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“A report this morning suggests otherwise. Marigold was seen meeting with a criminal gang. We saw two of Eiden’s brothers meet with the same gang last week. They are likely working in collusion… It is also possible she was playing me to gain access to Eiden and or the palace. To make herself a familiar presence to facilitate their plan.”

Wolf growls, but I don’t shy away from the facts. “Marigold never meant more to me than a passing moment of pleasure. It hurts to be used merely as a means to an end. My personal slight is nothing compared to knowing I have unwittingly played a role in the capture of Eiden and Fawn… I will have to live with that, bear that burden, but I will bury the guilt until after we have them returned.”

“We will get them back,” Ambrose says, voice thick with determination.

“Damn right we will,” Nox says, voice cold as winter’s bite. “If I have to rip the city apart a brick at a time. We will get them back.”

Eiden

My ears are ringing, and the world is muggy like I’m trappedunderwater. My mouth is dry, my tongue unnaturally thick, and my eyelids heavy. As my pounding head lolls to the side, it brings a deluge of fresh pain and a foul taste to the back of my throat…

The memories come flooding back: the garden, the sense of malaise, Fawn’s cry, a net coming over me, tangling my antlers and hooves. Their clubs beating me to the ground as I thrashed helplessly, followed by the noxious scent filling my nose and lungs.

I’m naked on my knees, my hands bound behind my back. Through blurry eyes, I glimpse stone, windowless walls, flickering sconces, and shadowy figures.

I lean forward and heave up over the floor.

“Eiden!”

My ears are still ringing. I hear voices, but it’s like they are coming from far away… or maybe a dream. I gulp for air, still heaving, trying to gather my wits.

A blow lands across my shoulder blades. I choke on my vomit—another blow—I heave up more before the pain overrides the heaving sensation.

I spit out the bitter taste from my mouth.

Whatever they forced me to breathe snatched away consciousness and returned me to my human state.

I know what this is about even before I blink the world into better focus and see my brothers standing there: Onis, Torden, Crael.

What I don’t expect is the woman standing at the end, leaning possessively into Crael—Marigold.

Bitch.

Onis is the oldest. Like my father, he has dark hair, as does Torden, who is younger by a year. While the youngest of the three, Crael, has golden hair, just like mine. Their expressions range from bitter fervor to a familiar disgust.

Emotions I fully reciprocate even as I quake.

The ringing in my ears finally begins to fade. I take stock of my situation. There is only one way out of the cell: a wooden door with a small, barred window, which I have every reason to believe is locked and guarded on the other side. Worse, I have a terrible, blooming awareness of where in the city we have been brought.

My stag snorts his disapproval. Do they think the chains will contain him? Do they think we are still weak? He will rip apart anyone who dares to stand in his way…

“Eiden?”

The gentle inquiry lances through my wildly beating heart, cutting short my stag’s surge of righteous fury. My head jerks to the side and the source of the voice. No, she cannot be here, not my sweet Fawn. She was never meant to be exposed to monsters.

Inside my stag bays. I lurch toward her, seeking to put myself between her and the danger… only to come to an abrupt, painful stop, finding my wrists connected by a chain to the wall.

The omega side of me is sinking into desolation.

My stag is slamming at the chains of imprisonment.

Only I dare not release him. Not when kneeling beside me, her scent curdled with the poison they forced us to breathe, is the woman I love.

My scent match.

My omega mate.

My stag rails with renewed vigor, testing my inner chains. Completely feral, he wants blood. The bindings they probably think hold me are nothing to my inner beast in this state.