He tucked the thought away. It was too big for today, too heavy with implications he wasn’t ready to examine. He had a clan in Canada, responsibilities, people who depended on him. In fact, they were only staying until Rhene was back, and then they’d have to return home.
But the thought wouldn’t stay tucked. It sat in his chest, warm and persistent, like a seed that had found soil and wasn’t interested in being moved.
Fergal watched Gregor’s distant figure complete his circuit and turn back toward the cabins, and he went to meet him halfway. Time to distract himself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The king of the Fitzgerald clan was shoveling horse manure, and he was doing it with enthusiasm. Fergal was mucking out a stall in borrowed work clothes and rubber boots that were a size too big, his hair tied back in its usual messy bun, his face flushed with exertion and something that looked suspiciously like joy.
Gregor paused on the path between the main house and the stables, watching Fergal work alongside the pack’s veterinarian—Wilmer, a wolf alpha with an easy manner and an encyclopedic knowledge of livestock that Fergal had raved about the first time he’d met him. Fergal said something Gregor couldn’t hear, and Wilmer laughed—a real, full laugh that suggested the king of the Fitzgeralds was as charming with a pitchfork as he was with a legal argument. Then Fergal laughed too, and the sound carried across the morning air like a bell, bright and unguarded and so genuinely happy that the fault line inside Gregor widened even more.
A month. They’d been here a month, and the transformation in Fergal was staggering. The tension that had been his constant companion since the assassination—the rigid spine, the clenched jaw, the perpetual alertness of a man surrounded by enemies—had softened into something more natural. Hestill carried the weight of the crown, but here, among people who didn’t care about his title and valued his willingness to peel potatoes and shovel shit over his royal bloodline, the weight seemed to sit differently on his shoulders. Lighter. More bearable. Even more now that Rhene had returned safely.
Fergal had found something here that the Fitzgerald compound had never given him. Gregor was experienced enough to recognize it and honest enough to name it. Home. Family.
He watched for another moment, cataloging the image—Fergal, laughing, covered in hay and horse hair, looking more like himself than Gregor had seen in years—then turned toward the meeting he’d been dreading for three days.
Duff Bás was sitting at one of the outdoor tables near the main house, a cup of coffee in front of him and a notebook open beside it. Gregor had observed his note-taking habit from a distance, the dragon hunter methodically documenting his conversations and observations with the discipline of a man accustomed to intelligence work.
Duff had been here for two weeks, and Gregor still hadn’t reconciled himself to the man’s presence. Not because he doubted Rhene’s judgment—the pack alpha had explained his reasoning at the meeting, and Gregor understood the logic even if every protective instinct he possessed rebelled against it. You couldn’t change a man’s mind with arguments alone. You had to show him. And showing him meant letting him inside the walls, giving him access to the very people he’d sworn to destroy.
Gregor understood the strategy. He even grudgingly admired it. Didn’t mean he had to like it.
He’d been watching Duff from the moment the man had arrived, cataloging his movements, his interactions, his patterns. Duff moved through the pack like a soldier in unfamiliar territory—observant, cautious, always positioninghimself near exits. He ate alone. He spoke when spoken to but rarely initiated conversation. He watched everything around him with focused intensity, distrust, and disbelief painted all over his face.
Gregor recognized the look. He’d worn it himself, in the early days after leaving the Murphys, when every act of basic decency from the Fitzgeralds had felt like a trap his mind couldn’t stop scanning for.
“Commander.” Duff rose as Gregor approached, extending his hand.
Gregor shook it. The grip was firm, controlled. “Mr. Bás.”
“Duff is fine.”
Gregor sat across from him, positioning himself with his back to the wall and a clear sightline to both the path and the main house. Tactical habit.
“Thank you for agreeing to meet,” Duff said. “I know you have reservations about my presence here.”
“I have reservations about anyone whose stated mission is to kill the people I’ve sworn to protect.”
“Fair.” Duff didn’t flinch. “I won’t waste your time with reassurances you wouldn’t believe. Instead, I’d like to ask you some questions, if you’re willing.”
Gregor studied him. The red hair, the direct gaze, the careful posture of a man who was uncomfortable but refusing to show it. He was young—late twenties in human terms, though something about his eyes suggested he’d lived more than his years accounted for. “Ask.”
“You were with the Murphy clan for a hundred and fifty years.”
“Approximately. Yes.”
“Why did you leave?”
The question was direct, unadorned, and for reasons Gregor couldn’t fully explain, it bypassed his usual tactical filters. He’dgiven his answer to this question before, to Fergal, to Erwan at the Council, to the pack during the intelligence meeting. But those had been carefully constructed summaries, edited for audience and purpose. Duff wasn’t asking for a summary. He was asking for the truth, and something in his expression—the raw, almost desperate hunger for honest information from someone who’d been there—made Gregor unwilling to give him anything less.
“Because they started a breeding program,” Gregor said. “Omegas were assigned to alphas for reproductive purposes. No consent. No choice. The ones who resisted were punished. The ones who complied were discarded once they’d served their purpose.” He kept his voice clinical, the same way he’d described it to Fergal that evening in the library. Facts, not feelings. “It wasn’t the first Code violation I’d witnessed, but it was the one I couldn’t rationalize away.”
Duff’s pen was moving across his notebook, recording details with rapid, efficient strokes. “When did the breeding program start?”
“Around 1822. After the Dragon Council that year.”
“What triggered it?”
