Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
Four Years Later
A hundred-and-eighty-six should not look this young.
Fergal leaned in, studying his reflection with critical intensity.
The beard was coming in nicely—finally—after years of what Gregor had diplomatically referred to as “an ambitious endeavor” and what his father had labeled “a patchy disgrace.” But it had filled in now, close-cropped and dark against his jaw, and it did make him look older.
But still not old enough.
He’d hoped his years away at university—a highly regarded human one, where none of the humans had ever known a dragon walked among them—would make him age, but alas. Here he was after six years of studying in Boston with only short visits home, and he looked exactly the same as before.
Nothing about him was regal, and everyone seemed to agree with his own assessment. They all whispered about him behind his back, about the boy who should’ve been the spare but was now the crown prince.
Fuck them. Fergal would show every last one of them what he could do.
He ran his fingers through his hair and gave up on it in the same breath.
The black waves had a mind of their own, and no amount of wrestling would tame them into anything resembling respectability.
He’d tried once, slicking it back with some product he’d ordered online, and Gregor had stared at him for three full seconds before asking, with the driest possible delivery, whether he’d lost a bet.
So the hair stayed wild. At least it was consistent.
Unlike Fergal’s heartbeat, which had developed the deeply inconvenient habit of losing its rhythm whenever a certain silver-haired tutor slash royal guard walked into the room.
When Fergal had returned home a few weeks prior, Gregor had started tutoring him again, preparing him for the royal duties he’d have to take on at some point—though his father, King Lorcan of the Fitzgeralds, had made clear he had no intentions of stepping down any time soon.
And he shouldn’t, if only because he was still relatively young and in excellent health, but the way he’d said it had made clear it was also a statement about his lack of confidence in Fergal’s abilities.
Gregor seemed to be the only one who had at least some measure of faith in Fergal…
which brought him right back to the topic of the silver-haired tutor.
Fergal pressed his forehead against the cold mirror and groaned.
This was getting ridiculous. He was the prince of the Fitzgerald clan, a man with a law degree and an IQ that put most in his clan to shame, yet here he was, standing in his bedroom, agonizing over his appearance like some lovesick teenager.
Then again, by dragon standards, he practically was a teenager, even if in human years, he’d reached the ripe age of twenty-five.
But in reality, he felt much, much older, even if his body had only recently decided to catch up with his mind.
The last few years had been…a lot. Shoulders broadening, jaw sharpening, muscles filling in where there had been nothing but angles before.
He’d shot up three inches in what felt like a single summer, and his voice had settled into a register that no longer cracked at inopportune moments.
He looked like a man now. Somewhat.
The question was whether Gregor had noticed.
Probably not, Fergal thought sourly as he pulled on a dark-green sweater that his valet had told him brought out his eyes. Gregor had the observational skills of a hawk when it came to security threats, but the awareness of a brick wall about anything connected to feelings.
No, that wasn’t entirely fair. Gregor noticed everything.
That was what made him so good at his job as a royal guard and so maddeningly impossible to read.
The man cataloged every detail, filed it away behind those calm gray eyes, and gave nothing back.
Nothing Fergal could grab onto, anyway. Nothing he could use as evidence that Gregor felt it too.
Except…
Fergal straightened. Except for the time last month when he’d come in from a winter run, flushed and sweating despite the cold, and had pulled his shirt over his head in the hallway without thinking.
Gregor had been coming around the corner, and for one unguarded second—barely a heartbeat—his eyes had dropped. Not to Fergal’s face. Lower.
Then the mask had slammed back into place so fast that Fergal might’ve imagined it. But he hadn’t. He was sure of it.
Almost sure.
Sure enough.
He grabbed his notebook and pen and headed for the library, his pulse already doing that stupid thing where it started running ahead of him, like a dog that knew the route and couldn’t be bothered to wait.
Settle down, he told himself. It’s a lesson. Just a lesson. You’re going to sit in a chair and discuss…whatever it is Gregor has planned for today, and you’re going to be an adult about it.
He was absolutely not going to be an adult about it.
He’d been thinking about this for days—no, weeks.
Years, if he was being honest, which he generally tried to be, if only because lying required keeping track of things and he had better uses for his mental energy.
The crush that had started as a low hum in his chest many years ago had grown into a full orchestral arrangement that played on a loop every time Gregor so much as cleared his throat.
And Fergal was done pretending he couldn’t hear the music.
He’d tried the noble route. He’d tried ignoring it, burying it under books and legal theory and long runs through the frozen forest that left him too exhausted to think.
He’d tried going off to college, sleeping with a couple of guys, making himself see what was out there.
He’d tried telling himself all the reasons it was impossible: Gregor was his tutor, Gregor worked for his father, Gregor was old enough to have witnessed historical events Fergal had only read about, and Gregor almost certainly still saw Fergal as the kid he’d been teaching.
Not to mention they were both alphas, and that part alone would never fly.
But the thing about being a prince trapped in a frozen compound at the edge of the world with a hundred other dragons was that there weren’t exactly a lot of romantic options.
Not that it mattered. His time in Boston had made that crystal clear.
Even if the compound had been overflowing with eligible suitors, Fergal wouldn’t have looked twice at any of them. Not when Gregor existed.
Gregor, with his ridiculous black-and-silver hair and his ridiculous strong body and his ridiculous composure and his ridiculous ability to make Fergal feel simultaneously safe and completely unhinged.
Gregor, who called him “Your Highness” in that dry tone that somehow managed to be both respectful and slightly mocking at the same time.
Gregor, who had once carried a ten-year-old Fergal out of a frozen lake after he’d fallen through the ice, holding him against his chest and murmuring soothing words in a voice that had sounded nothing like the composed tutor everyone else knew.
Fergal didn’t remember much about what had happened at the lake.
He’d been playing on the ice, which should’ve been thick enough after weeks of frost, but it had cracked, and then he’d been in the water.
The cold had been so absolute that it had stolen everything—his breath, his thoughts, his ability to scream.
But he remembered Gregor’s arms. He remembered warmth when everything else was cold.
He remembered the sound of Gregor’s heartbeat against his ear, fast and hard, betraying a terror his voice never showed.
He’d been in love with Gregor since he was fifteen.
He’d known he was in love with Gregor since he was eighteen.
And he was done waiting. If he spent one more day pretending he was fine with the status quo, he was going to lose his mind.
Oh, he knew that nothing could ever come from it.
Nothing serious. Fergal was a prince, first of all, and Gregor his tutor.
Plus, there was the age gap, which Fergal wasn’t worried about, but others might be.
But more importantly, they were both alphas.
And two alphas together? That was not an option.
The library was at the end of the east wing, a wood-paneled room lined with bookshelves and warmed by a massive stone fireplace that Gregor always had blazing before Fergal arrived.
It was their room in every way that mattered—the place where Fergal had learned to read ancient dragon texts, debated legal theory until his voice went hoarse, and slowly, painstakingly, grown from a frightened child into something resembling the man he wanted to be.
All because of the man sitting by the fire with a stack of books on the table beside him and a cup of steaming tea in his hand.
Gregor looked up as Fergal entered. “Good morning, Your Highness.”
“Good morning.” Fergal dropped into his usual chair—the leather one across from Gregor’s, with the reading lamp and the side table that always had a fresh cup of coffee waiting for him.
Gregor didn’t drink coffee but had long since memorized exactly how Fergal liked his: black, strong enough to strip paint, and in a mug large enough to be slightly ridiculous.
Today’s offering was in the blue ceramic one, which meant Gregor had been in a decent mood when he’d prepared it.
Yes, Fergal had cataloged Gregor’s mug-selection patterns. He wasn’t proud of it.
“I thought we’d continue with the constitutional framework of the Code today,” Gregor said, opening a leather-bound volume. “Specifically, Section Twelve, which deals with clan governance and succession.”
“Riveting,” Fergal said, taking a sip of his coffee.
Gregor’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but close enough that Fergal’s stomach did a little flip. “I seem to recall you requested this topic.”
“Did I? That doesn’t sound like me.”