picked a direction and joined a flow of other fae, heading straight into the busy market I’d glimpsed yesterday. I restedmy hand over the front pocket of my bulging smock, picking my steps carefully to avoid being jostled by passing folk of all sizes and designations. My mouth hung open as I took in both the people and the storefronts, trying to locate a pawn shop too.

Now that I was hyperaware of it, I noticed Unseelie here and there. I guess it wasn’t as big a deal as I thought? No one seemed surprised. There was some dissonance in my head as I compared the peaceful Unseelie minding their business with the wicked and downright evil fae I’d grown up hearing about.

---