“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
Fergal studied him for a long moment, then nodded. An understanding passed between them—two men who saw the same darkness and refused to look away.
They walked out of the library together. Side by side. Not tutor and student. Not guard and prince. Partners.
And as they made their way toward the king’s quarters, Gregor took a few deep breaths. What had happened the day before in the training room had terrified him because it was physical—uncontrolled and explosive. But what had happenedtoday terrified him more. He’d let Fergal in, had let him slip past that wall, and he hadn’t even tried to stop him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
His father was a coward.
Fergal had suspected it for years—had danced around the word, substituting softer alternatives likecautiousorpragmaticorset in his ways—but after watching King Lorcan dismiss Valerie’s beaten face with a wave of his hand and a lecture about omegas knowing their place, the truth sat on Fergal’s chest like a stone.
His father was a coward, and his cowardice was killing people. Maybe not literally, not yet, but the slow death of dignity was still death, and Lorcan was processing it with detached indifference like a man who had stopped seeing omegas as people long before Fergal was born.
The meeting had lasted eight minutes. Eight minutes for Fergal to lay out what had happened to Valerie, cite the relevant sections of the Code, and request that Duncan be formally disciplined. Eight minutes for Lorcan to listen with increasingly visible irritation, glance at Duncan—who had been summoned and stood with an expression of wounded innocence that made Fergal’s blood boil—and deliver his verdict.
“Duncan assures me the omega was insubordinate, and I see no reason to doubt my advisor’s word. The matter is closed,Fergal. I suggest you focus on your studies and leave clan governance to those with more experience.”
Gregor had stood behind Fergal through the entire exchange, silent and still as a statue. But Fergal had felt the barely perceptible shift in his breathing and the tension radiating from his body like heat from a furnace. Gregor had been furious, and his fury had been a wall at Fergal’s back, solid and grounding even as everything else crumbled.
Now they were outside, and the cold hit Fergal’s face like a slap. He’d stormed out of his father’s quarters without grabbing a jacket, and the spring air—which in northern Canada meant hovering just above freezing—immediately bit through his thin shirt. He didn’t care. The cold was preferable to the suffocating warmth of a room where a king had considered evidence of abuse and chosen to look away.
Fergal didn’t stop walking until he reached the covered walkway that connected the main building to the eastern barracks. It was exposed on one side, overlooking the valley below, and the view was the kind that usually calmed him—the vast sweep of boreal forest, the distant mountains, the sky purple with the approaching dusk. Tonight, he barely saw it.
“He’s afraid of Duncan.” Gregor’s voice, low and even, came from behind his left shoulder. He’d followed without being asked, as he always did, his footsteps so quiet on the wooden planks that Fergal wouldn’t have known he was there if he hadn’t been listening for him.
“You saw it too?” Fergal turned to face him.
“His hands. When you mentioned Duncan’s name, his left hand gripped the armrest of his chair. He let go before you noticed, but yes. The king is afraid of his own advisor.”
Of course Gregor had seen it. The man missed nothing, cataloged everything, and filed it all away behind those steel-gray eyes for future reference. It was maddening when directed at Fergal. Directed at a potential threat, it was invaluable.
“What could Duncan possibly have on my father?” Fergal leaned against the railing, the cold metal biting through his sleeves. “My father is king. He has absolute authority. What leverage could an advisor have that would make a king protect the man who beats his servants?”
Gregor moved to stand beside him, close enough that Fergal could feel the warmth radiating from his body—dragons ran hot, but Gregor ran hotter than most, a furnace of contained energy that Fergal had been gravitating toward for years. “I’ve been asking myself the same question for months.”
Fergal’s head snapped toward him. “Months? You’ve been watching Duncan for months?”
“Duncan and Donovan both. They arrived at the compound within weeks of each other, both from outside the clan. Your father vouched for them personally, which I found unusual since the king rarely takes an interest in staffing decisions. And since their arrival, they’ve been—” Gregor paused, choosing his words with the precision of a man laying bricks. “Consolidating.”
The two had arrived while Fergal was at college, maybe two years prior now? He hadn’t taken any interest in them, though now he wondered if he should have. “Consolidating how?”
“Meetings with your father that aren’t on the official schedule. Influence over guard assignments that should go through Ruben but have increasingly gone through them. Conversations that stop when I enter a room. A growing network of loyalists among the younger guards—men who answer to Duncan and Donovan first and Ruben second.”
Fergal stared at him. “You’ve been tracking all of this, and you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t have proof. I still don’t. Only a pattern, and we both know that’s not enough.” A pause. “I also didn’t want to burden you with suspicions I couldn’t substantiate.”
“Burden me?” Fergal pushed off the railing. “I’m the crown prince, Gregor. If there’s a threat to this clan, I need to know about it, substantiated or not. I’m not a child who needs to be shielded from?—”
“I know you’re not a child.”
The way he said it stopped Fergal mid-sentence. After yesterday’s events in the training room, those words carried weight they wouldn’t have a week ago.
Fergal took a breath and pulled himself back to the matter at hand. “Where did they come from? Duncan and Donovan. Before my father brought them in.”
