Then something closed around their connection like a fist, and it went dead.
Silence. Complete, absolute silence where Fergal’s presence should’ve been.
Gregor stood in the kitchen of their cabin, holding a torn piece of notebook paper, and felt something inside him break that he had not known could break. Not his composure, though that was gone too, shattered like glass. Something deeper. Something structural. The load-bearing wall that had held up the architecture of his entire life—the belief that his vigilance, his discipline, his relentless, obsessive dedication to Fergal’s safety could keep the man he loved from harm.
Fergal was gone. Someone had taken him.
And Gregor. Hadn’t. Been. There.
He’d been walking the perimeter. Two hours of checking wards and scanning tree lines and running threat scenarios in his head while the actual threat walked through the front door of their cabin and took everything that mattered. Two hours during which he could’ve been here, should’ve been here, would’ve been here if he hadn’t been using the extended patrol as an excuse to avoid the uncomfortable silence of their shared space.
Then again, he’d lost Fergal three days ago, in the fight, when Fergal had begged him for the truth and Gregor had slammed the door in his face. If they hadn’t been fighting, if the silence between them hadn’t created the conditions for Fergal to leave without telling him, without trusting that Gregor would handle whatever threat had drawn him out, this wouldn’t have happened.
And underneath even that, the deeper fault line. Years. He’d been failing Fergal for years, holding the Peter secret like a shield between them, using it as justification for every wall, every omission, every moment he’d chosen caution over honesty. The fight hadn’t created the distance between them. The distance had always been there—a locked door that Gregor maintained with obsessive care, keeping Fergal on one side and the truth on the other, telling himself it was protection when it was cowardice.
His hands were shaking for the fourth time in his life. The night he’d killed Peter. The night Fergal had touched his mind with magic. The night of the over-the-knee scene when Fergal had cried. And now.
He put the note down and put Fergal’s glasses in his breast pocket.
Then the training took over because three and a half centuries of military discipline would always overrule everything else. He called Blair. “Code Orange. King Fergal is missing.Lock down the compound. No one enters or leaves. Full security sweep, every building, every cabin. I want every guard accounted for in the next five minutes.”
Blair didn’t ask questions. “On it. I’ll alert the Hayes pack as well.”
Gregor was out the door in under a minute, running like a man possessed. Within minutes, the compound was mobilizing—voices rising, radios crackling, the organized chaos of a community that had practiced emergency protocols often enough that the response was automatic.
Gregor reached the main house, where Rhene was already emerging, his face tight. “Fergal?”
“Gone. Left a note saying he had to handle something. I felt a connection to him for a moment—his fear, then Murphy magic, then the connection was severed.”
Rhene’s expression hardened into something Gregor recognized as the pack alpha’s combat mode. It was the same transformation Gregor himself underwent, but colored by Rhene’s own experience of being taken. “How long?”
“His coffee was still warm. Thirty minutes tops, probably less.”
Zack appeared behind Rhene, still panting from running over. “I’ll coordinate the sweep.”
“If this is a Murphy operation, they might be targeting multiple people,” Rhene said.
Gregor’s blood, already cold, dropped another ten degrees. He hadn’t considered that. If the Murphys had infiltrated the compound’s security enough to extract Fergal, they could be planning simultaneous strikes. “Bring all the kids and high-value targets like Erwan into the meeting barn and post guards around it.”
He didn’t even realize he’d given an order that wasn’t his to give until Zack looked at Rhene for confirmation. Rhene put ahand on his shoulder. “This is not the time to get territorial, but I also want to avoid us giving contradicting orders.” He studied Gregor for a beat. “Can you lead the investigation? Or are you too close?”
Gregor admired the sheer balls of the wolf alpha to even raise that question. “I’m nowhere near objective, obviously, but I’m also the person who knows Fergal best and who should lead it.”
“True. Plus, you’re his mate.”
Mate? What the fuck did Rhene base that on? Then it hit Gregor. The connection he’d felt with Fergal. It hadn’t been mind-speak. It had been their fated-mate connection. Oh gods, Fergal was his mate. His fuckingmate.
“You didn’t know?” Rhene asked, face softening.
Gregor shook his head, swallowing before his voice worked again. “Not until now.”
“I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”
So was he, but he had to shove that down to process later. “I have bigger concerns right now.”
More people were arriving—Jermon, Fallon, Crowell, Sivney. The main house was filling with the pack’s and clan’s leadership, pulled from their day by the alarm, their faces showing various stages of shock and fury.
Rhene whistled for attention, and silence descended. “Commander Gregor is in charge of the investigation.”
