Kyungsoo wakes up to find Taehyung’s room is empty, the bed cold as if the other Omega hasn’t slept in it the night before, and Kyungsoo calls out for him forlornly as he finds that all the things that Kai has given Taehyung are gone. He thinks that Kai has made good on his deal to send Taehyung back to his rightful mates and Pack, but the truth is far from what he’d ever expect of his mate, and something he won’t know for months.

Taehyung had been gagged early that morning, the scent of a couple of unmated Betas and an Alpha clogging up his nose as they bound him with ropes, stuffing a bag over his body. They didn’t stuff his ears with cotton though, so he hears the unmistakable sounds of a door being opened, and the rush of cool morning air, then another door opening as he’s tossed into the back of a vehicle.

“I heard this one couldn’t pup for the Head Alpha, so he’s disposing of the infertile one so his Mate won’t have to take pity on him.” One of the wolves laughs after the vehicle starts moving.

“Our orders were to dump him at this site.” Another wolf says, ignoring the first one. “Head Alpha has promised that if we succeed in this, we’ll be free to mate with our own Omegas.”

“Sweet, I’ve had my eyes on that Kyungsoo boy for awhile.” Another wolf says.

“That runt? I thought that’s who we’ve picked up.” The second wolf comments.

“Naw, this one is too tall to be Kyungsoo.” The third wolf replies. “Might be a third Omega that Head Alpha chose though to keep the other 2 company. Head Alpha wouldn’t let anyone into that section of the house.”

Taehyung huffs inside his restrained bag, his wolf quivering internally, the most contact he’s had from it in the last 4 years. He’s pretty sure he’s going to be by these wolves once they bring him to his destination, and probably murder him as well. He knew Kai would never just willingly go along with letting him go just because he couldn’t override Taehyung’s mating marks and impregnate him. Taehyung remembers how in the beginning Kai would get off on putting too many marks on his body, the glint of his inner Alpha showing the more brutal he was with Taehyung’s body. He can only hope that if they kill him, that his death is quick. With that thought comes the heart stopping thought that if he dies, what happens to his mates? Will they go on living without him? Or will his death make Yoongi slowly go mad, then Namjoon? Or would it be the other way around?

The vehicle seems to drive forever, making many twists and turns as Taehyung loses himself in his thoughts. Abruptly the van stops and it jolts him out of his thoughts. Taehyung breathes shallowly as the door opens, then takes a deep breath when he can to scent the area. His body involuntarily jerks as he recognizes a very faint scent, one that he misses dearly. A strange feeling starts to stir in his chest, and for a fleeting moment, Taehyung thinks that Kai’s gone soft and had truly released him from capture.

The wolves who have taken him put him down inside of what he can assume is a house. The house smells abandoned, the scents of whomever had lived in the house long faded. A door clicks and the bag comes off Taehyung, who squints at the bright light shining in at him from the barred windows.

He gasps as his eyes adjust to the room. He’s back in the heat room of the old Pack house that they had lived in when Taejoon had been kidnapped. Tears spring to his eyes as he spots the old playpen that has the faintest of stains on it, the remnants of Taegi’s blood from the attack that day. They’d abandoned it when they’d moved, Yoongi refusing to look at it after Taegi had recovered from his near death experience.

“Well, guess we got lucky.” The wolf who’d unsheathed him from the bag grins. “I guess it was the Head Alpha’s first mate that was infertile.”

“We should have some fun with him before we have to go back.” The other wolf growls, a lustful look in his eyes as he his lips.

Taehyung whimpers. Luckily the third wolf saves him, coming down the steps with a box of things, throwing them carelessly into the room. “Our orders were to drop this Omega off, untie him and leave him to rot until someone finds him.” He orders, frowning at the others. He snarls at Taehyung, who shakes and tries to make himself smaller. “You might recognize this place, worthless Omega.” He growls. “We’ve retrofitted the entire house to be impenetrable. Only Head Alpha can get in after we lock you up in here.”

“Hopefully he comes back to end your miserable excuse of a life for not pupping for him.” The first wolf adds as they begin untying the ropes around him.

The second wolf throws a punch at his stomach, crippling the Omega with pain as they laugh at him curling in on himself.

“There’s enough food to last you maybe a month if you ration it.” The third wolf spits at him before they go up the stairs, and Taehyung can only sob in pain as the front door clicks such with finality, and he hears the clicking of another lock on the outside of it.

--

Kai smiles as the wolves are brought in, their faces bruised, battered and defeated. “You dare to kidnap and kill my Mate?!” He roars for the crowd gathered in the square. “You deserve death for what you have done!” His wolf eager, prancing about inside him, waiting for the ok to shift. Since mating Kyungsoo, his wolf’s violent outbursts have calmed quite a bit, and Kai thinks for a moment that he should have mated sooner. It’s not like he likes having to be angry often, or see the wolves in his Pack flinch every time he comes around, even if he is in a good mood.

The wolves whine, begging and pleading for their lives, but before any one of them could shout out that they’d done it on his orders, or that his Mate was still alive to the crowd viewing the executions, Kai shifts, his wolf bloodthirsty and ready to take life as he lunges into the first wolf, who screams and tries to jerk out of his restraints as Kai barrels closer to him, ripping out his throat in one bite.

The others die in similar fashion, and Kai shifts back, blood on his mouth and chest as he glances at the crowd. “These abominations shall be fed to the birds for what they have done to my beloved Mate.” Kai roars to the crowd, a feral grin forming on his face as the crowd roars in appreciation for Kai.

He moves away from the execution spot, having shifted back into wolf form, refusing to turn again until he’s back behind closed quarters and only with Luhan following him. The Beta was perfect in executing their plan for Taehyung to be removed quietly from the compound, though his Second in command does not know that Kai never really intends to follow through with letting Taehyung go.

The morning that Kyungsoo discovered Taehyung had gone missing had been probably one of the biggest masterpieces of acting that Kai has ever had the pleasure of performing. His little Mate had come to him in tears, a smile on his face as his scent flared and belayed his happiness that Kai was letting go of the other Omega.

Kai isn’t heartless. His heart and feelings have naturally gravitated toward the owlish looking Omega for years, but his wolf’s desire to have Taehyung had overridden any thoughts of Kyungsoo being a potential mate. Kai had smiled, patting Kyungsoo on the head and taking all the praise that his little Mate had for him for being a good Alpha and letting go of someone who clearly was wasting away.

Kai’s wolf doesn’t think Taehyung wasting away was a side effect of not being with his true Mates and Pack, but Kyungsoo is convinced otherwise. Kai throws himself into his work as Head Alpha, pushing for more wolves to join him in the fight against the south. No one is allowed to see the Heir, and Kai enforces a strict in and out policy of the compound, especially around his Mate and newborn pup.

A week flies by, and Kai makes the excuse that he has to go out to flush out some rouge wolves that have crept in and occupied a small area of houses in the southern part of the city, leaving Luhan in charge of taking care of things.

Luhan, on the other hand, knows exactly what Kai is doing. By separating Taehyung from Kyungsoo, it makes it easier for the Alpha to break the other Omega, and find out if Taehyung’s mates are still looking for him or not. They hadn’t heard a single peep from the South to the release of Taehyung in months, not since Kai had fought Namjoon and Yoongi down at the front lines.

Kai drives down to the old pack grounds where Taehyung’s pack had first fled after he’d overtaken the city. It feels ironic to Kai that the first place he sends to break the Omega is to the first place they fled to. He pulls up to the house, not surprised at how lived in it looks already, and Taehyung’s only been there for a week.

Luhan had admonished Kai when he’d been told of the plan with Taehyung, saying that Kai should have had this plan done right when he’d kidnapped the Omega, but Kai thinks that Taehyung will be starved for attention after spending nearly 5 years with just him, Luhan, Kyungsoo and the doctors around for company. The first step in isolation is to take the person away from what they know and are familiar with, forcing them to become dependent on one person’s presence. Kai’s expecting Taehyung to be a babbling mess, needing to be touched and comforted and willing to let Kai do whatever he feels like to the Omega, but when he unlocks the door, he finds that Taehyung has reconnected with his wolf side, and is currently romping around on a nest full of old blankets that the group must have left behind when they’d fled down south.

Kai sighs as Taehyung looks up, his wolf a dirty dull brown color, who bounds over and barks at Kai in excitement. “I’m not shifting to play with you.” He scolds the Omega, shutting the door behind him with a soft thud. “Shift back so we can talk Taehyung.”

Taehyung snorts, his tail wagging as he heads back to the blankets, laying down and rubbing himself all over them. It’s practically a refusal to Kai’s request, and if Kai didn’t find it somewhat amusing and cute, he’d be punishing the Omega for his disobedience.

Kai sighs, then checks the fridge to see if the now dead wolves had actually done what he’d requested of them. The fridge is teeming with food, though from the looks of the kitchen, Taehyung has barely eaten anything. Kai would be worried, but he knows from his own scheming that the Omega hasn’t been able to fill himself to stuffed since he came to Kai and he figures that Taehyung’s body had adapted to the lack of food over the last couple of years.

He sighs, turning and spotting that the Omega has stopped rubbing himself into the blankets and had quietly shifted back to his human form, his ribs standing out starkly against his pale skin. Taehyung says nothing to him, a frown marring his face, and he turns away, sitting down in his blankets and staying there even as Kai makes some food for them.

The Omega continues to remain silent throughout their meal, and doesn’t even protest or fight when Kai lays him back and uses his body for pleasure on the very blankets that he’d been rolling around in.

**

“Send word through one of our spies to Taehyung’s Pack of where he is at.” Kai tells Luhan one summer afternoon, the sunlight filtered down through the skylight in Kai’s office, little flecks of dust floating in and out of the beams that keep the room on the warmer side of comfortable.

Luhan blanches, then fixes his expression, his Adams apple bobbing as he swallows hard. “Has he broken?” Luhan asks, eyebrows furrowing at Kai’s expression.

“Yes, and no.” Kai sighs. “He does not eat much more than when he was with us and spends more time in his wolf form than his human form.” He says, closing the book he’d been writing in before setting it aside and looking up at Luhan, his eyes betraying his calm expression. “My research into mates and mating bonds suggests that his wolf is preparing to go feral because his bond is so distorted from time away from his true mates.” His wolf agrees with him for once about letting Taehyung go, having seen the Omega slowly stay in his wolf form longer and longer every time Kai goes to see him. Kai refuses to have his way with the Omega when he’s in wolf form, something he wouldn’t have hesitated to do back when he was still hopeful to have Taehyung pup for him, but now is more aware that Taehyung is slowly breaking from the inside out with being locked up in his former Pack house, away from everyone but Kai.

Luhan feels like the breath has been knocked out of his system. This is a Kai that he’s never met, one who is more concerned about the wellbeing of a wolf whom he’d been obsessed with for years. He’s moderately surprised that Kai hasn’t killed Taehyung yet, considering all the effort he’d put in to chasing the Omega and trying to override his mate bonds. He his lips, taking a deep breath. “I can send out a message now?” He suggests, looking at Kai in question.

Kai nods. “The sooner, the better. My wolf has settled down since mating, and I feel bad for keeping Taehyung away from his mates for so long. Honestly, most of my behaviors with him have been from my wolf.” He admits, shifting the pen in his hands around as he talks. “Now I can’t image someone doing the same things to my mate that I’ve been doing to him.”

Luhan’s eyebrows raise, and he’s sure his scent probably gives away how surprised he is at Kai’s confessions. “I will be sure to do that right now if you don’t need me?”

Kai gives a wave of his hand in dismissal, his expression becoming contemplative as if he’s talking to his wolf side, another first for Luhan as he’s used to Kai’s wolf just bursting out and taking over Kai’s mind, becoming bloodthirsty and violent and demanding.

Luhan hurries off to his own space, already pulling up 2 different spies in his mind to send the messages to. He also sends a message off to someone separate, watching carefully as he goes to send the messages to ensure that they are not traceable and will be erased immediately upon reading.

He’s not disappointed by the actions of his spies, nor to the one he sent separately. His years of careful planning and watching and waiting seem to be coming to a close, and the next few months of action will sorely test his wolf, his loyalty to his true Pack, and to the eventual downfall of Kai’s reign as Head Alpha and the war he’s started.

A/N: We're starting to see the downhill slide to the story, though I'm not sure how many more chapters we have till the end. Convention work is starting to ramp up, with my convention happening in November, and I've already got a jam packed month this month, and in October! I have a bachelorette party (I'm part of the wedding party) and a wedding this month, and then October is the BTS concert in Chicago (OMG the Jintro comback trailer killed me!), and then the wedding that I'm a part of at the end of Oct before my convention (whew!)

Let me know what you think in the comments below!