Chapter 29: Agree

Chapter 29: Chapter 29: Agree

Caelian shot a glance at Caelus and felt something inside him wither like a plant denied sunlight.

For the first time in his life—and he meant the first time, because even when Caelus had suggested they train by jumping off a cliff to "test their survival instincts," Caelian had thought that was a perfectly reasonable idea—he was convinced that his brother had come up with a genuinely bad plan.

Asking their uncle to help with a second kidnapping.

After the first one had ended with Caesar mentally scarred by meat buns.

And the worst part?

Caelus didn’t even want Kyler for his combat skills. Or his tactical genius. Or his centuries-old pack connections.

No.

Caelus wanted to use their uncle as a lucky charm.

A meat shield made of pure, terrifying authority, to ward off their unhinged stepsister like she was a ghost and Kyler was a salt circle made of muscle and disappointment.

Caelian looked at Caelus’s stoic profile and silently prayed to the Moon Goddess that their uncle—the man who had raised them since he was six years old—would not see through this flimsy, tissue-paper-thin excuse of a plan.

Because their grandmother, may she rest in peace or haunt the training ground forever, had taken one look at the triplets as newborns and turned to six-year-old Kyler with the gravity of a general declaring war.

"These are your responsibility now, dear son. Take care of them or I’ll take away your dessert privileges for the next decade."

And Kyler, being the terrifyingly mature child that he was, had actually taken it seriously.

He raised them.

He fed them.

He trained them like they were going to war before they could even spell "war."

And despite the fact that the household had dozens of servants, nannies, and caretakers, Kyler had decided that he was the one responsible.

So yes.

There was absolutely zero chance that their uncle wouldn’t notice something was off.

While Caelian was busy having a full-scale panic attack internally—his heart rate elevated, his palms slightly sweaty, his smile frozen in place like a man being held at gunpoint—Caelus remained calm.

Composed.

Utterly, infuriatingly serene.

Unlike last night, when he’d been desperately trying to pry Caesar away from Azura’s chest while making a sound that could only be described as a repressed scream translated into a growl.

Now, he looked their uncle in the eye like he was discussing the weather.

"Uncle. Just as you said, the reason I asked us to meet is about our stepsister. And as you guessed..." He gestured toward Caesar, who was now staring at Wilson’s half-eaten meat bun like it was a grenade with the pin pulled. "...this creature is like this because of her."

Kyler looked at Caesar.

Caesar did not move.

He just kept staring at the bun.

His lips moved slightly, forming silent words that looked suspiciously like "soft... big... meat bun..."

Kyler turned back to Caelus, his expression utterly unreadable.

"From what you’re saying, it seems you failed to bring her. Pathetic."

He set down his coffee cup with a soft clink. "I spent years training the three of you. Since you were toddlers. I taught you how to fight. How to hunt. How to track. I taught you how to take down enemies twice your size. And you’re telling me that the three of you—three Alpha triplets—couldn’t handle a single she-wolf?"

He picked up his tablet, the dismissive gesture clear as day.

"You should have just let your enforcers do it. At least they would have followed basic instructions and done what you clearly cannot."

Kyler was about to end the conversation entirely—scroll through his emails, pretend they didn’t exist, return to his cold, peaceful world of spreadsheets and reports—when Caelus’s voice cut through again.

"Yes. We failed." The admission came out flat, unbothered. "But, Uncle, I actually hope you will follow us two days later to... take her."

He paused, letting the words settle.

"My father didn’t allow anyone else to do it. He doesn’t trust outsiders. And his new mate also doesn’t want more people to know about her... suffering daughter. So they trust us to handle it ourselves."

Kyler’s eyes remained on his tablet.

Caelus took a breath.

"And there’s another reason I’m asking you to help us."

Kyler just kept staring at his tablet like Caelus had suddenly become part of the restaurant’s ambient noise—like a distant car horn or a crying toddler outside their private room. Something to be ignored until it went away.

So Caelus took that as his cue to keep talking before his uncle decided they were no longer worth his precious time.

"Uncle. You’ve always been interested in things like traps and witches. Ancient curses. Creepy rituals. Anything that would make normal werewolves run the other direction while clutching their pearls. Well, last night, when we sneaked into the Crimson Crest Pack, we experienced something... unusual."

The typing stopped.

Slowly—so slowly it felt like watching a glacier decide to relocate—he lifted his gaze from the screen and fixed Caelus with a look that said "You have exactly three seconds to make this worth my time before I go back to ignoring you."

He said nothing.

But the silence itself was a command: Continue.

Caelus obliged.

"Last night, just as we entered that pack, we suddenly felt the fated-mate bond pulling us. All three of us. At the same time. At first, we ignored it to focus on our mission. But a few hours later, the bond snapped. Like it had been severed. It left behind an ache—like our mate had died, or disappeared, or been ripped away from us."

He tilted his head toward Caelian.

"Caelian said he’d heard rumors about a pack harboring a witch. And that the witch set traps using a fake mate bond to lure intruders who try to sneak in. If the intruders ignore the fake bond, the witch breaks the spell—making it seem like something terrible happened to their supposed fated mates. Psychological warfare, basically."

Wilson, Oliver, and Noah stared at their alphas with varying degrees of shock.

Oliver—who had spent the entire previous night sitting in a tree like a very buff, very confused owl while his alphas handled the kidnapping—was the first to speak.

"Alphas... So... so when you were in your stepsister’s room, the mate bond suddenly snapped?? But wait." He frowned deeply, his brow furrowing like an accordion. "If it’s a spell specifically targeting intruders, why couldn’t I feel it?"

Noah nodded along, arms crossed.

"I also didn’t feel anything when I scouted the pack four days ago. I slipped in, investigated Williams siblings and their house. Didn’t sense a single thing either." He looked at Caelus with a hint of doubt. "Maybe you’re wrong, Alpha Caelus?"

Caelus opened his mouth.

But Caelian beat him to it, flashing a grin that was equal parts charming and condescending.

"My dear leek-beta Oliver... Do you forget that you still have poison in your system from years ago? The one that numbed your senses so badly that you couldn’t feel a fated mate bond even if your mate stripped naked and did the tango in front of you?"

Oliver’s expression went blank.

"And you, Noah." Caelian turned to the other man. "You already found your fated mate. Even though she ran away—smart woman, honestly—the bond is still there. Still active. So a fake bond spell probably wouldn’t work on someone who already has a real one."

Noah’s face went through five stages of grief in three seconds.

"Also," Caelian added cheerfully, "there’s a chance the spell affected people randomly. And since we’re triplets, we three felt it together. Sympathetic resonance or something. Witchcraft is weird like that."

He shrugged.

"Don’t take it personally, boys. Sometimes you’re just not special enough to be magically traumatized."

Noah and Oliver exchanged a look that screamed "I am going to strangle our youngest alpha with his own tie."

But then—as Caelian’s words fully sank in—they slowly, reluctantly, unclenched their fists.

Noah exhaled through his nose like a deflating balloon. "You know what? We’re actually lucky we didn’t experience that. A fake mate bond? Psychological trauma? Being tricked into thinking we found our fated mates only to have it ripped away?"

Oliver nodded reluctantly, rolling his shoulder. "Yeah. Imagine feeling your mate die—then finding out it was a prank. A magical, emotionally devastating prank. I’d rather chew glass."

Wilson, who had been quietly sipping his juice like a man enjoying a daytime drama, set down his glass with a decisive clink. He turned to Kyler, his eyes practically sparkling with the gleam of a beta who had just found something interesting to do with his otherwise boring week.

"Alpha, if this is true—if there really is a witch setting up fake mate bonds as a security system—we have to check it out. This could be huge. This could change how packs handle their defenses. This could—"

Kyler raised a single hand.

Wilson shut up immediately.

The eldest Blackwood placed his tablet back on the table with deliberate slowness. His dark eyes swept over his three nephews—Caelus, sitting rigid and composed; Caelian, still grinning like a fox who’d just found a chicken coop with the door wide open; and Caesar, who was currently in the middle of stealing Wilson’s half-eaten meat bun from the plate, staring at it with the hollow eyes of a man who had seen things, and then unceremoniously tossing it into the trash can.

Kyler’s lips curled into a smile.

It was not a warm smile.

It was the kind of smile that made seasoned warriors instinctively check if their wills were up to date.

"I know you three are hiding something from me." His voice was silky, calm, utterly terrifying. "The real reason you want me to join this little... kidnapping field trip."

Caelian’s grin faltered.

Caelus’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

Caesar blinked at the empty trash can like it had personally offended him.

"But, sure..." Kyler continued, leaning back in his chair. "I can pretend I don’t know. For now."

He picked up his coffee, taking a slow, deliberate sip.

"And since this situation sounds interesting enough to warrant my time..." The word dripped with something between amusement and predatory curiosity. "...I agree."

He set the cup down.

"Two days. I’ll accompany you. Don’t make me regret it."