When Sam was informed by the pack beta passing through the kitchen (‘hunting’ down a snack) that Markus had asked for him in the study, he hurried to finish his polishing and ran up the stairs to answer as quickly as possible, if he took too long he might get punished. When he finally reached the door he knocked gently although his breaths were still a little ragged from the stairs.

“Come in.” Came his mate’s voice.

“You called, sir?” Sam asked as he stepped in. Markus watched him carefully but said nothing, he was stood at the back of the room looking lost in his thoughts. “Sir, did you need me to do something for you?” The alpha walked around the desk, never taking his eyes off Sam’s face, as though he were worried he would forget him. When he reached the door he looked away to open it and hover in the doorway.

“Stay in here.” He said sternly.

“Stay, sir?” Sam repeated, looking around in confusion, the office looked spotless… As far as he could tell there was no cleaning to be done.

“Yeah, don’t leave.”

“But-” And with that Markus shut the door. Sam strode forward to open it again but heard the ‘clunk’ of the lock turning into place and froze. “H-hey! What’re you doing? Don’t leave me in here!” What on Earth was Markus doing? His behaviours and motivations were never consistent normally but this was odd even for him.

“It’s okay, I’ll be back.” Was all he replied through the door.

“Of course you have to come back eventually!” Sam called through the door angrily. “When?” No answer. “Sir?” Not a sound. He tried the handle, yanking it up and down frantically but it wouldn’t budge.

~

Markus knew it wasn’t a bright idea but it was the first idea that popped into his head. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the vampire interrogation all week and every time he glanced at Sam it made his muscles lock up, his jaw clench and his heart race. The polaroid in particular had cemented itself behind his eyelids, his delicate side profile burned into his retinas. And Charles, he knew that no-good son of a bitch was finding ways to get close to him when Markus wasn’t around, and he was hanging around a lot more now. Sometimes just outside the kitchen, positioned at a side table pretending to check his phone and waiting… He never saw him go in but he was almost certain he was still managing to find brief slots of time to get Sam alone. The weekdays it was easier, it wasn’t like the creep could show up at the academy - he was way past school-age!

But now that it was back to the weekend again, a full week since the interrogation, Markus was more on edge than ever. His father had barely mentioned what had happened in the basement with him and he knew better than to ask before the old man was ready to divulge his thoughts. He worried that his father wasn’t taking it seriously enough though, not that he had any power to say so - and knew it would be in the best interest of his heath if he didn’t. Maybe that wasn’t quite true… his father was taking the threat against the pack as a whole seriously and the whole concept of a ‘council’ looking to turn them into ‘blood slaves’… it was the targeting of his mate he didn’t feel was being given enough attention. Sam was the only one they had taken a photo of, he was the one they had notes on - with Markus’ name attached which the more he thought about, the less it could be a coincidence. Who Godfry was and what the numbers were he still hadn’t worked out. It said the vampire hanging around Sam was a ‘possible match’ for ‘Godfry’ though and Markus wouldn’t put it past the pale perv to be using a fake name to get close to Sam, every word that came out of his mouth was probably a lie. He already seemed to know too much about the vampire threat, but Markus’ father had shrugged him off before when he mentioned Charles’ comments, his ‘I have a feeling’ bullshit.

All these thoughts and theories swirling on his mind for a week, riling him up… the moment he laid eyes on Sam when he walked into the office his wolf was instantly awoke, he needed to protect him, he had to keep him safe, away from the vampires, there was too much they didn’t know and all they did know was Sam was a part of it. Blood slaves… Markus shuddered, there was no way in hell he or his mate would become blood slaves, he liked his fluids kept in his body where they belonged.

The look on Sam’s face when he locked him in though, that expression pressed against his brain painfully, his annoyance at himself only grew - what kind of person was so weak they could be shaken by a look? Ridiculous.

But he was safe, and he knew where he was, he couldn’t leave, couldn’t disappear with Charles.

What was happening to him? He shook his head and slumped away to his room, he could do some of the work his father had set him in there. He just hoped the old man didn’t decide to try and use his office for the rest of the day…

~

Markus plumped his pillows, pulled his personal laptop out from under his desk and began opening all the files his father had emailed to him, he was to proof-read some statements to be made to the pack at the next meeting, log the expenses for the week in the monthly spend report, check the list of signatures on a petition put forward and make sure every name was not only a member of their pack but that no one had been entered two or more times, a whole host of emails that needed to be sent for services they required from outside the pack…

~

Sam had paced the office for hours, waiting for Markus’ return. There was no food, and he had looked everywhere, but there was a large, unopened bottle of water behind the desk that he had been sipping on every once in a while, trying to ration it as long as he could.

His stomach growled and his feet hurt but his most pressing concern was still how much trouble he would be in for not getting his chores done, even if Markus let him out then he wouldn’t have enough time to get it all done. So much for his plan to blast through his housework and then spend the rest of his Saturday reading ‘Sepulchre’.

~

With the new-found peace that had washed over Markus knowing his mate was safe in the office, locked away from creepy crypt-dwellers, he had found it easy to let himself become utterly absorbed in his spreadsheets and forms, his focus unwavering for hours until only the almost-painful growling of his stomach was able to wake him from his daze. He sighed, stretching his arms above his head and grunting at the clicks of his shoulders.

He saved all the documents he was working on and padded out of his wrong in search of a late lunch.

When he reached the kitchen he froze. Sam. He was still in the office. Markus felt a bubbling of guilt in his stomach… or maybe that was just the acid built up from not eating all day. Eat first, feel guilty later, he decided.

~

Sam’s body ached, he didn’t want to sit on the hard floor and he didn’t want to sit in Alpha Murphy’s chair, so he had continued to walk back and forth. The bottoms of his feet and the sides of his toes burned. Back and forth. Back and forth.

One side to the other.

And back again.

~

After he had polished off his heavy-weight wrestlers lunch, Markus dropped his plates in the sink and returned to his room to decide what to do. He plopped his butt down on the edge of his bed and groaned. He still had work to do… but now that he had remembered Sam he couldn’t stop thinking about him. He is safe, was all the advice his wolf offered. It had been a long time though, he fidgeted with his feet as he weighed up his options. Either way, Sam was going to be mad whether he let him out then or later. If he let him out earlier, that would give Charles a chance to swoop in and brainwash him some more… If he let him out later… there were no downsides to later, Markus concluded. He was safe, that was what mattered.

Until they would rule Charles out from being part of the ‘council’ conspiracy, until the ‘council’ was definitely no longer a threat, then it was normal for Markus to be more protective than normal, surely? He comforted himself with that thought, but it wasn’t enough for him to be able to continue his work, his focus had been broken and now his thoughts wandered back to his mate every few minutes.

~

The ache had travelled from Sam’s feet, up his calves and soaked into his knees. He had tried sitting down on the floor a few times but it was hard and uncomfortable and dug into his thin limbs.

Eventually the fatigue and aching grew too much, he had been in there so long, with no energy and no food. He gave in, slumped in a corner behind the desk. The floor dug into his back and he allowed his body to slide down until he was completely horizontal and then curled up on his side, doing his best to ignore the cold, hard floor pressing into his ribs.

It wasn’t long before he passed out from a combination of hunger and fatigue. Darkness swept over him as he shivered on the floor.

~

Markus checked his phone for what felt like the thousandth time since he had finished his lunch, it was dinner time, not that he was hungry after eating enough that afternoon to feed a herd of horses. Most of the pack ate breakfast and dinner together in the main hall around the same time but it wasn’t a rule. He decided he couldn’t keep the omega locked up any longer, not only because of all the dishes that would need washing in an hour’s time.

He sighed and stood, stretching his arms, shoulders and back a couple of times before striding to the door, he had been sat in the same hunched, anxious position for hours but somehow he still felt tired and achy.

When he reached the office he unlocked as quietly as he could and slipped inside. After he shut the door he looked around but Sam was nowhere to be seen. His heart was slamming against his chest in an instant, adrenaline filling his system. There was no way, the windows were in tact, the door had still been locked when he arrived and there was no other way into the room, no ceiling tiles, not silly trap doors or tunnels. No one could have stolen him without leaving some kind of evidence.

“Omega?” He called stomping round the desk angrily, if he wasn’t taken.. no, he didn’t like to even entertain the thought that Sam could have escaped, there was no way he would have jumped out the window, it was far too dangerous. As he rounded the desk he noticed a small lump on the floor in the corner of the room. “Sam?” He called. “Sam! Wake up!”

He pulled the smaller boy up in his arms and into his lap, tucking his arms in against his chest and pulling at his cheeks, “Hey,” he said softly, “come on, it’s not bedtime yet.” he felt an instant rush of embarrassment at his own words, he sounded like an idiot. He mumbled something and shifted a little but didn’t open his eyes. Markus poked at him again and tried to pull him upright but the smaller boy flopped around in his arms lifelessly.

Markus began to panic just a little.

~

“Sam, come on, you can’t nap here.”

Sam’s head hurt… and his joints ached… and he was cold… and hungry. He could feel himself being dragged around as though he were made of goo, unable to hold himself up in whatever position he was manipulated into. He groaned again, he had no energy to move and even being moved by someone or something else was tiring him out even more.

“Just open your eyes for me, just for a second.” The voice said. Sam whined in the back of his throat but managed to pry one eye open with a mean-looking squint. To his surprise, Markus was staring down at him, and he was in his lap. Markus. Sam couldn’t quite string his thoughts together, couldn’t make the connections between ideas. There was something he needed to tell Markus, it had been very important… if only he could remember what it was.

Markus was moving him again, pulling him up so that the side of his face rested against Markus’ chest.

“What the hell are you doing on the floor?” He asked.

“Tired.” Sam managed to sigh out in one slow breath.

“Well then you need to get up and go to bed then.” Markus chastised. Sam ‘mm’d but didn’t move, his body was both sore and boneless and the thing he needed to tell his alpha was still slowly piecing itself together in his brain. “Up you get.” Markus ordered, although neither male moved. Suddenly, the words sprung to Sam’s mouth, he took a deep breath, gathering all of his remaining energy.

“I have to tell you something.” He whispered.

“I know, I’m a jerk for locking you away like that, but-”

“No, it’s important.” There was an eeny meeny part of him that had a red warning light flashing but at the time he didn’t know why, he would later realise it was that he had just interrupted an alpha. Markus pulled a face he couldn’t decipher with his eyes only half-open so he added, “It’s a secret.” with a pout.

“What?” Markus snapped, losing patience quickly.

“It was me.” Sam closed his eyes slowly, losing his fight against consciousness with every millimetre. “I killed Brandon.” He slurred the name, but he knew he said it, and he knew Markus heard it. And with that, sleep took him again.