Chapter 10 #2
This wasn’t the provocative “make me” of the training room, nor the carefully planned invasion of the workshop. This was the raw, undefended truth of a man who couldn’t face the dark alone.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Gregor said.
Fergal pulled back just enough to look at him.
His face was a wreck—eyes swollen, cheeks wet, nose red—yet he was the most beautiful thing Gregor had ever seen, and that thought no longer terrified him the way it should’ve.
Something about this day had burned through the terror, leaving behind what he felt for Fergal, bedrock-solid and impossible to deny.
“Boots,” Gregor said because someone had to be practical.
Fergal blinked. “What?”
“Take your boots off. You can’t sleep in boots.”
The absurdity of it broke through Fergal’s grief enough to produce something that almost resembled a smile.
He bent to unlace his boots while Gregor did the same, and there was something achingly domestic about the two of them sitting side by side on the bed, pulling off boots in the lamplight, as if this were any other night and they were any other couple.
They weren’t, of course. They were a newly crowned king and his newly appointed commander, one of them carrying the weight of a murdered father and the other carrying the secret of a murdered crown prince, and the compound around them was locked down against an enemy that might be sleeping two corridors away.
But for the space of thirty seconds, they were just two men taking off their boots.
Gregor stood to pull back the covers, and Fergal crawled into bed still fully dressed minus the boots—sweater, pants, socks with a hole in the left toe that Fergal would be embarrassed about if he noticed, which he didn’t. He curled onto his side, facing the wall, and pulled the covers to his chin.
Gregor hesitated. He was standing at the edge of Fergal’s bed, and the choice before him was as clear and as terrifying as any he’d ever faced.
He could pull the chair from the desk and sit beside the bed, standing guard as a commander should.
Professional. Appropriate. A boundary preserved even now, even here, in this room where all other boundaries had already fallen.
Or.
He turned off the lamp and lay behind Fergal, on top of the covers, still fully dressed.
Close enough that Fergal could feel him there, a wall of warmth at Fergal’s back, solid and unmovable.
The darkness settled around them. Outside, the compound hummed with the quiet tension of a lockdown—distant footsteps, the occasional murmur of guards, the wind pushing against the walls.
Inside, there was only the sounds of breathing.
Fergal’s still uneven. Gregor’s deliberately steady, an anchor for them both.
Then Fergal reached back and found Gregor’s hand.
His fingers laced through Gregor’s and pulled, tugging Gregor’s arm around his waist. Gregor let himself be pulled. His chest pressed against Fergal’s back. His arm settled across Fergal’s stomach, heavy and warm, and Fergal’s hand covered his, holding it in place.
Their bodies fit together with an ease that made something ache behind Gregor’s sternum.
As if they’d been designed for this—the curve of Fergal’s back against Gregor’s chest, the way Fergal’s head tucked perfectly under Gregor’s chin, the way their breathing synchronized within seconds, two rhythms finding each other in the dark and locking into step.
“Thank you,” Fergal whispered. “For being here. For everything. For being you.”
Gregor tightened his arm. He pressed his mouth against the back of Fergal’s head, where the dark hair was soft and warm and smelled like woodsmoke and grief. Not a kiss, exactly. A press of lips. A seal. A vow.
“Sleep,” he murmured into Fergal’s hair. “I’ve got you.”
Fergal’s breathing slowed. The death grip on Gregor’s hand loosened by degrees as exhaustion claimed him until his fingers were still laced with Gregor’s but relaxed, trusting even in sleep.
His body grew heavier, sinking into the mattress and into Gregor’s warmth, surrendering to unconsciousness with the absolute trust of someone who knew, with bone-deep certainty, that the man holding him would let nothing through.
Gregor lay awake.
He listened to Fergal breathe. He listened to the compound settle around them. He listened to the wind outside, the creak of the building, and the distant, rhythmic footsteps of the guard walking the royal wing corridor.
He thought about the crossbow bolts. About the clearing in the spruce.
About the clear evidence of dragon slayers at work, all nicely tied up with a big red bow that screamed cover-up to him.
He thought about the Dragon Council, a little over two months away, where Fergal would have to face other kings and commanders and prove himself worthy of the crown that had been thrust upon him by violence.
He thought about the Murphys and their shadow operation and the walls they’d placed inside Duncan’s mind.
He thought about what they wanted, what their endgame was, and how he and Fergal were going to survive whatever was coming when they were surrounded by enemies they couldn’t yet prove were enemies.
He thought about the door in his own mind.
The one with the deadbolts. The one that contained the truth about Peter—how he’d killed Fergal’s brother to save Fergal’s life, how he’d staged the scene, how he’d carried the body down the corridor with hands that were now wrapped around Fergal’s sleeping form.
These hands. The same hands that had killed and covered up and carried secrets for decades. The same hands that were now holding the most important person in his world, in a bed Gregor had no right to be in, in a life Gregor had no right to share.
The guilt was there. It was always there.
But tonight, with Fergal’s heartbeat steady against his palm and Fergal’s warmth seeping into his bones, the guilt was quieter than usual.
It would never be gone, but it was muffled, as if the simple act of holding someone you care for so much, so achingly much, could muffle even the loudest ghosts.
He’d deal with the ghosts tomorrow. He’d deal with Duncan and Donovan and the investigation and the impossible task of keeping a twenty-six-year-old king alive in a compound full of vipers.
But tonight, just for one night, he would hold Fergal in the dark and listen to him breathe and be exactly where he was supposed to be.
Gregor pressed his face into Fergal’s hair and closed his eyes.
He slept.