Chapter 25 Connall
Connall
Connall lets the sliding glass door whisper shut behind him. It’s a strange feeling of relief and anxiety when he finds himself on the other side of the glass. He doesn’t stop to look in at his mates, who are no doubt watching their alpha walk away.
Cold sweat beads at his hairline, slicking his temples and dampening the cotton of his scrub shirt. The late-summer Tennessee heat presses in until his lungs feel shallow and uncooperative. His heart hammers as panic and affection tangle with something dangerously close to awe.
He’d walked away from Quinn’s challenge, and it had taken everything in him not to do the opposite. He’d wanted to grab him by the back of that elegant, stubborn neck and haul him close. To kiss him until he whimpered or snapped back or did both at once.
For a heartbeat, Connall had been almost certain Quinn would hit him—or meet him mouth to mouth with teeth and heat and fury.
There’d been fire in those amber eyes, the same incendiary spark Connall had clocked on the bus the first time they’d met, and again in the hall when he’d announced Isaac’s incoming rescue mission.
That smoky cherry scent had burned hotter tonight, threaded with anger Connall didn’t yet understand, and resentment sharp enough to make his wolf restless and pacing.
What had he done to deserve that kind of anger? And worse—what the fuck was he supposed to do about it right now?
They’d stood on the edge of something volatile, something that could have shattered them all before they’d even learned how to stand together, and Connall had known that if he pushed, Quinn would have met him with defiance, not surrender.
The realization had sent a bolt of something electric through Connall’s gut—pure admiration.
His cock had twitched, hard and immediate, because Quinn wasn’t soft in the way Isaac or Elias were soft. Something about the tall, lean alpha told Connall that Quinn was soft because he chose to be. And that he guarded that tenderness with his teeth, spine, and sharp intelligence.
That kind of softness was an undeniable lure.
And then there was Kaian.
Connall had never imagined a Human mate.
Never let himself entertain the possibility, even in those rare moments when his walls were down, and he let himself dream.
And yet when Kaian had appeared in the hallway—wide-eyed and luminous, skin faintly aglow in the low light, like something holy and entirely out of place—Connall had known.
Instantly. The final piece clicked into place with a quiet, terrifying certainty.
The incense he’d scented earlier had been pure, strong magic, and yet Kaian had seemed gentle and unguarded.
He had looked so young, and hearing he was twenty-seven had grounded Connall just enough to breathe again.
But twenty-seven was still so young. They all were—not just in years, but in the living of it, in the ways life hardens you or breaks you open.
Even Soren had looked exposed when he’d whispered Connall’s name earlier, relief tangled with something like resignation in his voice, as if he’d already made peace with pain that hadn’t happened yet.
Panic skims the edges of Connall’s carefully fortified walls at the thought that he is now responsible for five other people.
He’s out under the morning sunshine, stripped of his usual armor—no tailored suit, no polished shoes, no kitschy socks that help remind him he’s still Connall O’Daire.
And no Beau at his shoulder to anchor him in reality.
Now, he’s just raw willpower holding everything together.
He wants to clean something. Anything. To scrub away the chaos building under his skin.
He wants the order of his office—the ledgers stacked just so, the quiet empty bar below, the predictable weight of a single problem to solve, and no one to bear the consequences but him.
He wants distance from the knowing eyes inside the house.
From mates he doesn’t know yet in the way they deserve.
Mates he wants anyway.
Not just their bodies—though the thought of their skin, slick with sweat beneath warm lamplight, sends heat curling low in his belly—but their sounds. Their laughter spilling loose and unguarded. Their sighs. The way they might say his name when he makes them come.
“Fuck,” he groans, low and rough, his cock already hard at the thought.
The ache distracts him, so he lets it bloom, imagines them tangled together on the living room floor in a knot of limbs and breath and heat. For a moment, the fear loosens its grip.
He digs his clawed hands into the weathered wood of the deck railing until the grain bites into his palms. The pain is deliberate. It keeps him from going back inside and taking what he’s not ready to claim—or worse, begging them to claim him.
“Get your shit together, O’Daire,” he mutters.
He palms himself through the scrubs, adjusting his cock so it’s not pinned awkwardly down his thigh by the too-narrow cut of the pants. A flash of dry humor cuts through the spiral. He should probably skip leg day for a while.
Connall forces himself to breathe. In. Out.
Ten slow counts. His wintery scent cuts through the summer air carrying his anxiety with it.
He lets it go, drawing in the damp green of the lawn instead.
Cicadas buzz in the trees like distant static.
Somewhere inside, dishes clatter. Elias, somehow, must already be cooking with whatever staples they’d scrounged.
The domestic normalcy of it almost cracks him open.
He could have fresh produce delivered in an hour. It would ease his wolf by providing for them in such a fundamental way. He has his phone open, searching for the Instacart app that would do just that, when Beau’s face appears on the screen.
It hits him suddenly that he hadn’t heard from Beau since he’d left him prepping for the fight night in the pits at All’s End the night before.
He swipes to answer the call, and Beau’s less-than-pleased face pops up on the screen. “Tell me you’re okay.”
He doesn’t ask Connall where he is. Connall shouldn’t be surprised that his friend/bodyguard would have known about the house, even if Connall hadn’t told him. There’s little that gets by his sharp eyes and even sharper intellect. No one knows Connall better.
“I’m fine.” Connall leans his elbows on the rickety deck railing and lets the hot morning sun bake into the front of his neck.
“Opal said you left with your sweet chef.” Beau sounds out of breath, and when Connall looks closer, there’s a sheen of sweat on Beau’s big, shiny forehead.
“Are you okay? Where are you?” Connall doesn’t have the pleasure of a tracking app on his phone to know where his friend is at any given hour. He’s outside, that much is for sure, and from what Connall can see, he’s surrounded by brick buildings.
There’s a smooth laugh off-screen, and it forces Beau’s eyebrows down in a scowl. He doesn’t say anything in response.
“Nothin’ to worry your sweet ass about, Boss. I have it under control.” The words seem pointed, and they’re followed by a grunt and an audible oof. Beau covers his phone with his palm, but the words aren’t muffled. “Shut your pretty face.”
There’s a low laugh and a smooth, lyrical voice in accented English that says, “I’ll shut your face.”
Beau growls, but his tone is joking. “As if you could reach it.” It’s followed by a yelp and a scuffle. It’s like his friend has forgotten he’s even on the line.
“Beau? Hey! Who’s there with you? Where are you?”
What the hell is going on? There has never been more than five hours that he and Beau have been out of touch since they’ve known each other. Connall knows why he hadn’t thought to call his partner in crime, but it’s even weirder that Beau hadn’t done the same.
“Shit.” Beau’s face reappears, lips red, and Connall witnesses a fleeting smirk before he’s frowning again.
He ignores Connall’s question. “You’re at your safe house, right? With Isaac and Elias?” He doesn’t say, You finally got your head out of your ass, but he doesn’t have to. Connall can read his mind after all this time, and he’d been more than clear what he thought in that church garden.
“Yeah. And Quinn, from the bus—”
That gets Beau’s attention, and where he’d been walking before, eyes on the person with him, they’re now on Connall’s through the phone. “No fucking way. You have three mates there? Holy shit, man. What are you doing standing outside?”
What is he doing standing outside? He’s freaking the fuck out. Just like in that churchyard, but this time they’re ten feet away, and there’s five of them, not just three scattered around Nashville.
“I have five mates,” he confesses.
The person Beau is with gasps and comes to a stop so fast that Beau runs into them from behind. The impact causes him to drop his phone to the ground with a clatter.
Connall finds himself looking up at the bright blue sky between two unfamiliar two-story buildings.
He gets a glimpse of a fire escape and fancy cream colored suit pants in the corner of the screen.
There’s another audible scuffle, and while Connall can’t see his friend, he can hear him.
“Five! Well, don’t fuck it up this time!
” Beau exclaims, and then he grunts. “Ow! Watch the claws, kitty.”
“Don’t call me ‘kitty!’ Who do you think you are, you big alpha donkey? Let me go!” The voice begins an impassioned tirade.
Wait…is that Japanese?
Beau chuckles darkly, “I’m going to have to call you back, Boss. Got my hands full.”
“What the fuck is happening?” Connall asks, but he’s talking to himself as a big beefy finger disconnects, and Beau is gone.
Connall isn’t a man of faith, not by a long shot. Never able to get behind the idea that some benevolent deity had any interest in the meanderings of mortals, but as Beau said, Fate is kicking Connall’s ass hard today. Maybe they’ve come for Beau, too.