They found Duncan and Donovan in the king’s office. Both men looked up when Blair kicked the door open. Duncan sat behind the desk with the presumptuous ease of a man who’d already started thinking of the chair as his, while Donovan stood by the window, pretending to study a document. In Fergal’soffice, the room where Fergal should’ve been sitting, making decisions, fighting for his people the way he’d been fighting since the day he inherited the crown.
Pure fury blazed through Jermon. How dare they? How dare they usurp what wasn’t theirs to take!
Duncan’s face cycled through surprise, calculation, and the rapid assembly of a diplomatic smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Commander Blair. What a pleasant?—”
“Don’t.” Blair’s voice was ice. “Don’t speak. Don’t move. Don’t insult us both by pretending you don’t know exactly why we’re here.”
Duncan’s smile curdled. Beside him, Donovan shifted toward the window—either contemplating escape or reaching for something hidden—and Jermon extended his magic, pinning the man in place with a focused pulse of energy that locked his muscles and left him gasping.
“Sorry,” Jermon said, not sorry at all. “I wouldn’t recommend moving right now.”
Nadiv entered behind them, his light-blue influencer magic already reaching out into the room with a subtlety that Jermon, even knowing what to look for, could barely detect. That was Nadiv’s gift—not force but persuasion, the gentle nudge that helped people find the truth they were already reaching for. The guards who’d been wavering in the yard would be putting down their weapons right about now, not because they’d been compelled but because Nadiv had helped them feel what they already knew, that following Duncan’s orders had never sat right, that the king they’d sworn to serve would never have sanctioned any of this.
“Duncan and Donovan,” Blair said, pulling zip ties from his belt with the casual efficiency of a man who’d done this before, “you’re being detained on suspicion of conspiracy, treason against King Fergal of the Fitzgerald clan, and collaborationwith the former Murphy clan leadership. You’ll be held until the king returns to determine the legal proceedings. Which he will. Return, that is.”
“This is outrageous,” Duncan sputtered. “We were acting under emergency authority?—”
“Emergency authority granted by yourselves, to yourselves, on the day your king was kidnapped by the people you’ve been working for.” Blair secured Duncan’s wrists behind his back, his movements precise and impersonal. “Save the performance for the tribunal. Right now, you have the right to remain silent, and I strongly recommend you exercise it.”
Jermon left Blair to process the detainees and followed the sound of voices to the west wing, where Palani’s team had reached the omega quarters.
The corridor was lined with closed doors, each one locked from the outside. Simple bolt locks, not magical—as if the omegas were animals to be penned rather than people to be imprisoned. The casualness of the cruelty hit Jermon harder than any dark magic could have. You didn’t need spells to dehumanize someone. You just needed a bolt and the conviction that the person on the other side didn’t deserve an open door.
Palani was working his way down the corridor, sliding bolts one by one, opening each door with a calm “You’re free. You’re safe. We’re here to help” that carried the unmistakable resonance of the True Alpha’s power—not compulsion but reassurance, a bone-deep communication that what he was saying was true.
The omegas emerged slowly, blinking, disbelieving. Some were crying. Some were silent, their faces empty like people who’d learned to stop hoping. One—an older female omega with gray-streaked hair—took one look at Palani and said, “Valerie told us to wait. She said help was coming.”
“Valerie was right,” Palani said.
And then a woman appeared at the end of the corridor, and the sound she made when she saw the open doors was something Jermon would carry with him for the rest of his life. She let out a deep, shuddering breath, as if finally releasing what she’d been holding for days, then looked at them and smiled. “Thank you.”
“You’re…?”
“I’m Valerie.”
“Valerie,” Jermon said, bowing his head to her because some things transcended rank and species and the arbitrary hierarchies that men imposed on each other to feel powerful. “Thank you. For everything.”
She burst into tears, and Zack was there immediately, pulling her into a hug. He knew exactly what it felt like to survive what she’d survived.
The compound took another hour to fully secure. Blair’s team swept every building, every room, every closet. They found no other prisoners beyond the confined omegas and the nine alphas, which was both a relief and a disappointment—Jermon had half-hoped they’d find additional evidence of the Murphy conspiracy, documents or communications that could strengthen the legal case Fergal would build when he returned.
When.Not if. Jermon refused to think in ifs.
Ruben turned out to have been one of the nine alphas locked in the barracks. The former head of the royal guards was considerably more competent than Gregor had given him credit for, or perhaps the sheer audacity of Duncan and Donovan’s actions had made him see the truth. He reported to Blair, providing a detailed account of Duncan and Donovan’s takeover, including the names of every guard who’d willingly participated and the ones who’d been coerced.
“I should’ve seen it sooner,” Ruben said, his jaw tight with self-recrimination. “The signs were there. I just didn’t want to believe it.”
“You’re not the only one,” Jermon said, thinking of Gregor, who hadn’t been able to stop them either. Sometimes, the enemy was too close to see clearly. Sometimes, the people you were supposed to trust were the very ones you should’ve been watching.
Blair established a temporary command structure—Ruben reinstated as head of the royal guards, supported by the freed alphas and supplemented by the wolf fighters who would remain until the situation was stable. Cedric was reunited with omegas he’d known his entire life, and the sound of their greetings—the gasps and the tears and the disbelieving laughter—filled the compound’s corridors with a warmth that no amount of magic could’ve produced.
Cedric’s own expression was complicated—grief and triumph and homesickness and pride, layered so thick that Jermon couldn’t begin to untangle them.
“You okay?” Jermon asked.
Cedric nodded slowly. “I never thought I’d come back. I definitely never thought I’d come back like this.” He paused. “Fergal would’ve loved seeing their faces. The omegas, when the doors opened.”
“He’ll hear about it. Every detail.” Jermon put a hand on Cedric’s shoulder. “We’ll make sure of that.”
