The threat was absurd—a young dragon prince threatening magical torment against the most disciplined man in the compound—but the ferocity behind it was real. And it did what Fergal intended. It yanked Gregor out of his spiral, enough for those gray eyes to focus on Fergal instead of whatever horror he was constructing in his own head.
“This can’t happen,” Gregor said. His voice was raw.
“It already did.”
“We can’t… We’re both alphas. It would never?—”
“I’m well aware.”
“I’m your tutor. Your guard. I’m?—”
“Over three centuries old. I know. I can do math.” Fergal stood and crossed the room, his steps deliberate, holding Gregor’s gaze. “I’m not a child, Gregor. I haven’t been a child for a long time. And you know that, or your hand wouldn’t still be tingling.”
Gregor flinched. His right hand curled into a fist at his side—but not before Fergal caught the involuntary flex of his fingers from the ghost of contact still burning in his palm.
Fergal stopped an arm’s length away, standing close enough that Gregor could feel his presence without being trapped by it. “I haven’t used my abilities on you, and I won’t,” Fergal said quietly. “I promised, and I keep my promises. I won’t push tonight. But I’m not going to pretend that didn’t happen, and I won’t let you pretend either.” He held Gregor’s gaze until the older man’s eyes glistened, and something in Fergal’s chest cracked at the sight of it. “This is real, Gregor. Whatever’s between us is real.”
He left before he could do something stupid like touch him, walking out of the training room on legs that weren’t quite steady, his ass still burning, his pulse a war drum in his ears, every step sending a delicious reminder of Gregor’s handprints through his entire body.
Back in his room, he pressed his back against the closed door and exhaled. His hands were shaking. Hell, his whole body was shaking. He closed his eyes, and the memory hit him—Gregor’s weight on top of him, Gregor’s ragged breath in his ear, the crack of Gregor’s palm, and the lightning bolt of sensation that followed.
He touched the places where Gregor’s hand had landed. Even through the fabric, the skin was hot. Tender. He pressed his fingers against it and shivered. Not from pain.
From the memory of Gregor’s control shattering. From the sound Gregor had made—half growl, half groan—in the fraction of a second before the first strike. From the devastating, undeniable proof that underneath all that discipline and duty and distance, Gregor wanted him badly enough to break.
But the triumph was already fading, replaced by something Fergal hadn’t expected. Something that sat heavy in his chestand ached in a way that had nothing to do with the handprints on his ass.
Gregor’s face had shown horror, shame. And the way he’d looked at his own hand like it was a weapon that had discharged without permission… Fergal didn’t want that. He didn’t want Gregor’s shame or his guilt or his self-punishment. He wanted the man who’d pinned him to the mat and called him by his name. The man who’d broken through centuries of iron control because Fergal had goaded him into it. The man whose hand had known exactly where to land, exactly how hard, because some part of him had been imagining it long before today.
He wanted to be the person Gregor didn’t have to hide from. The place where all those locked doors could finally open.
He just had to convince Gregor of that. And if a year of patience had taught Fergal anything, it was that the walls around Gregor’s heart weren’t going to come down from one spanking—no matter how satisfying that spanking had been.
But they’d cracked. Oh, how they had cracked.
And Fergal had never encountered a crack he didn’t know how to widen.
CHAPTER SIX
Gregor couldn’t sleep.
He lay on his back in the narrow bed, staring at the ceiling, his right hand resting on his chest. He could still feel it. The impact, the heat, the way Fergal’s body had arched into the blows like it was something he’d been waiting for. The sounds he’d made—those small, shattered moans—played on a loop in Gregor’s head, and no amount of discipline could silence them.
At four in the morning, he gave up on sleep and went through his routine with mechanical precision. Shower—cold. Shave. Four identical dark shirts in the wardrobe—he chose one without looking. Pants. Boots. Dagger on the belt, gun in the holster. The same uniform he’d worn every day for nearly two centuries, armor in everything but name.
He caught sight of his right hand as he buttoned his shirt and stopped. The palm was unmarked, unremarkable. The hand of a soldier, scarred and calloused from centuries of service. No evidence of what it had done last night. So how could he feel it so deeply, replaying every moment in his head like a movie?
He finished buttoning and left his quarters before the silence could swallow him.
The plan was simple. Today’s lesson would be Section Sixteen of the Code—the regulations governing inter-clan trade disputes, a topic so monumentally boring that it left zero room for personal conversation, loaded questions, or any of the other weapons in Fergal’s increasingly sophisticated arsenal. Gregor would deliver the material with professional detachment. Fergal would receive it with appropriate academic engagement. They would not discuss yesterday. They would not reference the training room. They would move forward as tutor and student, as they should’ve remained all along.
He arrived at the library forty minutes early because being the first one in the room was a tactical advantage he refused to concede. He built up the fire, prepared Fergal’s coffee in a green mug, and laid out his materials with the geometric precision of a man arranging a defensive perimeter.
By the time Fergal arrived, Gregor was seated, composed, and fortified behind enough professional detachment to withstand a siege.
Fergal walked in and dropped into his chair with his usual graceless ease. “Morning.”
“Good morning, Your Highness.”
