Then he slipped out through a back window, just in case Faegan had someone watching the cottage, and headed across the dark countryside on foot with his rucksack and a basket with as much as he could carry of the food and drink Donnel had brought.
Early the next morning, before Faegan likely realized he was missing, Hamish boarded a train east to London.
His plan? To enlist in the British army, get himself shipped to Europe and, once there, fake his death. He had the letter explaining his departure—and telling Faegan to sod off—ready to post just before his deployment. By then, his older brother would already know Hamish had flown the coop.
Fuck you, brother.
He lay his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. Part of him wanted to watch the countryside roll past outside.
The rest of him—all the way to the depths of his soul—ached too much to bear it.
Nine Months Later
The battle was brutal and bloody. Hamish hadn’t felt right about deserting and leaving his comrades with so much on the line, so he stayed and fought.
Unfortunately, one of his best mates was killed in action at the Battle of the Somme.
Fortunately, the man had no family and sufficiently resembled Hamish closely enough—especially with his face shot off and Hamish having grown a scruffy beard and mustache that matched the other man’s—that it was easy to swap their dog tags and ID papers, stab himself with a dead German’s bayonet, and make his way back to the medics for transported out.
Two months later, one Earl P. Johnson stood on the stern of a freighter heading across the Atlantic, watching as the British coast disappeared behind him.
After “Earl” had posted a letter to Faegan, telling him about the heroic and untimely death of his friend, Hamish. Along with a copy of the official military death certificate.
Part of Hamish wanted to angrily rail against his older brother, secretly return to Wales, and put a bullet between the man’s eyes. They’d all be better off with him dead, especially Hyacinth.
The other part of him said it was best to leave the country, never look back, and start a new life across the ocean. People like Faegan lived for and thrived on conflict, their souls bottomless pits that no amount of bloodshed—or anything else—could fill.
All Hamish wanted was peace and freedom.
And, for the first time in his life, he would finally know it.
A man Hamish met and befriended in hospital after leaving the front lines, a fellow soldier from a different unit, had invited Hamish to join him in Boston, where the man planned to visit family for a while before heading to St. Louis to go into business there.
Hamish had told him he wished to escape the violently oppressive thumb of his brother, but nothing about the fact that he’d appropriated his new identity from a dead man.
Because, honestly, could the man’s identity be stolen if he were already alone in the world with no one to claim or miss him?
Maybe, one day, Hamish would return to Wales and kill Faegan.
For now, all he wanted was the ability to sleep without looking over his shoulder and without worrying about Faegan’s machinations.
A peaceful life, food in his belly, and a dry roof overhead. And, if he was lucky, extra coin in his pocket to keep him smiling.
I will finally have it.
Present - One Week Ago
All these years being careful, and this is how I die.
It’d been so long since Hamish had experienced deep, visceral terror that it nearly made him puke when the man’s hand clamped onto his shoulder about the same time he realized he was dealing with an alpha wolf.
A Prime Alpha wolf.
“Keep comin’ in,” the man whispered. “There’s a good lad. Quietly, if ye please. Just wanna chat with ye.”
Not that Hamish could have screamed if he’d tried, because the shifter’s Prime order kept him silent and compliant.
That terror intensified after the man sat Hamish behind his desk and then identified himself.
