“But we killed most of the attackers,” Jermon said. “If those were all Murphys, they took heavy losses.”
Gregor shook his head. “The attackers weren’t dragons. If they had been, you would’ve sensed it, even with your limited magical abilities at the time. My guess is they hired some kind of paramilitary group to do their dirty work, aided by one or two of their own who did the magic work.”
“And then offered to train us in magic.” Erwan sighed. “Training sessions where they were deliberately limiting what they taught us, making sure we stayed weak enough to control.”
Fergal’s mind was running full speed now, assembling the evidence into a case file that grew more damning with every new piece of information. “So the Murphys have been running a multi-generational conspiracy. They infiltrated our clan through Duncan and Donovan. They collaborated with Cladhaire to suppress the White Dragon. They set up the ranch attack to see if they could eliminate you, and when that didn’t work, they rushed to your rescue to embed themselves as allies. They systematically eliminated the real dragon slayers. And they assassinated my father and uncle when they got too close to the truth.”
“And they’ve been using Duff Bás’s name and identity as cover for their own operations,” Gregor added. “The man might not even know his name was used to claim responsibility for Lorcan’s and Brian’s murders.”
A heavy silence fell over the table. Jermon broke it by pulling a print from a stack of papers. “There’s one more thing. A few weeks before the attack, a man came to our borders claiming he wanted to join the pack. He called himself Matt Brown. I noticed the man had a shimmer about him, like magic. Now, mind you, this was before we’d learned anything about magic, so I had noclue, but I still picked up on it. We tried to find him but were unsuccessful. We pulled this from our security cameras. Does he look familiar to you?”
Fergal took a long look at the picture, then shook his head.
“He’s obviously using glamour,” Gregor said. “You can tell by how smoothed out his features are. Glamour is a Murphy specialty. Colin and Dempsey are both trained in it. My money is on this being a Murphy operative using glamour to scout your territory before the ranch attack.”
“So the attack was premeditated,” Erwan said. “They sent a scout first, then staged the attack, then showed up as heroes. All planned.”
Fergal nodded slowly. “Which means everything that followed—the training, the kidnapping attempt, the breeding proposals—was part of the same operation. They never intended to help you. They intended to control you.”
The meeting continued for another hour, covering security arrangements, the Murphy omegas still being held captive, and the delicate question of what to do about Cladhaire and Baoth, who were now powerless but still dangerous. By the time they wrapped up, Fergal’s head was pounding, but for the first time since his father’s death, the conspiracy felt less like a fog and more like a map—complex and vast, but with visible borders and identifiable landmarks.
They were actually getting somewhere. Slowly, painfully, with too many gaps still to fill, but somewhere. Finally.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The cabin smelled like garlic and tomatoes, and it triggered a kind of contentment that Gregor had never associated with himself until recently.
Fergal was cooking. Or rather, Fergal was attempting to cook, which involved a lot of enthusiastic chopping, occasional swearing, and a relationship with the stove that could best be described as adversarial. Gregor had offered to help and had been banished to the couch with a pointed “I am a king and a lawyer. I can handle pasta” that had been somewhat undermined by the smoke alarm going off thirty seconds later.
Gregor sat on the couch and pretended to read while watching Fergal over the top of his book. Barefoot. Wearing one of Gregor’s shirts—the dark gray one, which slipped off Fergal’s left shoulder because it was cut for a frame considerably broader than his. Black hair loose around his shoulders because he’d showered after their walk and hadn’t bothered to tie it back. Humming something off-key as he stirred a pot with the kind of aggressive optimism that characterized everything Fergal did.
He looked happy.
The observation landed in Gregor’s chest like a stone dropped into still water, and the ripples spread outward untilthey reached every edge of him. Fergal looked happy. Actual, genuine, unguarded happiness, the kind that softened the line of his jaw and eased the tension around his eyes and made him hum off-key while burning pasta sauce.
Three days in this place, and Fergal was transforming. The pack’s easy acceptance—the couples who held hands without fear, the omegas who spoke their minds, the complete absence of the rigid hierarchy that had defined every moment of their lives at the compound—was working on him like sunlight on a plant that had been kept in shadow. He was opening up, unfurling, reaching toward the warmth with a hunger that made Gregor’s throat tight.
It was working on Gregor, too, though he was less willing to admit it.
This morning, they’d walked through the pack lands together, and Fergal had reached over and taken his hand again. In public. In broad daylight. In front of wolves and dragons who could see them clearly. But no one had stared. No one had whispered. No one had done anything except continue with their lives because in this place, two alphas holding hands was as unremarkable as the sun rising.
“Dinner’s ready,” Fergal announced with the triumphant air of a man who had conquered Everest rather than produced a pot of slightly overcooked spaghetti. “And before you say anything, the sauce is supposed to be that color.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“Your eyebrow was saying plenty.”
They ate at the small kitchen table, knees touching underneath it because the space was tight and because neither of them made any effort to create distance. The pasta was adequate. The sauce was better than Gregor had expected and worse than Fergal claimed. The bread, which Fergal had broughtover from the pack kitchen because even his confidence had limits, was excellent.
It was the best meal Gregor had ever had. Not because of the food but because of the way Fergal’s bare foot hooked around his ankle under the table. Because of the way the lamplight caught the curve of Fergal’s smile when Gregor grudgingly admitted the sauce wasn’t bad. Because of the wine—a bottle that someone named Gia had sent over from the Hayes pack as a welcome gift, rich and red and warm—that loosened something in both of them that had been tight for a very long time.
They washed dishes together. Side by side at the sink, Gregor washing and Fergal drying because if Fergal washed, more water would end up on the floor than in the basin. Their arms brushed with every handoff. Their hips bumped. It was domestic and mundane and so far removed from the world of kings and commanders and conspiracy that Gregor felt almost dizzy with the normalcy of it.
Fergal hung the dish towel on its hook and turned to face him, leaning his hip against the counter. The gray shirt had slipped off his shoulder again, exposing the line of his collarbone and the warm, tanned skin below it. His hair fell in dark waves around his face. His eyes—those sharp, impossible brown eyes—were soft in the lamplight, watching Gregor with an expression that held no agenda, no strategy, no provocation.
Just love. Naked, undefended, incandescent love.
Oh, Gregor had known Fergal had fallen for him, had known his feelings had long since developed past an infatuation. But to see it this clearly, to see what he felt himself reflected on Fergal’s face was everything. Something inside Gregor, some final mechanism of resistance that he hadn’t even known was still operating, quietly disengaged.
