“No more locked doors.”
“No more deadbolts?”
“Demolished.”
“No more ‘you are everything’ when what you mean is ‘I love you?’”
Gregor pressed his lips to Fergal’s hair and breathed him in—woodsmoke and warmth and home. “I love you.”
“Again.”
“I love you.”
“Mmm.” Fergal’s arm tightened around his waist, his body softening into the boneless relaxation of a man who was thoroughly, comprehensively satisfied. “Keep saying it.”
“I love you, baby boy. I love you. I will say it every day, multiple times a day, until you’re so sick of hearing it that you threaten me with legal action.”
“I’m a lawyer. I’d win.”
“You always win.”
“Damn right I do.”
Fergal’s breathing slowed, deepened, his body growing heavier against Gregor’s side as sleep pulled him under. Gregor held him and listened to the breathing, to the heartbeat, to the quiet sounds of the cabin settling around them.
There were no ghosts in this room tonight. No memories of a body carried through a dark corridor. No echo of a wet crack against a nightstand. No phantom weight of a secret held too long. The ghosts had been released—spoken aloud, examined in the light, and found to be shadows rather than monsters. They would return, probably. Grief and guilt didn’t vanish overnight. But they would never again have the power to lock a door between Gregor and the man sleeping in his arms.
The doors were open. The deadbolts were demolished. And in a small cabin, the most disciplined man alive slept peacefully in the arms of the man he loved, and the mate bond between them sang a song that had been waiting over a hundred years to be heard.
CHAPTER FORTY
Five eggs. Five healthy hatchlings. Every single one.
Erwan sat on the porch of Nadiv and Emma’s cabin, a glass of champagne in one hand, a cigar in the other, and a heart so full it ached. The evening air was mild and sweet with the scent of cut grass and woodsmoke, and around him, the people he loved most in the world were being loud and messy and wonderful.
Inside the cabin, Emma presided over the nesting basket with the fierce, exhausted satisfaction of a woman who had carried five eggs for months and watched each one crack open to reveal a squirming, squalling, perfect hatchling. Two alphas and three omegas, all healthy, all hungry, all blessed with their mother’s determination and their father’s complete inability to sit still. The noise was tremendous. Erwan loved every decibel of it.
Nadiv leaned against the porch railing, a glass of champagne in his hand and an expression on his face that Erwan had never seen from his brother before—a kind of stunned, luminous disbelief, as if he kept expecting someone to tell him the hatchlings were a mistake and he’d have to give them back.
“Five,” Nadiv said for approximately the thirtieth time. “Five, Erwan. All of them.”
“All of them,” Erwan confirmed, grinning.
“The statistics said two, maybe three. Emma was prepared for one. And we got five.” Nadiv took a gulp of champagne, then stared at the glass as if it might contain answers. “Is this what it felt like for you? When Ainle was born?”
Erwan thought about that night, Ainle in his arms for the first time, small and warm and impossibly real. Rhene’s face, radiant with a joy so pure it had made Erwan’s chest hurt. “Exactly like that. Except you’ve got five of them, so multiply accordingly.”
“I’m going to die.” Nadiv’s tone was cheerful. “Sleep deprivation will kill me within a month. Emma’s already made a feeding rotation schedule. It has color coding.”
“Of course it does. She’s Emma.”
“She alphabetized the diaper supplies.”
“That’s just good logistics.”
Jermon appeared from inside, a hatchling in each arm—one of Nadiv’s newborns in his left, his own Harley in his right. The baby-blue dragon was awake and watchful as always, those ancient eyes surveying the porch gathering with the calm assessment of a being who had decided, upon careful consideration, that these people were acceptable.
“Olivia just knocked over the water dish,” Jermon reported. “Again. And Zayden is trying to establish dominance over one of Nadiv’s alphas, which is going about as well as you’d expect.”
