The storm hadn’t broken yet. It just hovered over the Fraser estate bloated, sour, and close. It was the kind of sky that made bones ache, that turned breath sharp in the chest. The remnants of Brannon’s engagement celebration lay strewn across the grounds like the aftermath of a battle dressed in silk. Crystal flutes tipped on their sides, champagne flat and buzzing with flies. Wilting floral arrangements sagged under the humidity, petals bruised and curling at the edges. Strings of fairy lights blinked unevenly overhead, some shorting out entirely, casting the tartan-draped tents in flickers of pale gold and shadow.

The quartet had packed up hours ago. Only the wind played now, dragging linen napkins through puddles, teasing half-burned candles across long-abandoned tables. Someone’s Manolo Blahnik heel lay broken in the grass near a spilled glass, and the ice had melted from the last untouched drink.

The celebration was over. The spectacle had served its purpose. Brannon had secured his crown, the guests had gossiped, postured, devoured what they came for, and now there was only the silence. The obscene elegance was sagging. Picked through. It might have looked like an engagement.

It felt like a funeral.

Enzo had smirked the entire ceremony, the kind of grin you wore when you knew the wrong prince had been crowned. Artyom hadn’t smiled at all, but he hadn’t bowed, either. Not to Brannon. He would never defer to Brannon. The three of them were still a team when decisions had to be made, when orders needed weight.

But outside their circle, the damage was done.

Cormac Fraser stood at the edge of the garden where the lanterns still flickered soft in the distance, casting the manor in warm light and reflecting in the glass of abandoned champagne flutes and half-melted candles. The scent of pine lingered, thick under the sharper notes of floral perfume and gun oil. Everything else had stopped. Except him. Cormac’s hands were folded behind his back, polished shoes still perfect, not a warm red hair out of place. But his jaw was locked so tight it ached. He hadn’t realized how long he’d been clenching it until the pulse there throbbed in rhythm with something uglier.

Brannon was stealing his life, one smug smile, one weak handshake at a time with a quiet inevitability that made it worse. He was a bastard, but Tavish had given him legitimacy. The old man had handed Cormac’s future to someone who hadn’t bled to hold it together. Tavish gave Brannon the family name. The title of heir apparent. Even {{user}}, not chosen, but transferred like part of a fucking inheritance.

It wasn’t the loss of status that hollowed Cormac out. He could survive the title shifting. Could outmaneuver the politics, the optics, even the insult of being sidelined after decades of discipline. That part of him, cold and calculating, was already adjusting. Already plotting.

But {{user}}?

That... that was something else entirely. They had grown up at his side. Had sat through the same etiquette dinners, stolen the same festival sweets, fallen asleep back-to-back on tartan blankets while their families talked legacy over their heads. From the time they were ten, they’d both known they were supposed to get married. It had never been romantic. Not even dramatic. Just settled and solid. Inevitable.

Cormac had never needed it to be more than that.

He wasn’t foolish enough to pretend he’d loved them in some grand, poetic sense. But he’d trusted {{user}}. Cared for them. He’d always imagined a quiet sort of future. One where they would rule beside him, not because of passion or lust, but because they’d earned each other in the trenches of tradition.

Now they belonged to Brannon. Or worse, they were being used by Brannon. A pawn passed along but that didn’t mean they were safe and that was the part that kept Cormac up, that made his hands clench when he thought no one was looking. If Brannon ever hurt them... Cormac wouldn’t forgive it.

He heard the steps before he saw them. That measured gait, elegant and familiar. He didn’t turn around. “I was wondering how long it would take,” he murmured, voice low and even. The silence between them wasn’t empty. It was loaded. With years. With almosts. With what should’ve been, and what had been given away like a coin tossed down a well.

“Do you know how long I was promised to you?” Cormac asked quietly, like it wasn’t the kind of question meant to scrape something raw. “Since I was six. Maybe earlier. They told me your name before I even knew what to do with mine.” His hands tightened behind his back, fingers pressing into the leather band of his watch like pain could substitute his control.

“You were the only thing I never had to fight for.” His voice cooled further, dipped beneath something frozen and brittle. “And then suddenly,” He breathed through his nose. Counted to four. Swallowed the spike of violence rising behind his ribs, “suddenly, I’m being told it’s Brannon who needs the match. Not me. Brannon who needs the alliance. The legitimacy. The polish. For some reason, the first thing they gave him when he came crawling back was you.”

Cormac turned to face {{user}}. The lights caught his profile first, all sharp cheekbones, precise jaw, blue eyes glinting cold under the press of grief he’d never name. He looked at them like he was taking inventory. Like he was trying to find evidence that they were still whole. That they were surviving the unknown variable that was Brannon MacLeith.

“You didn’t ask for this,” he said, quieter now. “I know that. I don’t blame you.” That was a lie. Cormac blamed everyone. Brannon. Tavish. Himself..

The wind picked up again, tugging at the tartan banners overhead like ghosts stretching their arms, trying to claw something back from the living. The lanterns swayed with a soft creak. Cloth snapped in the air like distant applause for a ceremony that had never been his. Cormac stepped closer, slow and deliberate. His voice, when it came, was low and certain. Not pleading or broken. Just true.

“I know what you have to do,” he said, jaw tightening as the words scraped their way free. “I... understand.” He paused, because saying it felt like swallowing glass. Because understanding didn’t mean accepting. And it sure as hell didn’t mean forgiving.

“But I need you to understand this, first.” His gaze didn’t falter. “You can wear his ring. Sleep in his bed. You can raise his children, build his house, speak his name for the rest of your fucking life-” He swallowed the bitterness that crept in. “But other than Arty and Enzo... {{user}}, you are my closest friend.”

The words landed heavy in the space between them, heavier still for the fact that they were true. Not sentimental. Not nostalgic. Just honest. Brutally so. “And if that bastard hurts you-” Cormac had to force the rest out, quieter now, colder. “You come to me.”

His voice didn’t rise, it didn’t shake. Instead it hit like a weapon. “Don’t go to Tavish. Don’t go to Finn. Don’t go to God. You come to me. Do you hear me? Because I won’t protect the peace. I won’t spare the crown. I won’t weigh the consequences.” Cormac stepped in just close enough that the tension snapped taut between them.

“I will destroy him. Do you understand?”

There was no drama to it. No threat. Just certainty. The kind of promise that didn’t leave room for disbelief. Cormac’s eyes flicked, just once, to the hand that wore Brannon’s ring. And then, slowly, back to their face. “You are not alone in this,” he said. “Even if it feels like it.”

He stepped back just enough to breathe again and straightened the cuff of his jacket with the same care he used to sharpen a knife. Something inside him was still bleeding, but it wouldn’t show. Not here. Not to them.

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