Bryce drifted somewhere between consciousness and oblivion.
Muffled voices surrounded him, blending into an indistinct hum that echoed through his mind.
He could feel his heart pounding violently against his ribs, every beat reminding him he was still alive, but no matter how desperately he fought against the crushing darkness, his eyelids refused to open, as though an unseen force had sealed them shut.
There was only one thing he knew with absolute certainty.
He had been kidnapped.
Why, he didn’t know.
What the people who had taken him wanted from him was an even greater mystery.
It was almost laughable. As though fate had decided that catching the love of his life in their shared bed with someone else wasn’t enough, it had chosen to throw another impossible nightmare into his path.
What hurt even more, what made every beat of his heart ache, was the realization that... it hadn’t even been another man.
It had been a woman.
That single fact cut deeper than the betrayal itself. It made him wonder if being a man had simply never been enough for Dave. Maybe that was why he had turned to a woman instead.
Or perhaps Dave had simply grown tired of him.
After all, six years wasn’t a short time. They had shared a home, built a life together, and lived like a married couple, but apparently even that hadn’t been enough.
"Why don’t you just dump him where you found him?" an irritated woman’s voice snapped. "He’ll wake up eventually and find his own way home."
The bitterness in her voice caught Bryce off guard.
Did he have an enemy he didn’t know about?
Or had these people mistaken him for someone else?
"The longer you keep him here, the more your pheromones react to him. You’re practically slipping into a rut because of his revolting scent, and it’s making me sick!"
Bryce’s confusion deepened.
Pheromones, scent, rut.
The words reached Bryce’s ears like a foreign language. They weren’t unfamiliar words, but the way these people were using them was completely beyond anything he had ever known.
A scent was nothing more than a smell, wasn’t it? How could anyone react to a smell strongly enough for it to matter?
He strained to force his eyes open, desperate to understand what was happening around him, but his body refused to obey.
"I’ll wait until he wakes up so I can reject him to his face," the man said, every word dripping with resentment. "You know that’s the only way a mate bond can be severed, the only way I’ll ever be free of this pathetic excuse for a bond."
Were they talking about him? Bryce wondered.
If he hadn’t known what Dave’s voice sounded like, Bryce would have assumed it was him and his new girlfriend, kidnapping him simply to rub salt into the wound.
After everything Dave had done, Bryce wouldn’t have been surprised if he had gone as far as dragging him back just to reject him a second time, despite already making himself painfully clear- he had fallen in love with someone else and wanted absolutely nothing to do with Bryce anymore.
But this wasn’t Dave.
It wasn’t his voice.
"I can’t believe this," the man said again, his frustration boiling over. "All these years I’ve been searching for my mate, only for fate to give me... this. A wolfless human man?!
Out of every rule the Moon Goddess ever made, the one I hate most is that people who aren’t mates can’t reproduce. What actually happens? Do the stupid sperm cells just die before they get there? How can an egg and sperm meet and still refuse to become a pup?"
His voice rose sharply.
"If it wasn’t for that... everything would have been different. You and I would already be married. We’d have a child by now. You’d be my Luna, and I’d already have inherited my father’s pack as Alpha."
"It’s okay, baby," the woman murmured gently.
"No, it isn’t!" The man shouted. "Do you know why? Because we’re trapped in this fucking human world forever! My younger brother is going to inherit the pack while I stand by watching, powerless to stop it."
He let out a bitter laugh.
"The other day, when I caught what I thought was my mate’s scent and tracked it down, I thought I’d finally found the solution. I thought we’d found a woman. We’d take her eggs, use my sperm, let the doctors do the rest, and implant the embryo into you. Problem solved."
His voice hardened.
"But no. As if him being human wasn’t bad enough... He’s a man."
His words exploded with fury.
"A man without a pair of fucking ovaries."
Bryce’s chest tightened painfully. None of this made any sense.
The woman’s voice cut through the silence. "Why isn’t he awake already?"
The sharp click of high heels echoed toward him, his heartbeat accelerated.
He fought to open his eyes once again, forcing every ounce of strength into the effort, but nothing.
"What are you doing?" The man asked.
"I’m going to slap some consciousness into him," she replied coldly. "How long are we supposed to wait for him to wake up?"
"Don’t." The man’s voice darkened immediately. "Don’t do it."
"Why do you care?" she demanded. "Are you protecting him or what? Don’t tell me this bond has already gotten to you."
"I said don’t do it." The firmness in his voice silenced her.
A moment later, Bryce heard the sound of her heels moving away.
"Where are you going?" The man asked.
"You’re pretending!" she shot back, anger vibrating through every word. "You don’t despise this bond at all. How can you claim to hate it while protecting him at the same time? I can’t believe I left my own life and followed you into exile for this."
"I’m not protecting anything," the man replied, his tone softening. "Not the bond, and certainly not him. You and I both know how powerful a mate bond is. No one can completely resist it. Come on, baby, you know that’s not what’s happening.
I’ll wake him, reject him, and it’ll all be over. You and I will stay together no matter which world we’re living in.
We’ve already built successful lives here. Almost every human fears our names, especially in the business world. We own nearly every major business in this world. We don’t need packs, titles, or children to be happy."
"You promised we’d return," the woman replied. "You promised I’d become Luna. I still want that. What do you mean we’ll stay here forever?"
"If that’s what you want," the man said quietly, "then I’ll keep searching for another solution. We’ll find a way back."
"Okay."
Bryce heard the unmistakable sound of a kiss.
Then another.
"You’re so aroused," the woman whispered. "Your body’s so tense... and you’re burning up. Do you want me to take care of you?"
Bryce’s stomach twisted.
From the direction the conversation was heading, he was certain he was about to hear something he wanted no part of.
He struggled desperately to force himself awake, but his body remained completely unresponsive, his eyelids as firmly sealed as they had been from the beginning.
"Not until we’re finished with this," the man replied.
Footsteps approached Bryce once more.
"What are you going to do?" The woman’s voice asked.
"I’m going to overwhelm him with my pheromones," the man answered. "Maybe that’ll force him to wake up."
"He’s human, remember? Your pheromones shouldn’t have any effect on him."
"I refuse to believe that," he said. "If he’s really human, then how is he my mate? There’s no doubt he’s my mate. A human shouldn’t have a scent powerful enough to affect me like this."
Bryce screamed inside his own mind.
What were pheromones?
Were they some kind of weapon?
Something that would torture him?
To Bryce, this felt like one of those nightmares where you run with everything you have, but your legs refuse to move.