Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The silence lasted seventeen seconds. Fergal knew because his mind counted them automatically.
Seventeen seconds to absorb the fact that his brother had tried to murder him.
That the man sitting in front of him, trembling, had killed Peter to save his life.
That the drunk accident everyone had accepted was a cover story constructed by Gregor to keep Fergal safe.
That everything Gregor had done had been to protect Fergal.
Seventeen seconds to watch the terror in Gregor’s eyes deepen with every beat of silence, the mate bond screaming with a fear so absolute it made Fergal’s chest physically hurt.
On the eighteenth second, Fergal reached for Gregor’s hands. They were shaking so badly that when Fergal took them in his own, he could feel the vibration through his palms.
He looked at them. Turned them over, studying the calluses, the scars, the thick fingers that could kill a man in seconds and cup Fergal’s face with a tenderness that had always seemed impossible for their size.
These hands had killed his brother. These hands had held him every night for months. The same hands. The same man.
Fergal raised his head and looked at Gregor’s face.
The gray eyes were wide, pupils dilated with a terror that no amount of military discipline could mask.
The scar on his cheek stood out white against skin that had gone pale.
His jaw was clenched so hard the muscle was jumping visibly, the familiar tic Fergal had been reading for years, only now it wasn’t concealing irritation or desire or the effort of self-control.
It was concealing the anticipation of devastation.
He was waiting for Fergal to destroy him. Waiting for the horror and the rejection and the door closing for the last time. Waiting with the resigned certainty of a man who had run the calculation a thousand times and always arrived at the same answer: if he knows, I lose him.
And that was what broke Fergal’s heart. Not the killing.
Not the cover-up. Not even the revelation that his childhood had contained a murderous brother and a protector who’d carried the weight of both roles alone.
What shattered something deep inside Fergal was the simple, devastating fact that Gregor had spent decades believing he was unforgivable.
That the man who had saved Fergal’s life, who had protected him since birth, who had sacrificed his own peace of mind for years to keep Fergal safe and whole and alive, believed that the truth of who he was would be too much for Fergal to love.
As if there existed, in this universe or any other, a version of the truth that could make Fergal stop loving this man.
“You absolute idiot,” Fergal whispered, and his voice cracked on the last word, and then he was crying. Crying for Gregor. For the years of silence. For the weight his mate had carried alone because he’d been too afraid and too proud and too goddamned noble to share it.
“Listen to me.” Fergal’s voice was rough with tears but firm. “Listen to me, Gregor, because I’m only going to say this once, and then I’m going to make you hear it every day for the rest of our very long lives.”
Gregor’s eyes were locked on his. Terrified. Hopeful. Both at once, in equal measure, the most vulnerable expression Fergal had ever seen on a face that had been trained to show nothing.
“You saved my life. You killed a man who was trying to murder me, and you did it without hesitation, and you would do it again. That’s not something I need to forgive. That’s something I need to thank you for.”
Gregor’s mouth opened. Fergal squeezed his hands hard enough to silence him.
“I’m not finished. The cover-up… Yes, I wish you’d told me sooner.
I wish you’d trusted me with this years ago instead of carrying it alone until it almost destroyed us.
But I also understand why you didn’t. I understand the calculation you made, and my legal mind—the one you trained, by the way—tells me it was sound.
The political consequences would’ve been catastrophic.
My father would’ve collapsed. The clan would’ve fractured. You made the right call.”
“The right call cost us,” Gregor said, his voice barely audible.
“Yes, it did. And that hurt. The silence hurt. Every time I said ‘I love you’ and heard ‘you are everything’ instead, it hurt. But, Gregor”—Fergal released one of his hands to cup Gregor’s scarred cheek, his thumb tracing the pale line from cheekbone to jaw—“the reason it hurt wasn’t that you were hiding something terrible.
It hurt because I could feel how much you were suffering, and I couldn’t reach you. ”
A sound escaped Gregor that Fergal had never heard before—something raw and broken and released, like a seal giving way on a pressure vessel that had been building for decades.
His eyes were wet, tears tracking down the weathered cheeks, and the sight of Gregor crying—Gregor who never cried, who never broke—was simultaneously the most heartbreaking and the most beautiful thing Fergal had ever witnessed.
“You were protecting me,” Fergal said softly.
“It’s what you’ve always done. From the moment I was born, you have put yourself between me and everything that could hurt me.
Including the truth about my own brother.
” His voice wavered. “That’s not unforgivable, Gregor.
That’s love. The most selfless, most devastating, most stubborn kind of love I’ve ever seen. ”
“I should’ve told you.”
“And I should’ve pushed harder instead of giving you space. And we should’ve had this conversation years ago in a library on our compound instead of on a couch here after you broke down a door to rescue me from a cell. We both could’ve done things differently. That doesn’t change what matters.”
“What matters?”
Fergal took Gregor’s face in both hands. Held him the way Gregor had held him a hundred times—firmly, completely, with the unshakable certainty of a man who had found the thing he was meant to hold and would not let go.
“What matters is that you loved me enough to kill for me. You loved me enough to carry the weight of it alone for decades rather than risk losing me. And you loved me enough to tell me the truth even though you believed it would end us.” His thumbs brushed the tears from Gregor’s cheeks.
Gregor leaned forward and pressed his forehead against Fergal’s, and the breath that left him was the longest exhale Fergal had ever heard, as if Gregor had been holding it since the night he’d stood over Peter’s body in the dark.
“I love you,” Fergal said, and the words were different now.
They were light, free. “I love you, Gregor. I have loved you since I was fifteen, and I will love you until the fire inside me goes out. And now that every door between us is open, I intend to walk through all of them and make myself at home.”
Gregor made that sound again—the broken, released one—and when he spoke, the words came out on a breath that had been trapped behind locked doors for years.
“I love you.” His voice shook. “I love you, Fergal. My sweet, brilliant, stubborn baby boy. I have always, always loved you.”
“I know,” Fergal said, smiling through his own tears. “I’ve always known. I just needed you to say it.”
“I love you.”
“Again.”
“I love you.” Stronger now. Steadier. The words finding their footing like a man learning to walk on new ground. “I love you.”
“Keep going. You have years to make up for.”
A sound that was almost a laugh broke from Gregor’s chest. “I love you, baby boy. I love you. I am so desperately, hopelessly, completely in love with you that it has been the organizing principle of my entire existence for years, and I was too afraid to say it, and I’m sorry, and I love you.”
Fergal kissed him.
The kiss felt new. Different. They’d kissed so many times before, but never like this. They’d never been two people with no walls between them, no secrets, no locked doors. It brought a new layer to their touches, to their kisses, to the soft sighs they shared between them.
Gregor’s hands came up to Fergal’s face, no longer trembling. Gregor’s mouth was soft, open, yielding in a way Fergal had never felt from him. The man who always controlled, always led, always held the reins was letting go, fully opening for Fergal in every way.
Fergal kissed him deeper, and then Gregor put his hands on Fergal’s hips and lifted him. Fergal wrapped his legs around Gregor’s waist and clung to him, pressing his chest against Gregor’s as their mouths remained fused.
Somehow, Gregor managed to walk them into the bedroom without stumbling, without hitting anything, which was a damn miracle since they never stopped kissing. He laid them down on the bed, together. Always together. Forever together, finally.
Time lost all meaning as they kissed and kissed and kissed, both unwilling or maybe even unable to stop. As if they both needed this time to reconnect, or maybe to connect for the first time without any walls between them. No more secrets. No more hiding.
When he was finally able to let go of Gregor’s mouth, Fergal undressed his mate.
Slowly. Button by button, the shirt falling open to reveal the broad chest and the scattered scars Fergal knew by touch.
He kissed each scar. The one on the shoulder from a training accident two centuries ago.
The thin line along his ribs from a knife fight he’d never fully explained.
The faded marks on his knuckles from years of combat.
And the scar on his cheek—the Murphy souvenir, the mark of the night he’d walked away from corruption—Fergal kissed that one longest.
Gregor was beautiful. Fergal had always thought so, but tonight, without the faint shadow of a secret dulling the connection between them, the beauty hit him with a force that made his chest ache.
The silver hair. The gray eyes, still damp, still vulnerable.
The body that was strength and discipline made flesh, scarred and imperfect, and absolutely, devastatingly perfect.
Fergal took his time. This mattered too much to rush.
He kissed Gregor’s mouth, his jaw, his throat.
He traced the lines of his collarbone with his tongue and felt the muscles jump beneath his lips.
He kissed his way down the broad chest, pausing at each scar, each mark, each piece of history written in skin.
His nipples were sensitive, Fergal discovered. The slightest flick of his fingers, and Gregor made the most beautiful sound. And when he licked them, sucked them, rolled them between his teeth, the man nearly came undone.
Gregor’s breathing changed, became faster, louder as Fergal’s mouth moved lower. His hands found Fergal’s hair, not directing, just touching, his fingers threading through the dark strands with a gentleness that was more intimate than any grip.
“I’ve got you,” Fergal murmured against his stomach, and felt the echo of every time Gregor had said those words to him—at the lake, in the library, in the cell, in the dark.
Gregor’s cock lay like iron against his stomach. Like weeping iron, threads of precum smeared on his skin. Fergal crawled lower and licked them clean. Oh, the sound Gregor made when Fergal suckled on the tip, cleaning that too. Like a low growl, so needy and wanton. So very unlike Gregor.
So Fergal took his time to explore that gorgeous cock.
Thick and heavy, like hot velvet in his hand, against his lips, his tongue.
He traced veins and licked broad stripes up and down.
He suckled and teased with the tip of his tongue.
He took him into his mouth, his throat, then let him slide out again, inch by inch.
He took Gregor apart with every touch, every lick, every kiss. The man lay panting now, hands no longer in Fergal’s hair but double-fisting the sheets, as if he were holding on for dear life.
“Fergal…” he moaned. “Baby boy…”
“Sshh, I’ve got you.”
He was still dressed himself, which wouldn’t do, so he let go of Gregor for a moment and got rid of his own clothes with careless haste, dropping them right on the floor.
Gregor didn’t even chastise him for it, which spoke volumes about how distracted he was.
While he was at it, Fergal also grabbed the lube from the drawer.
“Spread your legs for me,” Fergal said softly.
Surprise flickered across Gregor’s face, followed by a vulnerability so profound it made Fergal’s breath catch.
They both knew what Fergal was asking. In all the months of their physical relationship, Gregor had always topped.
Always led. Always been the one who held and directed and controlled.
It was their dynamic—organic, natural, born from who they were and what they needed from each other.
But tonight was different. Tonight, every wall was down, and Fergal wanted to give Gregor something he’d never received—the experience of being held. Of being cared for. Of putting himself in someone else’s hands and trusting completely.
“Fergal—”
“Trust me.” The same words Fergal had used a lifetime ago in a library in Canada, leaning close with his heart hammering. “Stay with me. Don’t go behind the wall.”
“There’s no wall left,” Gregor whispered.
“I know. So spread your legs for me.”
Gregor did. “I’ve never…”
Fergal shut him up with another kiss. “Neither have I, but I’m pretty sure we can figure this out together.”
With slicked-up fingers, he prepared Gregor with the same patience Gregor had always shown him—slow, thorough, attentive to every response.
Gregor’s body was tense at first, the instinct to control fighting against the unfamiliar vulnerability of receiving.
But Fergal had learned patience from the very man beneath him, and gradually, incrementally, Gregor opened.
“Okay?” Fergal asked, his voice husky.
“Don’t stop,” Gregor managed. “Gods, Fergal, don’t stop.”
As if. He added a second finger, then a third, working Gregor open with a tenderness that was deliberate and reverent.
Through the bond, he could feel everything Gregor was experiencing—the physical sensation amplified by the emotional, the vulnerability layered with trust, the slow, building pleasure that was unlike anything in the Dominant-submissive dynamic they usually inhabited.
This was true surrender—chosen, conscious, given freely by a man who had never given it before.
It was the greatest gift Fergal had ever received.