“Gregor?”
“Mm.”
“I love you.”
The words landed in the quiet room like they’d been carried for a very long time and finally, finally set down—Fergal letting go of words he’d been holding for years, offering them without demand or expectation, simply because they were true and he was done not saying them.
Gregor’s chest constricted. The response was right there with those three words, sitting on his tongue the way they sat there every night, every morning, every time Fergal smiled at him or argued with him or fell asleep in his arms. Three words that would be so easy to say and so impossible to mean fully while the heaviest door in his mind remained locked.
He couldn’t say them. Not yet. Not while the truth about Peter sat between them like a blade Fergal couldn’t see. Saying “I love you” while holding that secret would turn the most honest words in any language into a lie, and Fergal deserved better thanthat. Fergal deserved everything, and everything included the truth, and the truth was the one thing Gregor couldn’t give him.
He pressed his lips to Fergal’s hair. Held him tighter. “You are everything to me, baby boy,” he murmured, and the words were true—inadequate, incomplete, but true.
Fergal was quiet for a moment. Then his arm tightened around Gregor’s waist. “I know you can’t say it yet. I don’t know why, but I know there’s something. And I’ll wait.” A pause. “I’ve become very good at waiting, as you may have noticed.”
The trust in those words, the willingness to accept what Gregor could give without demanding what he couldn’t, cracked something open in Gregor’s chest that he suspected would never fully heal. Not because it was a wound but because it was a door, one that Fergal had been slowly, patiently, relentlessly opening from the outside while Gregor barricaded it from within.
Someday, he’d open it himself. Someday, he’d find the courage to tell Fergal everything—the truth about Peter, the truth about his own unworthiness, the truth that he loved this man with a ferocity that terrified him and sustained him in equal measure.
But tonight, he held Fergal in their home, in their bed, in the warmth of a place where no one had stared when they’d held hands, and he let “you are everything” be enough.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Fergal had never peeled a potato in his life, and it showed.
The vegetable in his left hand was slippery, obstinate, and apparently determined to maintain its skin at all costs. The peeler in his right hand was a deceptively simple tool that seemed designed for hands more practiced than his. After ten minutes, he’d produced three peeled potatoes—each one looking like it had survived a knife fight—and a pile of peelings so thick they contained more potato than the potatoes themselves.
“You’re taking off too much,” Yitro said from across the counter, where he was simultaneously chopping onions, monitoring a pot on the stove, and keeping an eye on the baby monitor. Fergal admired the hell out of him, this omega who had elevated domestic chaos to an art form. “Thinner strokes. Let the peeler do the work.”
“The peeler isn’t doing any work. The peeler is staging a rebellion.”
Yitro laughed, a warm, genuine sound that made the kitchen feel brighter. “Here, watch.” He took a potato from the pile and demonstrated with three quick, efficient strokes that produced a perfectly peeled result in under five seconds. “See? Gentle pressure, long strokes, follow the curve.”
Fergal attempted to replicate the technique and gouged a chunk out of both the potato and his thumb. “I have a law degree,” he muttered, sticking his bleeding thumb in his mouth. “Graduated summa cum laude. I should be able to peel a goddamned potato.”
“Potatoes don’t care about your resumé.” Yitro handed him a bandage from a drawer that clearly existed specifically for kitchen injuries, which suggested this wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. “And don’t worry. Everyone’s terrible at first. You should’ve seen Erwan the first time Sivney put him on vegetable duty. The man managed to cut himself three times in ten minutes, and he’s a healer.”
The kitchen was a revelation. Not the space itself—though it was impressive, the enormous room clearly designed as the communal heart of the farmhouse, with industrial-sized stoves, a walk-in pantry, and enough counter space to accommodate the small army of people who cycled through it daily. What struck Fergal was the atmosphere. The hum of conversation, the easy laughter, the way people moved around each other in a fluid choreography—a community that had been cooking together long enough to develop its own rhythm.
At the Fitzgerald compound, the kitchens had been omega territory—a realm of silent efficiency where servants prepared formal meals under strict protocols and alphas never set foot unless summoned. The idea of a king peeling potatoes would have been inconceivable. The idea of a king peeling potatoes badly while an omega gently corrected his technique would’ve caused a diplomatic incident.
Here, no one had blinked. When Fergal had offered to help, Sivney had looked him up and down with those sharp eyes and said, “Can you peel potatoes?”
When Fergal answered honestly that he couldn’t, Sivney had said, “Good. Time to learn,” handed him a peeler, and pointedhim toward a crate that contained enough potatoes to feed an army.
Which, Fergal reflected as he carefully peeled his fourth potato with only marginally better results, was essentially what they were doing. After the rescue mission to liberate the remaining Murphy omegas, the pack and clan combined now numbered well over a hundred. While about half of them cooked for themselves in their own cabins, all the newcomers still needed to be fed. It required military-level logistics executed with the warmth of a family kitchen.
“Is Adar doing any better?” he asked Yitro, who had returned to his onions.
Yitro’s knife paused for a fraction of a second. “He’s stable. Enar says the surgery went well, but it’s still touch-and-go. Delton and Oliver haven’t left his side.”
The weight of that settled over Fergal. He’d met Adar only briefly, but the man had fought and killed Dempsey—one of the Murphy alphas responsible for unspeakable cruelty—and had nearly died doing it. Another warrior paying the price for the Murphy clan’s legacy of violence.
“How are the Murphy omegas who were rescued doing?” Fergal asked.
“Some are in better shape than others. Two needed surgery.” Yitro’s voice was steady, but his jaw tightened. “Fallon’s been coordinating their care. He’s incredible. I don’t know how he does it, honestly. He spent years being abused by those men, and now he’s the one helping others heal from the same thing.”
As if summoned by his name, Fallon appeared in the kitchen doorway, a clipboard in one hand and a sleeping baby strapped to his chest—Ainle, Fergal realized. The baby had apparently woken up, and Fergal hadn’t even noticed. He was the cutest little boy, the spitting image of his alpha father.
