He filed the information and kept walking. There would be time to fall apart later. Or there wouldn’t be, and it wouldn’t matter.
Delton was waiting in the hallway outside one of the small rooms the pack used for private conversations, Zack by his side.
“Talk to me,” Gregor said, not bothering with introductions.
“Zack noticed it first,” Delton said, gesturing for Zack to explain.
“I noticed he was behaving oddly, very distraught. We’re all stressed for obvious reasons, but he seemed to be taking it much harder, which didn’t make sense to me. And he hadn’t eaten since it happened. So I talked to him, and all my alarm bells were going off because he didn’t seem scared like the rest of us. I know what fear looks like. I’ve been surrounded by it my entire life. This wasn’t fear, so I asked Delton to check in with him.”
Delton took over. “After assessing Simon, I agree. He’s not scanning for external threats the way the other omegas are. He’s turned inward. Hunched. And he flinches every time someone mentions Fergal’s name.”
“You think he knows something.”
“I think he’s carrying something that’s destroying him.” Delton paused, choosing his next words with care. “Hispresentation is consistent with acute guilt, not trauma. The distinction matters—trauma victims withdraw from the source of threat. Guilty individuals withdraw from the people they’ve wronged.”
“And he’s withdrawing from everyone.”
“From the whole pack. As if everyone here is someone he’s wronged.”
The cold in Gregor’s bones intensified. “I want to talk to him.”
Delton held up a hand. “With respect, Commander, but you’re the last person who should be asking him questions. You’re too close to this, and if Simon is carrying what I think he’s carrying, confronting him with a three-hundred-and-fifty-year-old alpha who’s in mate-separation distress is going to shut him down, not open him up.”
The rational part of Gregor’s brain acknowledged the validity of this assessment. The irrational part—the part that was running on adrenaline and mate sickness and fourteen hours without sleep—wanted to kick the door down and shake the truth out of the omega by his collar.
“Let me do this,” Delton said quietly. “It’s what I’m trained for. Give me some time. If he knows something, I’ll get it.”
Gregor’s jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached. “I want to be in the room.”
“That’s fine, Commander, but I need your word you won’t interfere.”
“Delton is really good at what he does,” Rhene said, almost pleading.
“Okay.”
They stayed, huddling in a corner of the room as Delton sat down with Simon.
Twenty-three minutes. That was how long it took.
Gregor stood in the corner and watched Delton dismantle Simon’s defenses with nothing but patience and kindness. He wasn’t merely good at what he did. He was fucking brilliant. The beta sat across from Simon at a small table, his posture open, his voice pitched low enough that Gregor had to strain to hear. He didn’t interrogate. He didn’t accuse. He simply created a space—warm, nonjudgmental, safe—and waited for the omega to fill it.
Simon lasted eleven minutes before the first crack appeared. A tremor in his hands that he tried to hide by pressing them flat against the table. A sheen of moisture in his eyes that he blinked away. The slow, incremental collapse of a man who had been carrying a weight too heavy for his frame and had finally found someone who was offering to help him set it down.
“It’s okay,” Delton said softly, leaning forward. “Whatever it is, Simon, it’s okay. You’re safe here.”
“I’m not,” Simon whispered. “None of us is safe. Because of me.”
“Why is that?”
“I’ve been sending them reports.” Simon’s voice was barely audible, his eyes fixed on the table. “Since I arrived. Since Fallon brought us here.”
“Reports to whom?” Delton asked gently.
“The Murphys. Alistair and Kerry. They sent me a message to meet them, and they gave me a stone, a spelled stone. They told me…” A sob broke through, raw and ugly. “They told me if I stopped reporting, they’d kill my brother.”
“Your brother?”
“Tiernan. He’s fifteen. They sold him to the O’Connors a few years ago, since he’s an omega. I thought I’d never see him again, but then they told me they’d gotten him back after we all left. They knew I’d do anything to keep him alive.” Simon’s hands were shaking so badly that the table vibrated. “Anything. So they told me to send them reports…and I did.”
