Fergal settled onto the stool across from the workbench, which was the only other seat in the workshop, rarely used because no one else ever came in here. He sat the way he always did, with one foot on the rung and the other leg extended, hisbody occupying space with the ease of someone who’d never been taught to make himself smaller.
They talked. About the swords—Gregor found himself explaining the provenance of three different blades, noting with clinical detachment that he was saying more words in ten minutes than he typically spoke in a day. About the compound—Fergal mentioned the north fence needed repair, and Gregor nodded because he’d already reported it to Ruben, the head of the royal guards. About the weather—there was a storm coming in from the northwest, and they needed to check the generators.
Small things. Safe things. The conversational equivalent of the no-man’s-land between two trenches, where neither side advanced but neither retreated. And yet Fergal was, with what appeared to be minimal effort, the most compelling person Gregor had ever shared a room with.
“My mother would’ve liked this place,” Fergal said during a pause in the conversation. He was looking at the stove, at the way the light from its grate cast orange patterns on the floor. “She liked small spaces. She said they were easier to fill with warmth.”
Gregor’s hands stilled on the leather. Fergal rarely talked about his mother. Gregor would never forget the funeral and Fergal’s face, white and stunned, trying to process a loss that was too big for a twelve-year-old to hold. “She was right. Your mother was a wise woman.”
“Did you know her well?”
“As well as anyone outside the royal family could. She was kind to me when others weren’t.”
Fergal looked at him. “Because you were from the Murphy clan?”
“People have long memories when it comes to where you’re from. Your mother chose not to hold my origins against me. That was…not universal.”
“People are idiots.”
Gregor’s mouth curved despite himself. “Some of them.”
Fergal smiled back, a real, unguarded smile. And that was another thing Gregor couldn’t defend against. The flirtation and the loaded questions and the calculated touches, he could steel himself against. He could force himself not to react. But this genuine warmth and connection? Impossible to keep out.
Gregor set down the leather. He didn’t mean to, but his hands stopped moving on their own, as if his body had decided that the pretense of working while this man lay himself bare was an insult to them both. “Your mother would’ve been extraordinarily proud of the man you’ve become.”
Fergal’s eyes widened slightly. “You think so?”
“I know so.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The workshop was quiet except for the pop of the wood stove and the distant sound of wind against the building. They were close enough that Gregor could see the firelight reflected in Fergal’s eyes, could count the places where his beard grew slightly thicker along his jaw, could smell the coffee on his breath and the cold night air that still clung to his sweater.
“Gregor…” Fergal’s voice was barely above a whisper, his name spoken with a tenderness that slipped past every wall and ward and defense Gregor had ever built.
Gregor stood. The chair scraped against the floor, breaking the spell with the efficiency of a blade. He busied himself with banking the stove, adjusting the damper, checking the flue—tasks that took thirty seconds but he stretched to fill the silence.
“It’s late,” he said, not looking at Fergal. “And the storm will hit by morning. You should get some sleep.”
He heard Fergal exhale—the sound of a man recalibrating, not retreating.
The stool scraped as Fergal stood. Gregor listened to him cross the workshop, his footsteps unhurried. At the door, they stopped. “I’m not going anywhere, Gregor.”
The words hung in the cold air like breath made visible, and then Fergal was gone, and Gregor wasn’t sure if his parting words had been a promise…or a threat.
CHAPTER THREE
Fergal did not have the patience for this. For weeks, he’d sought Gregor out again and again, testing, prodding, poking, but the walls around him were higher than ever. They were like a goddamned castle at this point, one of those medieval fortresses with a moat around it, steel-enforced gates, and guards armed to the teeth on every turret.
He couldn’t get through. Oh, he still caught glimpses from time to time, these micro-moments where he slipped through, but then the walls came back up and he was back at square one. Fuck that. It was time to try something else.
He’d have to try his gift. No, not the one Gregor knew about—the one everyone knew about—but the other one. The gift that thrilled and terrified him in equal measure.
His dragon was light blue, so he was an influencer. Not the gift he’d been hoping for—red would not only have been much cooler but would have also offered him much better chances of survival—but whatever. He’d played around with it, and it had been fun to influence people’s moods and emotions and even actions, once he’d gotten the hang of it.
What he hadn’t counted on was that he seemed to have been given another gift, one that had shocked the hell out of him thefirst time he’d inadvertently used it. The thoughts had streamed into his head like they were his own, and he’d been so startled he’d tripped and would’ve slammed straight into a wall if Gregor hadn’t caught him.
It had been a servant, an omega named Tiffany, whose constant offers to share his bed couldn’t have been more blatant if she’d worn a sign around her neck announcing them. She’d been mopping the floors, looking up and smiling at him as he walked by. He’d carelessly thrown out his influencer magic to see if he could make her spill the bucket of water. Childish, yes, but he’d take his fun where he could find it.
Instead, he’d slipped into her mind so completely that he’d been in her head. In her thoughts. One moment, he’d been in his own head, coming up with the stupid idea of making her spill that water, and the next, he’d been in hers, looking at himself with eyes of lust and thoughts of becoming the next dragon princess. Her heat was soon, and if she could seduce the prince and get pregnant, she would?—
