“You stood up too fast. Your blood pressure dropped. When did you last drink water?”
“I had coffee.”
“Water, Fergal.”
“Coffee is made with water. It counts.”
Gregor steered him toward the corridor without dignifying that with a response.
Their quarters—and they were theirs now, the fiction of “security arrangement” a running joke neither of them bothered to maintain anymore—were warm when they entered. Gregorhad adjusted the heating before his patrol, knowing Fergal ran cold when he was exhausted.
He filled a glass of water from the kitchen and handed it to Fergal, who drank it with the distracted obedience of a man whose energy for resistance had been depleted somewhere around hour fourteen of his workday. While Fergal showered—a process that took twice as long as usual because Gregor suspected he was standing under the hot water with his eyes closed, letting the heat do what sleep couldn’t—Gregor made tea. For himself, the usual smoky black blend. For Fergal, the chamomile that he wouldn’t have voluntarily chosen but that Gregor had been substituting for his evening coffee without fanfare or discussion.
Tiny adjustments to the environment around Fergal, designed to nudge him toward rest without triggering the stubbornness that flared whenever he felt managed. He’d handled Fergal’s education in a similar manner—presenting information in the right order and creating conditions for discovery rather than forcing conclusions, respecting the intelligence of the student while quietly shaping the curriculum.
He was still managing Fergal, still shaping the conditions of his life, still operating in the background with an authority that Fergal hadn’t explicitly granted and probably wouldn’t appreciate if he fully understood its scope. Was that love? Or was it control dressed up in tenderness?
He loved Fergal. The certainty of it had settled into his bones weeks ago, quiet and immovable, and he’d stopped fighting it the way one stops fighting gravity. It was simply there, a fundamental force that shaped everything around it. But love built on a lie was a castle built on sand, and Gregor could feel the foundation shifting every time Fergal looked at him with that absolute trust.
The Peter question from the other night still echoed.I know he wasn’t a good man.Fergal had, based on his own memories, arrived at a conclusion that was true but incomplete. Peter hadn’t been a good man. Peter had been a monster in training who’d tried to murder his baby brother.
And Gregor had killed him.
And Fergal didn’t know.
And every night, when Gregor held Fergal in the dark and breathed him in and felt the steady beat of his heart against his palm, the secret sat between them like a blade neither could see but that Gregor could feel pressing against his ribs.
Fergal emerged from the bathroom in soft pants and one of Gregor’s shirts, which he’d taken to wearing to bed with a possessiveness that sent a complicated tangle of emotions through Gregor every time he saw it. The shirt was too big—the shoulders drooping, the hem hanging past his hips—and it made Fergal look younger, softer, like a man who’d set down his armor for the night.
“Tea?” Fergal eyed the chamomile with suspicion.
“Drink it.”
“You’ve been switching my coffee for chamomile every night this week.”
“Have I now?”
“You have. I noticed on the second night.”
“And yet you kept drinking it.”
Fergal took the mug and sipped, his mouth twisting at the taste. “It’s growing on me. Slowly. Against my will. Like you.”
The corner of Gregor’s mouth lifted. “Drink your tea and get in bed.”
They settled into their positions, the lamp casting its low, warm glow across the room. Fergal set his empty mug on the nightstand and lay on his side, facing Gregor. His eyes were heavy, the shower and the chamomile doing their work, butGregor could see the thoughts still moving behind them, restless and relentless, refusing to quiet.
“I can hear you thinking,” Gregor said.
“Welcome to my world. My brain doesn’t have an off switch.”
“What’s it stuck on tonight?”
“The Council. Whether the seating arrangements actually matter or if I’m obsessing over details to avoid the bigger picture, which is that I’m going to mingle with dragon kings who’ve been doing this for centuries, and I’ve been doing it for six weeks.” A pause. “Also, whether the omega welfare reforms will survive while I’m away, or will Brennan gut them the moment I leave the compound.”
“I’ll have someone trustworthy monitor Brennan.”
“Who? We’re running out of trustworthy people.”
