Unknotted

My mouth was too dry to speak. I couldn’t rip my gaze from the screen as the shadow stretched across the grass.

A familiar face looked up into the camera and waved. My breath rushed out like air from a deflating balloon. Peth! Helt buzzed her in, and Peth disappeared from the screen and flicked onto another as she entered the biodome.

I sagged into one of the recliners and dropped my face into my hands. A fresh wave of sobs shook me. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop them. I hadn’t been this terrified since… I bit back that memory, unable to confront it while I was still shaking from the fiasco at the diner.

A warm hand rested on my back, rubbing soothing circles. Helt’s comfort and peace helped me find my breath again. He squatted in front of me and brushed my tears away with his thumbs. “My dear, I have never seen you so upset. What happened?”

“At the diner—”

The front door crashed open. “Georgie?” Peth’s heavy footfalls raced toward the security room. “Georgie?” She pushed Helt aside and threw her arms around me, crushing me to her chest.

I couldn’t breathe, and Peth’s hair was sticking to my damp face. I patted her back, trying to tap out of this unexpected wrestling match, and the hold loosened. She pushed me out to arm’s length and looked me over. “You look like you’ve been to the Void and back.”

A wet chuckle bubbled from my throat. “I feel like I have.”

“I’m so mad at you.” She shook me slightly. “How could you give that maniac my book? My book.”

I laughed, and a weight of gloom fell away. “I’ll buy you another one.”

Peth stuck a finger in my face. “Don’t think you can throw money at the problem. My forgiveness won’t be bought.”

“Ladies.” Helt rose from his crouch. “Care to explain what mischief you’ve been up to this evening?”

“I was at the diner and…” I recounted the events of the night: what I had overheard from Harhort, the entrance of the dominants, the Core lassoing me to Whiskers, and the resulting fight and chase. By the end, Helt was frowning, rubbing his beard thoughtfully. Peth, on the other hand, was sitting cross-legged on the ground, leaning forward with interest. A whimsical smile encompassed her face, as if I had read an R.F. Letcher excerpt.

“That is so freaky,” Peth said. “But kind of romantic.”

“Being strangled for saying no to a guy is not romantic,” I said sharply.

Peth rolled her eyes. “Well, not that part. But it can’t be all Ripples and high magic, Georgie. You need conflict and tension first. And when he kissed your neck…”

“You mean rubbed his scent all over me in an act of domination?” I sniffed myself. “Core between, I can still smell him.”

She huffed. “You just don’t understand romance.”

“You’re the one who’s confused here,” I said, batting at her. “Seriously though, what happened… It was caused by a potion, right?”

She exchanged a look with Helt and said, “Maybe? Usually potions need more than a slight brush to have an impact and that wouldn’t explain how he was able to heal you either.”

“Could you ask Kova about it?” I asked hesitantly.

“Sure, trust my brother over me.” Fetching her glittery purple phone from her pocket, Peth grumbled as she stepped out of the room.

I pinched my lips shut. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her; it was that Kova’s knowledge of potions was more thorough and accurate. Peth, like all trolls, knew the basic brews to clear a headache or provide a boost of energy, but she hadn’t exactly been studious in her lessons until she joined the Ebbing Society three years ago. After a few dozen mishaps, I had learned to be wary about any potion she had a hand in making.

Helt squatted in front of me again, taking my hands. “I shouldn’t have let you go alone tonight.”

I rolled my shoulders back. In the safety of his home, the headquarters for the Ebbing Society, and the Blackwood Sanctuary, the level of fear I had experienced seemed…extreme. It wasn’t like I hadn’t worked other missions that ended in catastrophe. Each of those had rolled off me like water off a Ripple’s fur. This one would too.

I rose onto legs that still wobbled. “It’s not a big deal. I’m fine, really.”

The tide rushed in. I closed my eyes and tried to sense the cords that had tethered me to Whiskers. And only found connections to myself, my beasts and my dominance. I released a long sigh.

“You’re shaking,” Helt whispered. “Still.”

“Not because I’m afraid though.” I paced away the lingering effects of my fear and fed my dominance. It howled in outrage for how close I had come to total submission. “That dominant made me roll over. Expose myself in the most vulnerable way. Do you have any idea how hard that is, especially for someone like me?”

“Because you’re also dominant, or because of your childhood?” Helt asked softly.

I didn’t want to talk about the long-gone past now. Or ever really. “It’s taken me years to overcome habits bred into me since birth. I nearly died unraveling knots the Core thrust on me. And Whiskers nearly blasted all my work and freedom away with a single touch.” I ripped off my wig and irritably scratched my scalp. “I won’t be tied down. Not by a dominant. Not by a coavani knot. And certainly not by a blasted pragmora knot. I refused to let the Core dictate my life again.”

“The Core isn’t trying to make you miserable.” Helt kept his voice gentle and noncombative.

“It certainly feels that way,” I growled.

“The Core gives opportunities. Gifts that we decide what do to with. As I understand it, a pragmora knot is the greatest gift for a hybrid. The most renown hybrids in history were tied by them. Maybe there’s a reason the Core chose to knot you with this dominant.”

I crossed my arms. “Because it wants me dead. Obviously.”

Peth leaned against the doorframe. “Kova said if it was a potion there should still be residue on the contact spot. We can check that now the tide is in. Helt, you have a kit?”

“Yes, of course.” Helt led them to the kitchen. Peth and I sat side by side at the island’s bar while he retrieved his emergency potions kit from a cabinet and slid it across the counter.

Peth removed a bottle labeled “detector” and pulled the cap open. The clear solution smelled like minty witch hazel. She squirted some onto a cotton ball and turned to me. “Where did he make physical contact?”

I held up my pinky. “Here.”

Peth swabbed the entire pinky and held up the cotton ball. “No color change. No potion.”

“Maybe the residue there wore off. Try here.” I turned, showing the tattered fabric of the back of my shirt.

She wiped a fresh cotton ball across my back. “Still clear.”

“My neck then,” I pressed.

“Admit it, kitty,” she said, swabbing my neck. “You caught yourself a pragmora.” She held up the cotton ball. Still no color change.

“No, I don’t.” I shoved to my feet. “I broke the cords before they could form the knot. I don’t feel any connection with that blasted dominant anymore. But I do smell him.” His scent, pleasant as it was, was enraging my dominance. “I’m taking a shower.”

(Chapter concludes in part 3