Page 47 of Designation Prey

What will Liam do? Will he even know?

“Tell Liam what happened. Please?”

The doctor shakes his head, apparently too horrified to speak. Which is strange. It happens all the time, doesn’t it?

“My father is a coward. He’s a pathetic villain, and this is the most unpatriotic thing he could do. If you see him, would you tell him that for me? Even if you won’t, lie to me and say you will.”

“I will make sure he knows how wrong I believe this is,” he finally says.

“Can you tell me,” he asks, swallowing hard. “Are there bonding markers in my blood? Was Liam meant to be mine?”

Dr. Chang takes a deep breath in and lets it out. “I don’t have his scores, but for you, yes. You would have been happy with him. Evened out and satisfied.”

He nods. It’s good to know that he could have had contentment. That it was real, after all this time when he never fit, didn’t think he’d ever belong.

“Does that mean it was likely real to him, too?”

“Yes. There’s a very high chance it was.”

“He gave me a nest. In my own private room. He said he’d keep it for me in case I came back. If you talk to him… he doesn’t need to do that. I don’t want him to waste his whole life waiting for me to come back, when we both know I won’t.” It’s the most horrible thing he’s ever said. The bravest. That’s what it means to love someone more than oneself—to let them go and have the chance to live a good life.

If his father had loved him, he would have done the same thing.

His chest hurts, as if he’s been stabbed. His heart isn’t just broken but ripped out of his chest.

They don’t even go back to Daniel’s apartment. He’s taken directly to the airstrip and put on a plane to the Montana base where soldiers who are not fit to serve, but who the military doesn’t want to eliminate, go to be put into cryogenic stasis.

The flight is two hours. When he lands, he’s directly in the base and is taken to a waiting room that plays soft music and is reminiscent of a fancy hotel. He has to take a shower, is given a thorough enema, and the most horrible part is that he has to remove his cage. They won’t let him wear it into stasis. They put it in a box with the rest of his personal effects and tell him it will be stored until he comes out again.

Dr Chang asks, “Do you want me to send the cage back to him?”

“No. Let him think I got to keep it while I’m asleep,” Daniel says, and that’s when the tears fall and he breaks. How can his father hate him this much? Not even let him go to sleep with his cage? The only trace of the man who loved him?

He is escorted to a small room that contains his stasis chamber. There’s a large one-way mirror on the wall. Is anyone on the other side of that, watching his life end? Large double doors are behind him. When he’s asleep they’ll wheel him out into some giant warehouse, and that will be that. How many soldiers are behind that door, stacked on top of each other, blank and unknowing as the world passes them by?

This base is thirty years old. There are soldiers who have been on ice for decades and now Daniel will be one of them. He’s staring at the coffin. That’s what it is. Even though it has a clear glass top and lights on the outside of it, they all know what it is. The interior is white.

“Would you like a sedative?” Dr. Chang offers. “It will make the next bit easier.”

He nods in agreement and he’s given a shot in his arm. Why the hell not? It stings going in. Thirty seconds later, he’s woozy and can’t see very well. People are speaking but it’s like they’re underwater; nothing is distinct. Are they talking to him? Does it matter?

“Liam.” He isn’t sure if he’s saying the name or asking for him, but his words are slurred, and it doesn’t matter. “No,” he says.

“It’s alright,” someone murmurs, very close to his ear. He climbs in, foot sinking into the padding. A hand on his shoulder urges him to lie down.

“No,” he repeats. He lies down and the cover lowers. There’s a buzz, and then cold air at his feet. Daniel breathes, tasting metal at the back of his throat, the air smelling like oranges and ozone.

And then he’s very, very cold.

17

Three Years Later

The phone call comes in while Liam is in a meeting, and he doesn’t have a chance to return the call until late afternoon. The message is from a Dominant he met at a conference several months back, although there have been so many conferences over the last while, and so many people he’s talked to about prey submissives, that he has no idea who Robert Hanson might be.

“Hi, this is Liam Stone, I’m returning your call.”

“Hello, yes. We met at a designation conference last year and I was hoping you might give me some advice. My partner’s brother has a prey designation and has been in stasis for the last few years. His custody status has changed and we want to bring him out with the least number of complications. We’d like for him to have a Dominant available for his reintegration.”

---