Unknotted

Broccoli and Spilled Water

Rokan

The moment I stepped into the dining hall my dominance bristled. There was too much of it in this confined space, and a fight was bound to break out soon. I sat with my back to the large ocean-view windows and faced the door that led out to the elevators. Trolls filed in and out through a side door, trailing wafts of seared meat, hearty glazes, and what smelled like steamed broccoli. I hoped it wasn’t broccoli.

“Where did Tydeus go?” Chet asked. Though his voice was light, I could tell he was carefully keeping his dominance in check. He gripped the arms of his chair he reclined in until the skin pulled white over his knuckles.

I shrugged, pulling my eyes away from the Zalican ultra. Even at her age, she was beautiful. Her honey-colored hair tumbled into delicate ringlets over the shoulders of her armor. Her face, though her expression was severe, had an elegance that was rather enchanting. I could see what all her mates found so appealing. Not enough that I wanted to join that line up though. I had little interest in submitting to a dominant, and even less in sharing a mate with a handful of other men.

Chet’s thumbs were flashing over his phone, proficiently typing out a text, hardly needing to watch the screen. I checked my own phone, found notifications for dozens of missed calls, and slid it back in my pocket.

Dariya had called. Finally. A niggling of guilt ate at me from avoiding her. That wasn’t like me, but it couldn’t be a coincidence that her sudden interest in communicating came hours after my face had been plastered all over the news. A face that was still throbbing from my punishment. I wasn’t in the mood to be berated. Or to have the conversation we had both been sidestepping, yet also bracing for.

“Why is Admon glaring at you?” Chet leaned forward, clasping his hands, and resting his forearms on the table. His eyes were fixed on the ultra of Namen, who sat forward in his seat, his dominance raging at the surface. But I kept control of the reins on my own dominance with a familiar ease. If it was so easy now, why had it been so hard to do the same with that blasted woman the previous night?

Not accepting the challenge in Admon’s eyes, I met his stare with a look of indifference. Though if I achieved the desired effect with my face swollen as it was, I wasn’t positive. Admon would see the wound as a weak point to exploit. He could try, if he really wanted to. I was fairly certain I could take him this time. Sure, the guy had shot me in the face—twice—but that had been when Admon had the benefit of his coavani knot.

A low growl rumbled from Chet, fetching my attention. His eyes were locked on Admon, whose eyes were locked on me. Dominance radiated off Chet like magic off the Core. Usually, he was a chill guy. Unless he ran into other dominants in his tier.

The first time he had met me… That had been a bloody affair. Only Tydeus’s intervention kept us from killing each other. Then, our commander made us do everything together during officers’ school until we learned to coexist. By the time we graduated, Chet had become like a brother. A brother who occasionally still wanted to pick a fight, but I had learned to ignore any challenge he unintentionally issued.

“There’s no territory here,” I mumbled low, so only he could hear. My face ached when I spoke. “Challenging him would earn you nothing, and our ultras would kill you if you did.”

He didn’t relax though. His fingers curled into tight fists around his empty dinner platter.

I placed a hand on his back. “It would do no good to break the dishes either.”

“We could take them, Rokan,” Chet hissed. “The Namen ultras.”

I eyed Admon one more time, and our stares locked. Roughly, Admon grabbed the face of the woman perched on his lap, stretching her neck in a way that made her whimper, and nipped at her skin. There was something so possessive about the action. So flaunting.

I grew still, muscles coiling to spring me across the room. The woman I had failed to convince Glark to spare from the prisoner exchange sprung into my thoughts. Would she be returning to a beast like Admon? How many others had we sent back? One was too many. Finally, I had to tighten my grip on my dominance.

Being a dominant was a sacred privilege, bearing the responsibility of protecting submissive hybrids too gentle to protect themselves. Of giving more than taking. Admon, the vile abuser, was unworthy of the power and position he held. Still, it wasn’t my right to end his rein.

“Our ultras would kill us.”

Chet ripped his eyes off Admon. “We wouldn’t have ultras. We would be ultras.”

My brows shot toward my hairline, half my face protesting the movement. “You’re talking crazy. If we did that, Ultra Glark and Metallica would have to kill us.”

“Or we would kill them.” His eyes darkened. He looked hungry. Lunch was definitely overdue.

“But the prophecy—”

“Says to unite the land. But never identified who it would unite under. If our ultras were really focused on the prophecy, they wouldn’t cower behind their army. They would fight the other ultras directly.”

“That’s risky and you know it. If they lose, Keadan would become like Namen.” I swept my eyes at the women lined up behind Admon, pity filling my chest. If I did have the power and authority of an ultra, I could stop hybrids from being returned to Namen in prisoner exchanges with only the force of a simple command. Better yet, in one fight Chet and I could liberate the Namenites from Admon and his partners’ tyranny. For the first time ever, the thought of becoming an ultra was appealing. I quickly turned away from the dangerous lure before it hooked too deeply.

“Or Keadan would become like Zalico,” I said. “Not sure about you, but I’m not interested in becoming second class.”

I needed to distract Chet, and myself, from these dark thoughts. Under the confinement of the hall and the dominance-laced air, we weren’t thinking straight. I nodded toward the hybrid sitting to our left. He was quietly observing the room with neither a challenge nor submission in his expression. Brave that he would choose to enter a room like this alone.

(Chapter concludes in part 2)