“I know.” Gregor’s arms tightened. “I know why you did it. And I will never forgive you for it.”
“That’s fair.”
“It’s not fair. Nothing about this is fair.” Gregor pulled back just enough to take Fergal’s face in both hands, his gray eyes red-rimmed and wild and looking at Fergal with an intensity that the bond amplified into something almost painful. “You walked into a trap to save me, and I wasn’t there to stop you.”
“You couldn’t have?—”
“I should’ve been there.” The words cracked. “I should’ve been in that cabin, not walking a perimeter that didn’t need walking, and we both know the reason I wasn’t there wasbecause I was avoiding the silence between us, and the reason for the silence is because I?—”
He stopped. His jaw clenched. The deadbolt—the familiar, infuriating deadbolt that Fergal had been fighting against for years—slammed shut behind his eyes.
But this time, Fergal could feel what was behind it. Through the bond, as clearly as if Gregor had spoken the words aloud, he could feel the shape of the secret—its weight, the guilt that had been corroding the man he loved from the inside out. It was old. It was heavy. And it was connected to something Gregor had done, something he believed was unforgivable.
Gregor’s eyes closed. A single tear escaped, tracking down his scarred cheek, and Fergal caught it with his thumb the way Gregor had once caught his.
“Later,” Fergal whispered. “Tell me later. Right now, just hold me.”
Gregor held on.
They stood like that for what might’ve been a minute or an hour—time had lost its meaning somewhere between the bond breaking and the bond being restored—until the sounds from the corridor filtered back in. Footsteps. Voices.
Fergal pulled back reluctantly, keeping hold of Gregor’s hand because releasing it was not an option his body was willing to consider. “What happened to Simon?” he asked. “Why did he do it?”
“The Murphys have his little brother Tiernan. He’s a teenager, fifteen if I remember correctly.”
The crying sound. “I think I know where he’s being held. Oh, and Duff is next door to me.”
Not one cell in his body was angry at Simon. Not even a little bit.
They stepped into the corridor together, still holding hands.
The first thing he saw was Cladhaire and Baoth, frozen in place like statues of their own failed ambition. Their eyes were open, conscious, and the impotent fury in Cladhaire’s gaze was almost satisfying enough to compensate for the week Fergal had spent in a cell.
Almost. Not quite. But close.
Erwan and Lidon stood nearby, Lidon dressed in only shorts. He must’ve shifted back because Fergal had heard his growl before. Erwan looked exhausted but peaceful—a man who had faced his worst demon and chosen to be better than it. He could’ve killed them, and Fergal wouldn’t have judged him for it. But the choice he’d made instead was the better one, the one that would forever cement his legacy as the White Dragon.
“Thank you,” Fergal said to Erwan, and the two words carried the weight of everything—the rescue, the alliance, the choice Erwan had made to freeze rather than kill, the honor that had held when lesser men would have let it break.
Erwan nodded. “Let’s get everyone out of here.”
They broke open the cell next to Fergal’s. Duff was on his feet, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and a bruise purpling along his jaw. He looked like a man who’d been in a bar fight and was considering going back for a second round. They’d taken him out of his cell for a second round of interrogations, and this time, they’d been less polite. But he’d told Fergal that he hadn’t said a word.
“About time,” Duff said, then looked at Fergal. “I was starting to think your rescue plan was to bore them to death with legal arguments.”
“It was working. I had Kerry citing the Code back at me by day two.”
The ghost of a smile crossed Duff’s battered face. Then his eyes moved past Fergal to the corridor—to the frozen forms of Cladhaire and Baoth, to Erwan and Lidon standing over them,to the broken cell doors and the sounds of liberation beginning throughout the building.
Something shifted in his expression. The dry humor faded, replaced by something harder, more deliberate. He stepped out of the cell and stood in the corridor, looking at each person in turn like a man making a final calculation.
Then he looked at Erwan. The White Dragon. The man Duff had been sent to kill by the very people who now stood frozen in this corridor.
“I’ve spent my whole life believing your kind was the enemy,” Duff said. His voice was steady, stripped of performance. “I was wrong. The men who used my family and me to do their dirty work for generations were the enemy.” He paused. “I’m done with it. I’m done being their weapon.”
The corridor was quiet. Duff’s gaze moved to Lidon. “You’re the one they could never figure out. The True Alpha who allied with dragons. They said you had to be corrupted or deceived. But you’re neither, are you? You’re just a man who chose to do the right thing.”
Lidon’s expression held no judgment. “So are you. Right now.”
