The wordushit harder than Duff expected. Not him. Not the network. Us. Personal and collective all at once. “The intelligence is coming from a dragon,” Duff said. He’d never spoken the words aloud before. They tasted like bile. “It has to be. No one else would have this level of detail about the Fitzgeralds’ movements. The security protocols, the travel routes—that’s inside knowledge.”
Maeve didn’t flinch. She held his gaze like a woman who’d been waiting a long time for someone to say what she’d already been thinking. “Then the question is: why would a dragon want other dragons dead?”
The exact question that had been haunting Duff’s sleepless nights, spoken in Maeve’s soft Highland accent, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to wonder. “Power, maybe. Territory. Politics.”
“Politics,” Maeve repeated. “You know what politics means, don’t you? It means they’re not all the same. It means they have factions and disagreements and competing interests, just like anyone else.”
Duff stiffened. “They’re not like anyone else. They’re?—”
“The Fitzgerald king who just died had a son, only twenty-six in human years.” Maeve cut him off gently. “He lost his older brother decennia ago in some accident, and now his father and uncle in one stroke.” She paused, letting the words settle. “That’s a boy who’s lost his entire family, Duff. Whatever else he is, he’s that.”
“He’s a dragon.”
“Aye, he’s a dragon. And he’s a boy who’s just been made king of a clan that someone is systematically dismantling.” She tilted her head. “Doesn’t that seem like the kind of thing we should understand before we celebrate?”
Duff opened his mouth. Closed it. The ember flared hot, defensive, as if his body was trying to reject what his mind was already processing. A prince who had become a king and was now alone, sitting on a throne built from the bodies of his murdered family.
“I’m not saying they’re good,” Maeve said quietly, reading his face the way she’d always been able to, even when he was a child sitting at this same table with skinned knees and a bruised ego. “I’m saying we should know what we’re killing, and why, and for whom. Your father believed knowing was the same as believing. But you’ve always known the difference, even when you didn’t want to.”
She picked up her mug, took a long sip, and stood. “Don’t stay up too late, love. The map will still be there in the morning.”
She squeezed his shoulder as she passed, a brief, warm pressure that reminded him so sharply of his mother for a moment that his eyes burned.
Then she was gone, and Duff was alone with his tea and his map. He sat for a long time. The Highland wind battered the farmhouse walls, rattling the windows in their frames. The colored markers on the map stared back at him—nineremaining, scattered across a continent, held together by an oath that felt thinner every day.
Maeve was right. About the money. About the pattern. About the young king sitting alone on a stolen throne. She was right, and Duff had known it for longer than he wanted to admit, and knowing didn’t help because it only led to more questions he wasn’t ready to answer.
But he was a hunter. And hunters didn’t stop tracking just because they were afraid of what they’d find.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Two weeks. Fourteen days of being king, and Fergal still flinched internally every time someone called him “Your Majesty.”
He sat at the head of his father’s conference table—hisconference table now, though it still smelled like Lorcan’s pipe tobacco and probably would for years—reviewing the security report Gregor had prepared. Around him, the trappings of kingship pressed in from every direction: stacks of documents requiring his signature, a schedule so packed it made his previous life look leisurely, and a constant stream of clan members who needed decisions, reassurance, or both.
The morning had already included a meeting with the head of household about funeral arrangements that Fergal kept postponing because he couldn’t face the finality of them, a briefing from the supply team about winter provisions, and a tense conversation with Valerie. She had cautiously, tremblingly asked whether the new king intended to continue his father’s policies regarding omega discipline.
“No,” Fergal had said, and the woman had burst into tears right there in the corridor. He’d stood there, awkward and heartbroken, while she apologized for her outburst and he apologized for every year she’d spent being afraid.
It was barely noon, and he was already exhausted.
The security report was thorough, as was everything Gregor produced. Twelve pages of perimeter analysis, guard rotations, threat assessments, and recommendations, compiled with meticulous precision. Fergal had read it twice and was halfway through a third reading because his brain simply refused to take in the information.
A knock at the door. “Come in.”
Gregor entered, and Fergal’s chest did the thing it always did, that involuntary expansion, as if his lungs needed more air simply because this man was in the room. Two weeks of sharing a bed hadn’t diminished the effect. If anything, it had intensified it because now Fergal knew exactly what it felt like to fall asleep with Gregor’s arm around his waist and wake up with Gregor’s heartbeat against his back. The distance between that private warmth and this public formality was a chasm he had to cross dozens of times a day.
“Your Majesty.” Gregor’s voice was perfectly neutral, his posture professional. The commander reporting to his king, nothing more.
Fergal pressed his lips together to suppress the smile that wanted to form. Gregor’s public persona was flawless. No one looking at him would suspect that six hours ago, his face had been buried in Fergal’s hair while his arm held him close enough to feel every breath. The man could compartmentalize with a precision that was simultaneously admirable and infuriating.
“Commander. Sit down.”
Gregor sat across from him, placing a folder on the table between them. “The analysis of the crossbow bolts is complete.”
Fergal straightened. They’d sent the bolts to a human expert—one who specialized in historical weapons and had no idea his clients were dragons. The results had taken ten days.
“The bolts are hand-forged,” Gregor said, opening the folder. “Custom work, high quality. The tips are a tungsten-steel alloy specifically designed for maximum penetration at close range. The fletching is synthetic, modern materials, but the design is based on historical patterns dating back to the fifteenth century.”
