Chapter 18 Four Against One #3
“I’m assuming we’d have to go to school tomorrow and Friday,” she says.
The question is practical—logistical, operational, the particular inquiry of a woman whose survival depends on understanding the schedule and whose decade of Academy experience has given her an appreciation for the rhythms of institutional life that the rest of us lack.
“School” in Savage Knot context means the Academy’s daily operations—the classes, the training sessions, the surface-level theater of educational purpose that the institution maintains over the reality of its actual function.
We nod.
“But it’s simply for show until the masquerade on the weekend,” I clarify. “So it’ll be easy. Maintain appearances. Don’t attract attention. The kind of operational invisibility that I’m assuming you’ve been practicing for a decade.”
She nods once. The motion is small, confirming—the particular acknowledgment of a woman who has been given instructions that align with the instructions she’s been giving herself for ten years and doesn’t require elaboration on a protocol she invented.
Lucien straightens from his lean and turns toward the kitchen’s stove area, the wooden spoon transitioning from conversational prop back to culinary instrument with the smooth role change of an object that serves multiple functions in Lucien’s hands.
“I’ll get food ready,” he announces, the domestic declaration carrying the confident energy of a man whose cooking ability is one of the few skills he possesses that doesn’t involve bladed weapons or fabric manipulation. Then he looks over his shoulder at me. “But can you take her measurements?”
“Sure.”
Victoria’s head tilts. The fractional adjustment that I’m learning is her primary indicator of curiosity—the angle change that her neck produces when her observation system has received data that requires clarification.
“Measurements for what?”
“For your attire.” Lucien says it as though the answer is self-evident, which in his mind it is. “For the ball. Obviously.”
She’s surprised.
The expression is small but unmistakable—a fractional widening of her eyes, a micro-pause in her breathing, the physiological indicators of a woman whose expectations have been exceeded in a direction she didn’t anticipate.
Her storm-gray eyes move between Lucien and me with the particular focus of someone recalibrating an assessment.
“You’re actually going to make it?”
The question carries a note that the void doesn’t fully suppress—something adjacent to wonder, or the memory of wonder, the faint trace of what wonder used to feel like before the void absorbed it into the managed vacuum of her emotional landscape.
“We love forms of creation,” I say, and the we emerges naturally this time—the plural pronoun that includes my brother without requiring his explicit endorsement because the creative impulse that drives us is shared genetic material that operates on a twin frequency neither of us has ever needed to negotiate.
“And we’ll be a whole lot faster than any sewing mistress who thinks she’s the shit,” Lucien adds from the stove, his voice carrying the particular indignation of a man whose professional standards have been offended by the competition. “Especially in Savage Knot.”
Victoria’s eyes narrow by a fraction—the observational adjustment that precedes a targeted inquiry.
“I’m assuming you checked out the lady that’s here.”
The question is delivered with the flat precision of someone who already knows the answer and is asking for the pleasure of hearing it confirmed.
She’s referring to Savage Knot’s resident seamstress—an institution-appointed garment specialist whose work I evaluated within our first forty-eight hours on Academy grounds and whose skill level I classified as adequate for standard requirements and catastrophically insufficient for anything we would produce.
We nod.
In unison. The synchronized motion that our bodies default to when the subject matter involves professional assessment and the conclusion is unanimous.
“Never again,” we declare.
Also in unison. The twin frequency broadcasting a shared trauma that the seamstress visit apparently produced—a creative injury so profound that neither of us has processed it independently and both of us have processed it simultaneously, arriving at the same two-word verdict through separate cognitive pathways that converged on identical conclusions.
Victoria’s mouth does something.
Not a smirk. Not a smile. Something in between—a muscular event that her face produces in response to the synchronized horror of two men who have been traumatized by bad tailoring, and that the void permits to reach the surface because it apparently classifies twin-frequency fashion disgust as non-threatening emotional content.
Dominic steps into the conversation.
He does so physically—moving from his position at the window to the kitchen island with the particular stride of a man who has been observing the group dynamic from the periphery and has decided that the dynamic requires the direction that only a Prime can provide.
“We need to talk about the game plan for the masquerade.” His voice is the Prime register—authoritative, structured, carrying the particular weight of a man whose designation means that when he speaks about strategy, the pack’s attention is supposed to align accordingly.
“And how we’re going to ensure this works in our favor. ”
His aged-whiskey eyes sweep the room—cataloging positions, assessing readiness, performing the particular survey that Prime Alphas conduct when they’re preparing to lead a planning session.
The eyes linger on Victoria for a fraction of a second longer than they linger on anyone else, and the fraction carries information that I file for later analysis.
Lucien responds from the stove without turning around, his hands occupied with the preliminary operations of meal preparation—the knife meeting cutting board, the pan receiving oil, the choreography of cooking that he performs with the same precision he applies to garment construction.
“Can we do it after dinner, jeez?” The exasperation is genuine—Lucien’s particular variety of annoyance that emerges when practical needs are subordinated to tactical ones before the practical needs have been met. “Trying not to be a party pooper here, now that she’s recovered.”
I back him.
“Let’s eat first.” My voice is even, measured—the clinical register that communicates support without drama. “I can’t strategize on an empty stomach.”
Hawk chimes in from his position behind Victoria’s stool, where he has relocated after the kiss and has assumed a standing posture that places him within arm’s reach of her without occupying her immediate space—the spatial compromise of a feral Alpha who wants to be closer and is choosing not to be.
“Four against one,” he observes, the cigarette—still unlit—bobbing between his lips. His amber-gold eyes carry the particular amusement of a man who has found himself in an unexpected alliance and is enjoying the mathematics.
Dominic huffs.
The sound is expelled through his nostrils with the particular force of a Prime whose authority has been overruled by democratic process—a governance system that the Prime designation does not recognize as legitimate but that the current circumstances require him to accept.
His jaw tightens. His aged-whiskey eyes perform a circuit of the room that communicates his dissatisfaction to each person individually before settling on a point in the middle distance that allows him to be annoyed at everyone simultaneously.
“Whatever.”
The concession is grudging, minimal, wrapped in the single syllable the way a man who doesn’t lose arguments wraps the experience of losing an argument—with the smallest possible amount of verbal material, to minimize the surface area of the defeat.
I stare at him.
Not obviously. Not with the overt attention that would draw his notice or the group’s awareness.
I stare at him the way I stare at chemical compounds that are producing unexpected reactions—with the quiet, analytical focus of a man who has detected an anomaly and is trying to determine whether the anomaly is benign or significant.
Dominic Virelli. Prime Alpha. Aged-whiskey eyes that have spent the last several minutes tracking Victoria’s position in this kitchen with a frequency that exceeds tactical necessity.
The huff that followed our four-against-one wasn’t only about the strategy discussion being postponed.
There was something else in it—a layer beneath the command-structure irritation, a note that doesn’t match the Prime’s standard repertoire of authority-based displeasure.
He watched me carry her in.
He watched the expression on her face when I set her on the stool—the malfunctioning one, the one that didn’t know what to show.
He watched her roll her eyes at Lucien with the casual ease of a woman who is relaxing her defenses in our presence.
He watched Hawk kiss her with the possessive urgency of a man claiming territory.
And he said “whatever” with a jaw that was clenched hard enough to make the muscles in his temples pulse.
Is he truly jealous?
The question forms in my mind with the particular, clinical curiosity that I apply to hypotheses that have insufficient data for confirmation but sufficient indicators for investigation.
Jealousy in a Prime Alpha is a specific neurochemical event—a cocktail of testosterone, cortisol, and the designation-specific pheromone cascade that occurs when a Prime perceives another Alpha’s proximity to a prospective Omega as a territorial incursion.
But Dominic’s response doesn’t fit the standard jealousy profile.
The standard profile produces aggression—the confrontational, dominance-reasserting behavior that Primes deploy to reestablish pack hierarchy.
What Dominic is producing is withdrawal.
The window position. The rigidity. The whatever that concedes ground instead of claiming it.
He’s not jealous the way a Prime is jealous.
He’s jealous the way a man is jealous.
The distinction matters.
Because a Prime’s jealousy is biological. Manageable. The predictable output of a designation doing what designations do.
A man’s jealousy is personal. Complicated. The unpredictable output of a person who wants something he hasn’t admitted to wanting and is watching other people interact with it in ways he hasn’t permitted himself to attempt.
Interesting.
We have five days.
Five days for a Prime to decide whether the wanting he’s hiding behind authority is something he’s going to act on or something he’s going to let curdle into resentment.
Five days for all of us to determine whether the vibes that my brother identified—accurately, annoyingly—are the foundation of something real or the overture of another betrayal in a series of betrayals that has taught every person in this kitchen to expect the worst from the people closest to them.
Lucien’s knife hits the cutting board with a rhythmic precision.
The oil in the pan begins to shimmer. Ruby’s distant mew announces another offensive against the Prime who hates cats.
And Victoria sits on the stool at the kitchen island, her left leg tapping once against the rung, her storm-gray eyes drifting to the middle distance with the particular, unfocused quality of a woman whose void has pulled her briefly below the surface—gone, staring, the temporary absence that I’ve observed enough times now to recognize as the reset her mind performs between social engagements.
She blinks.
Once. Twice.
Locks back in.
Her eyes find mine for a fraction of a second—a glance so brief it might be accidental and isn’t—before she turns to watch Lucien cook, and the cold that she carries makes her shoulders draw inward by a millimeter, and I’m already removing my jacket before the shiver she’s suppressing can reach the surface.
I drape it over her shoulders without comment.
She doesn’t thank me. Doesn’t acknowledge the gesture with words or expression or the particular social protocol that most people deploy when someone provides them with warmth they didn’t request. She just—settles.
Her shoulders ease. The millimeter of inward drawing reverses.
The jacket, which is too large for her frame and carries the bergamot and black pepper of my particular chemistry, hangs from her shoulders with the visual composition of a garment draped over a mannequin that is too delicate for its dimensions.
She doesn’t say thank you.
But her shoulders settle.
And that’s enough.
At least…for now.