The calculation had taken less than three seconds. If he went, he was walking into a trap. If he didn’t, the man he loved would die on a patrol route two miles away, alone, ambushed by enemies who knew his schedule because Fergal and Gregor had been too focused on Duncan and Donovan to consider that the Murphys might have another source of intelligence inside the pack and the clan.
Another source. The realization had been distant, clinical—filed away for later processing because there was no time for the betrayal to register fully. Simon. The quiet omega who trembled when anyone looked at him. The Murphy refugee who picked up meal trays and slipped through rooms like a ghost. How long? How much had he reported? How many of their conversations, their strategies, their secrets had been transmitted through that stone to the very people who’d murdered Fergal’s father?
Later. He’d deal with that later. Right now, Gregor was walking a route that someone had given the Murphys, and Fergal had twelve minutes left.
He’d scribbled the note.Had to handle something. Back soon. Don’t worry.Pathetic, inadequate words that told Gregor nothing and would tell him everything—that Fergal had left voluntarily, that he’d known the risk, that he’d chosen to go anyway. Gregor would read between the lines.
He hadn’t taken his reading glasses. His hands had been shaking too hard to fold them, and some irrational part of hisbrain had whispered that leaving them behind was an anchor, some kind of promise of return.
He’d followed Simon to the eastern tree line with seven minutes to spare. The omega had been silently crying the entire way, tears streaming down his face. Fergal had wanted to both comfort him and strangle him. He’d done a quick but careful brush into Simon’s mind, immediately butting up against a thick wall that felt all too familiar. The Murphys. Again.
More than anything, he’d wanted to ask why. What had they threatened Simon with? How long had he been betraying them? But there was no time.
Simon had disappeared right before they’d reached the boundary of the pack lands. At the tree line, four shapes had materialized from the undergrowth—Murphy alphas, their magic cloaking them until the last moment. Fergal had recognized Alistair’s broad frame and Kerry’s sharp features before the dampening spell hit him like a physical blow, severing every magical connection he possessed in one brutal cut.
In that fraction of a second before the dampening closed around him—one heartbeat, maybe two—Fergal had reached. Not with his influencer magic. Not with his mind-reading. With something deeper, something he hadn’t known existed until it was being torn away. He’d reached for Gregor with everything he had, pouring every ounce of fear and love and desperation into the connection, screaming through whatever bond linked them.
I’m here. They have me. I love you. I’m sorry.
He didn’t know if Gregor had heard him. He didn’t know if the message had gotten through before the dampening swallowed it. All he knew was the silence that followed—absolute, suffocating—was the loneliest sound he’d ever not heard.
They’d blindfolded and then teleported him. The disorientation was brutal—a nauseating whirl of darkness andpressure that lasted either seconds or hours, he couldn’t tell—and when his feet found solid ground again, he’d vomited on someone’s boots, which gave him a petty satisfaction that almost made up for the indignity.
They’d knocked him out cold with something that had smelled foul before darkness had enveloped him.
Now he was here. Whereverherewas.
Fergal swung his legs off the cot and stood, testing his balance. Steady enough. The headache was fading. He crossed to the window and looked out.
Rolling terrain. Brown grass and scrubby trees stretched to a distant tree line. A few outbuildings were visible—barns or storage structures, weathered and utilitarian. A dirt road led to a gate in a fence that surrounded the property. No mountains, no snow, no frozen lakes. This was nothing like Canada. The vegetation, the flatness, the quality of the light—they all looked an awful lot like the pack lands he’d been on. Maybe he was closer than he’d thought?
He pressed his palm flat against the window. The magical seal buzzed against his skin—strong, layered, the work of someone who knew what they were doing. Colin, probably. The Murphy’s resident magical expert, according to Gregor.
He couldn’t use his influencer ability. He’d tested it the moment he’d regained consciousness, reaching for the familiar hum of power, and found nothing. Like trying to flex a muscle that had been anesthetized—the intent was there, but the response was dead.
His mind-reading was gone too. And the connection to Gregor, the bond he was only now understanding had been there for months, maybe years, humming beneath the surface of their relationship like a bass note too low to consciously hear but present in every interaction, every touch, every moment of inexplicable certainty that this man was where Fergal belonged.
Fated mates. The term surfaced with a clarity that was almost cruel in its timing. He’d heard Erwan and Rhene talk about it—the bond that transcended choice, the connection that made separation physically painful, the knowing that went deeper than logic or experience. Fergal had listened and nodded and filed it under interesting but not personally relevant. He’d been too busy to recognize that the pull between them, the inability to be apart, the way his body reached for Gregor’s warmth in sleep had all been the bond, speaking a language neither of them had learned to translate.
And now it was gone, cut off by dampening magic that treated their connection like a wire to be snipped. The absence was so acute that Fergal had to lean his forehead against the cool glass and breathe through the wave of something that felt disconcertingly like grief.
Gregor. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left without telling you. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you and let us face this together. I’m sorry the last real conversation we had was a fight about the things you won’t tell me. I’m sorry that right now you’re tearing yourself apart with guilt because that’s what you do, you impossible, beautiful, infuriating man, and I can’t reach you to tell you that this isn’t your fault.
None of this is your fault.
Except for the part where you won’t say you love me. That part is absolutely your fault, and when I get out of here, we’re going to have words about it.
The defiance surfaced like a reflex, sharp and clarifying. Good. Defiance he could work with. Defiance was fuel.
He straightened, wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, and started cataloging his situation with systematic precision.
He was alive. They could’ve easily killed him, but they hadn’t. That meant they wanted him alive, which meant he had value, which meant he had leverage.
He was dampened but not drugged, which meant they wanted him conscious and coherent. They needed something from him—information, cooperation, a signature on legal documents, something his mind could provide.
And he could hear other people in this building. Footsteps above him. Muffled voices through the walls. The compound wasn’t a prison for one king. People lived here—more than just the remaining Murphy alphas. So where was he? Who had the Murphys teamed up with?
Sounds from beyond the wall to his left startled him. Shouting, scuffling, the meaty thud of bodies colliding, followed by a door slamming hard enough to rattle the frame and the heavy clank of a lock engaging.
