Page 39 of Conall (The Sunburst Pack #3)

You gave me lies. Purpose built on false premises. She shifted slightly, testing the restraints’ give. A mission serving your agenda, not justice.

Justice? Gregory’s laugh was harsh. Justice for whom? The humans who would see our kind hunted to extinction if they discovered what we really are? The packs willing to conform to human-style governance? Or those too bound to the old ways to see the value of new technologies?

He began pacing again—the restless energy she remembered from childhood when he worked through complex problems. But what had once seemed reassuring now felt dangerous. Predatory.

You think Sunburst represents some noble alternative, he continued, his fervor building. Malcolm and Larissa with their democratic ideals, their alliance building, their faith in cooperation over strength. They’re naive children playing at leadership while real threats gather.

Real threats like Chimera?

Chimera was primitive. A proof of concept. Gregory stopped pacing, fixing her with an intense stare. We’ve improved their techniques exponentially.

She’d expected this, and yet ice still formed in her limbs. We?

The Prometheus Group. Former Chimera researchers who recognized the limitations of their original mandate. Pride colored his voice. Where Chimera sought to manage individual assets, we envision something far more ambitious.

He moved, and she turned her head to follow him with her gaze to equipment she hadn’t noticed before—multiple screens showing organizational charts, financial flows, deployment schedules covering half the continent.

Coordinated activation of embedded assets across all major pack territories, he said with genuine enthusiasm. Not just intelligence gathering but complete behavioral override. Pack leaders reduced to puppets, traditional hierarchies replaced by proper leadership.

And that leadership would be you.

Under those with vision to make necessary decisions. Under leadership that prioritizes results over popularity. His sharp smile went winter cold. So yes. Under me.

There it was. The truth behind all his betrayals, all his manipulations spanning decades.

Gregory Torrance didn’t just want control over his old pack—he wanted to rule every shifter community, to impose his vision of authoritarian hierarchy on every wolf who’d found happiness under democratic systems.

You’re insane.

I’m practical. The current system is unsustainable—multiple alphas pursuing conflicting objectives, resources wasted on territorial disputes, pack loyalty preventing necessary cooperation.

His voice carried true believer fervor. It’s a recipe for extinction when we face enemies with unified command structures.

Enemies like you?

Gregory’s expression hardened, the patient teacher disappearing behind Vincent’s former enforcer. I’m trying to save our species. Someone has to make the hard choices.

You mean someone has to sacrifice everyone else for your personal empire.

The greater good requires personal sacrifice, he snapped—the first crack in his composed facade. Do you think I wanted this responsibility? I gave up a normal life, having a mate, my daughter, because someone must think beyond petty pack politics.

The casual dismissal of their relationship as something he’d given up sent fresh pain through her chest. But through the closed mate bond, she felt phantom echoes of Conall’s steady presence—the man who’d chosen connection over convenience, who’d fought to build something together.

You didn’t give up a normal daughter. You created a weapon. Her voice roughened with suppressed emotion. Shaped me from childhood to serve your agenda, pointed me at your enemies, used my grief as a tool.

I gave you purpose. Direction. Skills that have kept you alive. Paternal disappointment crept back into his tone. Everything you are, every strength you possess, comes from the foundation I provided.

Everything I am includes the ability to recognize manipulation when I hear it. The crude honesty felt good. You didn’t create me, Dad. You tried to program me. There’s a difference.

For the first time, Gregory looked genuinely surprised—as if her rejection of his narrative had never seriously occurred to him.

The mate bond, he said suddenly, understanding dawning. That Stewart twin. He’s changed your perspective, made you think personal connections matter more than duty.

The shift to discussing Conall sent alarm bells ringing. Gregory’s tone carried the same analytical interest he’d used when discussing other problems to be eliminated.

Leave him out of this.

I’m afraid that’s impossible. Gregory moved to another terminal, bringing up surveillance photos that made her blood freeze.

Conall Stewart represents a significant complication to our operations.

His influence on you, combined with his position in Sunburst’s leadership structure, makes him a priority target.

The photos showed Conall’s daily routines—leaving the apartment he shared with Quinton, coordinating with Anders, training with pack members. Someone had been watching him, mapping his patterns, for weeks—much longer than Nadine had even known him.

The interface technology we’ve developed allows for precise behavioral modification beyond Chimera’s original research, Gregory continued with clinical detachment.

We can maintain his core personality while adjusting loyalties, priorities, emotional connections.

He’ll remain useful to pack operations while serving our larger objectives.

You want to reprogram him.

I want to save him from the distraction of an impossible relationship.

Mate bonds are powerful, but they’re not stronger than properly applied neural modification.

Our improved protocol of a neural implant combined with chemical controls will make him an excellent agent.

Gregory’s expression softened as if he was offering a gift.

He’ll be happier without the confusion of conflicting loyalties.

More effective when not compromised by emotional entanglements.

Rage flooded her system—pure, undiluted fury that made her wolf surge forward with deadly intent. The easy dismissal of what she and Conall had built, the reduction of their connection to mere emotional entanglement, struck deeper than physical torture.

You bastard, she breathed, the words carrying all the venom she could summon around her elongating fangs, her teeth already beginning to shift.

I’m someone who understands that personal desires must be subordinated to larger purposes. His voice remained calm. A lesson you failed to learn.

I learned plenty. Including how to recognize a sociopath.

His hand moved faster than she could track—the backhanded slap snapping her head sideways with enough force to split her lip. Blood filled her mouth, but the violence shocked her more than the pain.

He’d always been a hard man, but Gregory had never been casually cruel. Not to Nadine.

You will show respect, he said quietly, his voice carrying a dangerous calm. I am still your father. Still owed courtesy from someone I shaped from nothing.

Nadine spat blood out onto the concrete, meeting his gaze with her own defiant one.

What I’ve become is someone who can see through your lies, she said steadily despite the pain. Someone who knows the difference between strength and cruelty, between leadership and tyranny. Someone who’s found something worth protecting from parasites like you.

The claim that she’d found someone worth protecting seemed to strike him more deeply than her defiance. His expression cycled through surprise, disappointment, and something that might have been genuine grief.

The mate bond has compromised you completely, he said, and for the first time, his voice carried real emotion rather than calculated manipulation. My daughter, the weapon I forged through years of training, reduced to nothing more than mere sentiment and attachment.

It’s better than you could possibly understand.

Gregory stared at her for a long moment, and she caught a glimpse in his expression of the father she remembered from childhood. But it vanished before she could process it, replaced by cold calculation.

You were supposed to be my legacy, he said quietly. My successor. The one who would carry on the work when I was gone.

I’m nobody’s legacy but my own.

No, he replied, reaching for something beyond her sight. You’re a loose end that requires resolution.

The syringe in his hand gleamed silver, filled with something that made her wolf cower instinctively. Not a simple tranquilizer—something far more permanent.

Neural interface implantation, followed by chemicals designed to heighten your susceptibility to suggestions, he explained with clinical detachment. When you wake up, you’ll remember why duty matters more than personal desires. Why our cause justifies any sacrifice.

You mean I’ll be your puppet.

You’ll be my daughter again. Properly motivated. Correctly focused. The syringe moved closer. The woman who understands that sometimes we must sacrifice what we want for what our people need.

But as Gregory reached for her arm, Nadine smiled.

The zip-tie restraints had been weakening since she’d regained consciousness.

Enhanced healing from the mate bond—even closed—had allowed her to work on them, stretching the ties more than even standard shifter strength would allow for, creating stress fractures in the plastic that Gregory didn’t expect.

With desperate strength, she broke free and moved with liquid precision.

The syringe clattered across concrete as Gregory stumbled backward in genuine surprise.

Impossible, he breathed. The restraints were—

Inadequate, Nadine finished, flowing to her feet. Just like your understanding of what you really created.

But Gregory was faster than she’d anticipated.

Decades of field experience kicked in as he rolled with the fall, his hand shooting out to snag the syringe before it could slide beyond reach. Even as Nadine lunged forward, he was already moving—a smooth combat roll that brought him back to his feet with the weapon secured.

Enhanced healing from the mate bond, he said, breathing only slightly elevated despite the struggle. I should have accounted for that variable.

Nadine feinted left, then dove right, but Gregory had trained her every move. He knew her patterns, her tells, the precise way she shifted her weight before attacking. The tranquilizer dart caught her in the thigh before she’d completed her evasion.

This time, the drug was different. Stronger. Designed specifically to counter shifter metabolism and whatever enhanced healing the mate bond might provide.

Her legs buckled as the chemical raced through her system, vision blurring at the edges. She fought to stay conscious, clawing at the concrete floor as Gregory approached with methodical calm.

You were always my finest creation, he said, kneeling beside her as her body betrayed her. Even now, pushing past limits that should be impossible. But every weapon has specifications, Nadine. And I wrote yours.

The syringe appeared in her wavering vision, silver gleaming under the harsh facility lights. Her wolf whimpered as something deeper than fear flooded her senses—the recognition of a predator specifically designed to hunt her kind.

The neural interface will integrate with your existing neural pathways within moments, Gregory continued, his voice growing distant as the tranquilizer pulled her under. When you wake up, you’ll understand that this was always necessary. That protecting our people requires sacrifices.

She tried to speak, to fight, to reach for the mate bond she’d closed to protect Conall. But the connection remained silent, and her body refused to obey as Gregory positioned the injection device against her neck.

The sharp sting barely registered through the drug haze.

Sleep now, daughter, Gregory murmured, his voice carrying the same gentle tone he’d used to comfort her after nightmares as a child. When you wake up, everything will finally make sense.

Darkness claimed her completely, and her last conscious thought was a desperate prayer that Conall would stay away—that he wouldn’t try to rescue someone who might no longer be worth saving.

The neural interface began its work in the silence, rewriting the pathways that made her who she was.