Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Fergal had never peeled a potato in his life, and it showed.
The vegetable in his left hand was slippery, obstinate, and apparently determined to maintain its skin at all costs.
The peeler in his right hand was a deceptively simple tool that seemed designed for hands more practiced than his.
After ten minutes, he’d produced three peeled potatoes—each one looking like it had survived a knife fight—and a pile of peelings so thick they contained more potato than the potatoes themselves.
“You’re taking off too much,” Yitro said from across the counter, where he was simultaneously chopping onions, monitoring a pot on the stove, and keeping an eye on the baby monitor.
Fergal admired the hell out of him, this omega who had elevated domestic chaos to an art form.
“Thinner strokes. Let the peeler do the work.”
“The peeler isn’t doing any work. The peeler is staging a rebellion.”
Yitro laughed, a warm, genuine sound that made the kitchen feel brighter. “Here, watch.” He took a potato from the pile and demonstrated with three quick, efficient strokes that produced a perfectly peeled result in under five seconds. “See? Gentle pressure, long strokes, follow the curve.”
Fergal attempted to replicate the technique and gouged a chunk out of both the potato and his thumb. “I have a law degree,” he muttered, sticking his bleeding thumb in his mouth. “Graduated summa cum laude. I should be able to peel a goddamned potato.”
“Potatoes don’t care about your resumé.” Yitro handed him a bandage from a drawer that clearly existed specifically for kitchen injuries, which suggested this wasn’t an uncommon occurrence.
“And don’t worry. Everyone’s terrible at first. You should’ve seen Erwan the first time Sivney put him on vegetable duty.
The man managed to cut himself three times in ten minutes, and he’s a healer. ”
The kitchen was a revelation. Not the space itself—though it was impressive, the enormous room clearly designed as the communal heart of the farmhouse, with industrial-sized stoves, a walk-in pantry, and enough counter space to accommodate the small army of people who cycled through it daily.
What struck Fergal was the atmosphere. The hum of conversation, the easy laughter, the way people moved around each other in a fluid choreography—a community that had been cooking together long enough to develop its own rhythm.
At the Fitzgerald compound, the kitchens had been omega territory—a realm of silent efficiency where servants prepared formal meals under strict protocols and alphas never set foot unless summoned.
The idea of a king peeling potatoes would have been inconceivable.
The idea of a king peeling potatoes badly while an omega gently corrected his technique would’ve caused a diplomatic incident.
Here, no one had blinked. When Fergal had offered to help, Sivney had looked him up and down with those sharp eyes and said, “Can you peel potatoes?”
When Fergal answered honestly that he couldn’t, Sivney had said, “Good. Time to learn,” handed him a peeler, and pointed him toward a crate that contained enough potatoes to feed an army.
Which, Fergal reflected as he carefully peeled his fourth potato with only marginally better results, was essentially what they were doing.
After the rescue mission to liberate the remaining Murphy omegas, the pack and clan combined now numbered well over a hundred.
While about half of them cooked for themselves in their own cabins, all the newcomers still needed to be fed.
It required military-level logistics executed with the warmth of a family kitchen.
“Is Adar doing any better?” he asked Yitro, who had returned to his onions.
Yitro’s knife paused for a fraction of a second. “He’s stable. Enar says the surgery went well, but it’s still touch-and-go. Delton and Oliver haven’t left his side.”
The weight of that settled over Fergal. He’d met Adar only briefly, but the man had fought and killed Dempsey—one of the Murphy alphas responsible for unspeakable cruelty—and had nearly died doing it. Another warrior paying the price for the Murphy clan’s legacy of violence.
“How are the Murphy omegas who were rescued doing?” Fergal asked.
“Some are in better shape than others. Two needed surgery.” Yitro’s voice was steady, but his jaw tightened.
“Fallon’s been coordinating their care. He’s incredible.
I don’t know how he does it, honestly. He spent years being abused by those men, and now he’s the one helping others heal from the same thing. ”
As if summoned by his name, Fallon appeared in the kitchen doorway, a clipboard in one hand and a sleeping baby strapped to his chest—Ainle, Fergal realized. The baby had apparently woken up, and Fergal hadn’t even noticed. He was the cutest little boy, the spitting image of his alpha father.
“I need extra broth for the new omegas,” Fallon told Yitro, consulting his clipboard. “At least three of them can’t handle solid food yet.”
“Already on it. I’ve got bone broth simmering on the back burner.”
“Perfect.” Fallon gave Yitro a quick kiss, and Fergal’s stomach swooped at the sight of it. A wolf omega and a dragon omega in love…and their third was a beta wolf, Fergal had learned. And no one thought it strange. No one judged.
Fallon turned to leave, then noticed Fergal and his massacred potato pile. A grin spread across his face. “Nice work, Your Majesty.”
He said those last two words with enough sass that Fergal couldn’t help grinning back. “It’s a learning curve.”
“Steep one, from the looks of it.” Fallon’s grin softened into something warmer.
“But seriously, thank you for your help with the rescue. The omegas from yesterday… Some of them had given up hope. Knowing that people fought for them, that a king fought for them…” He trailed off, blinking rapidly. “It matters. More than you know.”
Fergal swallowed against the tightness in his throat. “I only wish we’d gotten there sooner.”
“You got there. That’s what counts.” Fallon squeezed his arm—a casual, physical gesture of connection that would’ve been unthinkable between an omega and a king at the Fitzgerald compound—and swept out of the kitchen.
Fergal returned to his potatoes. The kitchen traffic ebbed and flowed around him.
A wolf beta came in to check on bread rising in the oven.
Two dragon omegas sat at the far end of the counter, one teaching the other to make pie crust, their heads bent together over the dough, laughing at a shared joke.
An alpha—one of the Hightower guards—wandered in looking for coffee, was handed a dish towel by Yitro, and found himself drying plates without complaint.
No one had assigned the alpha kitchen duty. No one had ordered the omegas to teach each other. No one was overseeing any of it with a schedule, a protocol, or a hierarchy. It just happened—organic, natural, a community functioning on mutual respect and shared purpose rather than rules and fear.
At the compound, Fergal had spent years fighting for this.
Filing formal proposals for omega welfare reforms. Citing the Code in arguments with his father.
Pushing against Brennan’s passive-aggressive objections and Donovan and Duncan’s sneering contempt.
Years of battling a system that resisted change at every turn, and here it was—not as a theory or a legal framework or a policy proposal, but as a lived reality, messy and imperfect and absolutely, unmistakably real.
“Your Majesty?” A quiet voice pulled him from his thoughts.
Simon stood at the counter’s edge, a tray in his hands. The sandy-haired omega from the intelligence meeting—one of the original Murphy refugees who’d come with Fallon’s group. He was dressed simply, his posture carrying the careful stillness of someone who had spent years making himself invisible.
“Simon. Good to see you.” Fergal set down his peeler. “And please, call me Fergal. How are you doing?”
“Fine, thank you.” The response was automatic, reflexive—the kind of answer that didn’t require thought or truth. “Could I bother you? I’m just picking up a tray for one of the new omegas. He’s not ready to eat with everyone yet.”
“Of course.” Fergal stepped aside to give Simon access to the stove.
Simon ladled broth into a bowl. His hands, Fergal noticed, were trembling. Slightly—barely visible—but Fergal had spent years reading micro-expressions and body language, and he knew what trembling hands meant in someone who’d survived what the Murphy omegas had survived.
“Simon.”
The omega paused, his back to Fergal.
“There’s no rush on any of this. The healing, the settling in. Take whatever time you need.”
Simon turned. For a fraction of a second—so brief Fergal almost missed it—something crossed his face that didn’t look like gratitude or relief.
It looked like pain. The raw, exposed pain of someone carrying a wound they couldn’t show to anyone.
Then the expression vanished, replaced by the careful blankness that was Simon’s default.
“Thank you, Your— Fergal. That’s kind of you. ”
He picked up the tray and was gone, slipping out of the kitchen with the silent efficiency of a ghost.
Fergal watched the empty doorway for a moment, then returned to his potatoes. Some wounds went deeper than others. Some healing happened in the dark, invisible and slow, and all you could do was create the conditions for it and trust that it would come.
He peeled three more potatoes—better now, the strokes more confident, the results less mangled—and let his thoughts drift.