Gregor stopped. “Your Highness. It’s late.”
“It is.”
“You should be in bed.”
“Probably.” Fergal didn’t move. He studied Gregor’s face with that unnerving directness that had nothing to do with influencer abilities and everything to do with who he was. “Why are you afraid of me?”
The question landed like a fist to the solar plexus. Gregor kept his expression neutral through sheer force of will. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“You walked out of our session for the first time in five years. You’ve been on patrol for three hours when your route takes ninety minutes. And your hands—” Fergal glanced at them. “They’re still shaking.”
Gregor curled his fingers into fists. Damn the boy’s observational skills. Damn every lesson Gregor had taught himabout reading body language and situational awareness. He’d created a monster. Still, he said nothing.
Fergal rose to his feet in one fluid motion. He was shorter than Gregor—five-eleven to Gregor’s six-three—but he stood as if he were the tallest person in any room. “I won’t do it again.”
Gregor wouldn’t pretend he didn’t know what Fergal was referring to. “Good.”
Fergal took a step closer. Then another. Close enough that Gregor could smell him, something warm and woodsy, underlaid with the ozone scent of a dragon who’d recently used magic. Close enough that the heat radiating from Fergal’s body cut through the corridor’s perpetual chill. “One day, I’m going to know everything about you, Gregor. Every single thing you’re hiding behind that wall. And I won’t use my magic to do it.”
The absolute, unshakable certainty in Fergal’s voice, the same certainty Gregor had watched develop from the time Fergal was a child arguing his case with the conviction of a king, hit Gregor harder than any magic could.
Fergal held his gaze for three eternal heartbeats. Then he turned and walked away, his feet silent on the wooden floor, his loose hair swaying against his back. Gregor watched him until he turned the corner, out of sight. The exhale that rushed out of him was like a tornado.
In his quarters, he sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the ceiling while the aurora borealis painted shifting colors across the frost on his window. Green. Violet. Green again.
I’m going to know everything about you.
And the truly terrifying part—the thing that kept Gregor awake long after the aurora faded and the compound settled into the deep silence of a northern winter night—was not the fear that Fergal might succeed.
It was how badly part of him wanted him to.
CHAPTER FIVE
Fergal was going to lose his mind.
It had been a year. An entire year since the night he’d stood in that corridor and promised Gregor he’d find every secret behind those walls, and what had he gotten for it? Absolutely nothing. Twelve months of impeccable professionalism, of “Your Highness” delivered with military precision, of tutoring sessions so rigidly structured they might as well have been conducted by a robot rather than a man.
He’d respected Gregor’s boundary about the magic. He hadn’t tried to slip into his mind again, hadn’t even nudged him with his influencer ability. Not once. He’d practiced both gifts extensively on others—he was significantly better at controlling them now, able to slip in and out of minds with a precision that would’ve terrified him a year ago—but Gregor remained untouched. A promise was a promise.
And what had his restraint earned him? More distance. More formality. More of that maddening composure that made Fergal want to set something on fire.
He stood at his window, watching the weak spring sunlight fight its way through the clouds. The snow was thinning at the edges of the compound for the first time in months, patches ofdark earth showing through. The Canadian winter was loosening its grip, but grudgingly, the way it always did. As if warmth were a concession rather than a season.
Fergal felt like that snow—compressed, frozen, ready to crack at the first real heat.
Today’s lesson was on historic military strategy. Maps and tactical diagrams and historical siege analysis. Despite all modern changes to warfare, old-school strategies were still taught. Fine. Good. He’d use it.
Gregor always stood close during map work, leaning over the table to point out terrain features and defensive positions. Last week, Fergal had caught the faintest trace of his scent—leather and steel and something woodsy underneath—and had nearly lost his composure right there over a diagram of a thirteenth-century fortification.
He checked his reflection. He still looked too young, but something had changed in the past year, something he could see even if no one else could. His eyes were harder, more focused. The eyes of a man who’d spent twelve months watching and waiting and learning patience despite every cell in his body screaming at him to act.
Well, he was done being patient, and he knew exactly which buttons to push.
He arrived at the library to find Gregor already positioned at the table, maps spread before him like a paper battlefield. Dark shirt, sleeves rolled to the forearms because, of course, the man deliberately chose to expose the one part of his anatomy most calculated to destroy Fergal’s concentration. Those forearms—thick, corded with muscle, dusted with dark hair that had gone silver at the wrists—were an act of war.
“Your Highness.” Gregor didn’t look up.
“Gregor.” Fergal dropped into his chair. “What are we conquering today?”
