“Lucan has alerted everyone at the clinic, and they’re standing by,” Fallon said. “I texted Yitro an hour ago, and he’s coordinating meal preparation for the arrivals. Cabins are being prepared as well. Sivney is on it.”
“Tiernan is the most urgent case,” Erwan said. “He’s severely malnourished, dehydrated, and in acute psychological distress.”
“Can he be teleported?” Fergal asked.
Erwan hesitated. “It would be rough on his body, but the alternative of a long journey by car would be worse, I think.”
“Cedric,” Fergal said, and the omega appeared in the doorway as if he’d been waiting for his name. Which, knowing Cedric, he probably had.
“Can you manage one more teleportation?” Fergal asked. “One person, two hundred miles?”
Cedric was pale, with dark circles bruising the skin beneath his eyes, his body carrying the visible toll of what he’d accomplished. But his voice was steady. “For a child? Yes. I can manage.”
“Are you sure?” Fallon asked because someone had to. “You’ve already pushed beyond?—”
“I’m sure.” Cedric’s jaw set with a determination that Fallon recognized from himself—the quiet, unbreakable resolve of aperson who had survived horrors and emerged not broken but refined. “Get me to the boy.”
Sonya, an elderly Doyle omega, was keeping Tiernan company. The boy was sitting on the floor of one of the outbuildings with his knees drawn to his chest, a blanket wrapped around him. His sandy hair was matted, his eyes red-rimmed and exhausted, ancient in a face too young to hold them.
Fallon crouched in front of him. “Tiernan.”
Tiernan looked up with wary assessment, but stayed silent.
“Do you remember me? I’m Fallon. I babysat you before you were sent to the O’Connors.”
Recognition brought the tiniest of sparks to Tiernan’s eyes. “You were always so sweet to me.”
“Thank you. I tried.”
“Do you know where my brother is?”
“Yes. Simon is very eager to see you. He’s with the Hightower pack, and he has been worried sick about you. We’re going to take you to him right now.”
Tiernan lunged forward and grabbed Fallon’s arm with fingers that were painfully thin and surprisingly strong, clinging like a drowning person to a rope. “Take me to him. Please. Please take me to my brother.”
“That’s exactly what we’re going to do.” Fallon looked at Cedric, who came closer and knelt beside them. “This is Cedric. He’s going to teleport you to the pack. It’ll feel strange—disorienting, maybe a little nauseating—but it’s fast. You’ll be with Simon in minutes.”
“Teleportation?” The boy’s eyes went wide with fear.
“I’ll be gentle,” Cedric said, his tone so sweet and soft that Fallon wanted to hug him. “I promise. And when we get there, your brother will be the first person you see.”
Tiernan’s grip on Fallon’s arm tightened, then slowly released. He looked at Cedric, assessed him with the too-old eyesof a child who’d been assessing threats since he could walk, and nodded. “Okay.”
Cedric took the boy’s hands, and Fallon stepped back. Then Cedric closed his eyes, and they were gone. Fallon stared at the empty space where they’d been and allowed himself a minute to process the emotions inside him. Rage, first and foremost, for what had been done to Tiernan, to all of them. Bitter, burning, blazing rage at the Murphys for the endless atrocities they had committed.
But also sadness for the betrayal Tiernan would learn about, for the wounds this would leave in the pack and the clan when everyone heard about what Simon had done. Oh, Fallon understood, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t furious with Simon for not speaking up sooner. For months, he’d fed the Murphys information that had put all their lives at risk.
Fallon sighed. It would all have to wait. He had work to do.
The warding took two hours. Fallon and Jermon worked in tandem, moving from prisoner to prisoner. The containment wards were complex—each one had to be individually calibrated to the prisoner’s specific magical signature, layered with suppression for both shifting and magical abilities. Jermon’s magic complemented Fallon’s perfectly—where Fallon’s strength was in the architecture of the ward structure, Jermon’s was in the raw power that fueled it.
They started with the three rank-and-file Murphy fighters, men who’d followed orders without question and were now sitting in the dirt paying the price for that obedience. They submitted to the warding quietly, their fight gone, their eyes carrying dull shock.
Colin next. The purple dragon, the magic specialist, the man whose dark magic Fallon had countered during the assault. Colin’s eyes tracked Fallon’s movements with intensity, one magic user assessing another. When Fallon’s ward settled overhim—clean, powerful, and absolutely impenetrable—something that looked like grudging respect flickered across the man’s face before he could suppress it.
Fallon didn’t need his respect. But he noted it with satisfaction.
Alistair was harder. The commander, the fighter, the man who’d run the Murphy clan’s military operations with brutal efficiency for decades. He sat with his back straight and his jaw set, radiating defiance from every pore. When Fallon crouched in front of him to place the ward, Alistair’s lip curled.
