Unknotted

Inwardly, I screamed. This—whatever this strangling feeling was—couldn’t be happening. The magic wrapped tighter. Warm cords caressed me. Promised companionship and protection. Ignited desire.

Ugh. Gross, gross, gross.

The dominant stiffened. Then took another half step closer. His breath, smelling of cinnamon, tickled over my hair, but I didn’t want to look at him. Didn’t want to acknowledge that something—something awful—was happening between us.

I was choking on the magic now. My will pushed against the cords throttling me into the worst kind of submission. My struggling wasn’t enough to stop the Core and its blasted magic from trying to bind me to this absolute stranger.

A purr rumbled from the dominant’s chest. His hands, calloused and warm and as gentle as a feather, touched my face, as if we were so familiar with each other that such an intimate action wasn’t awkwardly disturbing. Slowly, he tilted my chin up. His eyes were as bright and as encompassing as an azure sky. Long, flaxen hair curtained his angled face.

“Do you feel it?” Curious excitement rang in his voice that was as sweet as milk chocolate I preferred.

This wasn’t happening. There had to be another explanation than the one thrumming through my mind. Glancing away, I caught sight of Harhort grinning at me, and an alternative explanation came.

A potion!

Peth had warned me of potions that induced sensations that mimicked those felt during a pragmora knot formation. With a single brush of skin against skin, this blasted dominant had somehow administered a topical potion. Why would he do that?

Unless he was the one working with Harhort. And Harhort had just sorted out who I was and secretly relayed some sort of signal for the dominant to capture me. Okay, the theory sounded farfetched, but sometimes farfetched stories were true, right? Take the existence of the Shadow Market and the Ebbing Society—most chalked rumors of those organizations up as conspiracy theories. So I wasn’t completely mad to cling to my potion idea.

If I lied, maybe the dominant would believe the potion hadn’t worked, and I could escape before its effects grew too strong. I put as much steel into my voice as I could muster. “No, I don’t feel a thing.”

Too angry to use the proper wariness I should with the dominant, I jerked the door open and slammed it behind me. Hand trembling, I pulled the phone from my back pocket and hit the speed dial. I tucked it between my ear and shoulder while fumbling in the pockets of my overalls for Bruce’s keys. As the phone rang, I glanced over my shoulder. No one had followed me out.

The call shot to voicemail, and Peth’s voice came across the line. “If this is Jik. Don’t you dare leave me another message. Everyone else, wait for the beep.”

“It’s Georgie.” I dropped the keys and swore. “I need to jump the portal sooner than expected. Be ready.” I bent to pick them up and heard the door to the restaurant open.

Snatching up the keys, I glanced back. The dominant stood there, backlit by the diner’s lights. He sauntered forward like an intrigued cat. The magic was working faster than an ambitious granny knitting a sweater the night before a birthday. I couldn’t see the tangled web of magical cords threaded between me and the dominant, but I could feel their pull. The harder I resisted, the faster those cords wound.

The dominant drew closer. The cords tightened. Another step, another pull. I glared at him; he was doing this to me.

I rose from my crouch slowly, barely containing my rage. “What do you want?”

“You forgot your book again.” This time, there was no gentleness in his face. But he also didn’t look angry. Just confused. It was a ruse. It had to be.

“Keep it.” I backed away toward Bruce, key pinched in my hand. How long would it take to unlock Bruce, start him, and peel out of here? Too long if my blasted hands didn’t stop shaking.

With each backward step, the dominant matched mine with a forward one. The lucky toad had the longer legs, and so he was closing the distance fast.

“How can you—” He paused, and I stole more distance. I was now at the corner of Bruce’s front bumper. I had backed into the stall because that was what truck people did. As fortune, which had never been my friend, would have it, I was on the passenger side.

“This feeling… between us…”

He wasn’t exactly the eloquent type, was he?

I shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. But you’re freaking me out.”

Seemed everyone from the diner wanted to see how this played out. They poured into the parking lot. Who was watching the grill was anyone’s guess. His two dominant buddies took up defensive positions at his flanks, as though I was the enemy they needed to take down. I scanned the crowd, hoping for a volunteer to stand at my flanks. I came up empty.

I brandished my phone like a sword. “If you don’t back off, I’ll call the cops.” No, I wouldn’t actually. Cops were too inquisitive, asking prying questions like, “What’s your name?” or “Where are you from?” How could they expect me to answer tough questions like those?

His buddy with the pretty face chuckled. “You could try. Not sure we’ve set up the police force yet.”

“Tides,” I hissed. “You’re Keadanian soldiers too.”

The dominant’s head quirk to the side in question, as if he couldn’t understand why the fact that he was part of an invading army, who locked civilians into prison camps, and shipped loads of hybrids to dynamists’ slaughterhouses could possibly bother me. Didn’t everyone love their oppressors?

“I just want to talk. Figure out what this is.” He motioned to me, then to himself. “Stay.”

“Was that a command?” I snarled, the sound of my beasts form rumbling to the surface. My eyes locked with his in a clear warning: leave me be or I would make him regret it.

(Chapter continues in part 3)