Liam knew he was in trouble the moment his terminal flashed with his father's name.
Not because Ray Canmore ever called often enough for it to mean anything good. Quite the opposite. Ray called so rarely that his voice had the emotional texture of a tax notice: formal, unwelcome, and usually attached to some inconvenience Liam would be expected to survive quietly.
But what made it worse, what made the back of Liam's neck go tight before he had even accepted the call, was the message that followed.
'Office. Now. Your grandfather and Cain are here.'
No greeting. No explanation. No attempt at pretending this was anything other than a summons.
Liam stared at the text for three full seconds from beneath the open chassis of an ether-regulator array that had already ruined his shirt, his patience, and two perfectly good tools.
Then he let out a slow breath through his nose and banged the back of his head lightly against the metal frame above him.
"Excellent," he muttered to the machine. "The Devil's triangle has formed."
The regulator did not respond, though in Liam's opinion it had more emotional depth than most of his family.
He slid out from beneath the assembly table on the rolling platform with the mechanical grace that only comes from years of experience and a deep distrust of private lab safety standards. Grease streaked one sleeve of his work shirt. Ether-dust shimmered faintly across his gloves. His hair, which had begun the morning tied back in a respectable manner, had long since devolved into the sort of disordered state that led older aristocrats to believe he was either incompetent or rebellious.
Usually both.
Liam sat up, looked at the message again, and felt that familiar mix of irritation and dread settle under his ribs.
Ray calling was never good.
Ray calling while Felix was there was worse.
Ray calling while Felix and Cain were both there was the sort of arrangement that should have required state approval, holy water, and a team of negotiators.
Cain, the eldest child of Felix, had perfected the art of standing in a room like a second blade laid carefully beside the first. Quiet when it suited him. Polite when necessary. Loyal in the way venom was loyal to the fangs that carried it. Liam had disliked him on instinct as a child and with evidence as an adult.
And Felix…
Liam's mouth flattened.
Felix Canmore was the sort of man who could smile at a family dinner and make three people lose funding by dessert.
A dominant omega. Patriarch. Benefactor when it amused him. Executioner when it did not.
And for reasons Liam had never fully managed to drag into daylight, Felix had hated him from the start with the controlled, glacial precision of a man who preferred his cruelty neat.
Not openly, of course. Felix was too disciplined for that. Too polished. Too old-money elegant in the way monsters often were when they had been permitted to age in comfort. He had never needed to raise his voice with Liam. He only needed to move a budget here, delay a project there, and close one door politely enough that everyone else in the room could pretend it had not been locked on purpose.
Liam had spent most of his life learning how to keep working with his hand caught in that door.
Which, frankly, had done wonders for his engineering.
He stood, stripped off his gloves, and tossed them onto the bench beside the half-open regulator. The prototype stared back at him in pieces, all brass housing, silver filament coils, and ether-channeling glass threaded through the center like artificial veins. It was a beautiful design, assuming one appreciated dangerous things that hummed.
He did.
Most Canmore line members valued legacy, titles, bloodline politics, and strategic marriages that made everyone at the wedding appear vaguely ill.
Liam liked engines.
The way ether could be captured, redirected, stabilized, and amplified. He liked the fact that a machine, unlike a family, usually failed for a reason.
That reason could be fixed.
Families were less cooperative.
His assistant, Mara, looked up from the side console as he crossed the lab.
"You look like someone died."
"Not yet," Liam said, grabbing a clean cloth and making a token effort to wipe his hands. "My father wants me upstairs."
Mara winced immediately. "With the old serpent?"
"And the heir apparent," Liam said. "A full set. We are apparently doing a collection."
"That bad?"
"That specific."
He tossed the cloth back down and reached for his jacket.
Mara hesitated. "Do you want me to come invent a fire in ten minutes?"
Liam considered it.
"Tempting," he said. "But no. If I go in expecting a rescue, I'll only embarrass myself by hoping."
"That's surprisingly self-aware."
"I'm very talented."
He shrugged into the jacket, ignoring the faint ache in his shoulders from too many hours bent over the regulator, and checked his reflection in the darkened terminal screen. Not ideal. Serviceable. He still looked twenty-three, sharp-faced, tired-eyed, and far too young to have acquired the level of hostility he felt toward half his blood relatives.
The omega in the glass looked composed enough.
That would have to do.
Because that was the other problem.
Liam was the only dominant omega in the direct Canmore line.
Not the only omega. Not the only useful heir. The only dominant omega.
In another family, that might have made him precious in a way that felt almost flattering. In this one, it had made him valuable in the same way rare components were valuable: difficult to replace, irritating to manage, and primarily discussed in terms of function.
Especially by Felix.
Liam had never quite found the right words for the way Felix looked at him sometimes. It was wrong and predatory.
That, more than anything, was what made the summons taste wrong.
He picked up his access card and killed the lights in his private section of the lab. The regulator dimmed reluctantly, the blue ether thread at its center fading down to a low pulse.
"Pray for me," Liam told it.
Mara gave him a thumbs up without looking convinced.
The upper floors of the Canmore compound were warmer than the labs and infinitely less honest.
The lower engineering levels smelled like hot metal, static, oil, damp stone, and overworked circuits. The upper residence and executive wing smelled like money, polished wood, flowers with no pollen, and secrets kept in climate-controlled cabinets.
By the time Liam reached the corridor outside Ray's office, his expression had settled into the calm blankness he reserved for formal family interactions and tax auditors.
The guards at the door stepped aside at once.
Of course they did.
Nothing said affection quite like being admitted to your own father's office by men who looked prepared to restrain you decorously if you became inconvenient.
Liam stepped inside.
And there they were.
Ray was behind the desk, every line of his body arranged into composed authority, as if fatherhood might be something he could compensate for through posture alone. Dark suit. Controlled face. Hands folded once over a slate he was not reading. Ray always looked like a man in the middle of a decision he preferred no one interrupt.
Cain stood near the window, one hand in his pocket, the afternoon light cutting a clean line across his shoulder. Still, polished, and watchful. If Ray looked like a politician, Cain looked like the knife such a politician kept in reserve.
And Felix…
Felix sat in one of the guest chairs as if the room had been built around him and only later loaned to Ray for professional purposes.
Elegant as ever. Pale hair perfectly arranged. Cane resting lightly against one leg. His expression calm. Interested, even.
Liam disliked that expression most of all.
Because it meant Felix wanted something.
"Well," Liam said, closing the door behind him with a soft click. "This is festive."