Chapter 8 #2
“I know.” Fergal dragged both hands through his hair, pulling the messy bun loose until black waves fell around his shoulders.
A gesture of frustration Gregor had seen a thousand times, and that still, every time, made his fingers itch to smooth those strands back from Fergal’s face.
“But it doesn’t feel like enough. Duncan is in there right now, sitting in my father’s hall, drinking my father’s ale, and he’s a puppet.
And the person pulling his strings is sitting somewhere out there, laughing at all of us. ”
“Not laughing. Planning. There’s a difference, and it matters. Whoever is running this operation is patient. Methodical. They’ve invested years in placing Duncan and Donovan. That kind of patience speaks to a long-term objective, not a quick strike.”
“Which means whatever they’re planning hasn’t happened yet.”
“Correct. Which means we still have time to figure out what it is.”
Fergal leaned against the workbench again, this time close enough that his arm pressed against Gregor’s. The contact was warm through two layers of fabric. Gregor didn’t move away.
“What do we do?” Fergal asked.
“What I said before. We watch. We document. We limit their access where we can. And we protect what matters.”
“That could take years.”
“Then it takes years.”
Fergal turned his head, and they were close—close enough that Gregor could see the individual lashes framing those sharp brown eyes, could count the places where his beard grew slightly thicker along his jaw. “You said what I did tonight was extraordinary.”
“I said you were remarkable. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?”
“An action can be extraordinary. A person is remarkable. The distinction matters.”
Fergal stared at him, and something shifted in his expression—the frustration and fear draining away like water, replaced by something open and raw and wondering. “You think I’m remarkable.”
“I’ve thought so for some time.” The words came out low, stripped of their usual careful neutrality.
Gregor heard himself say them and felt the ground tilt beneath his feet.
The same tilt he’d felt in the hallway two years ago and in the training room.
The same tilt that happened every time Fergal breached another layer of his defenses and found something true underneath.
One step. That was all that separated them.
Twelve inches of workshop air, and Gregor could feel the heat of Fergal’s body across that distance like a hand pressed against his chest. The fire in the stove had burned low, casting everything in amber and shadow, and in that light, Fergal’s eyes were nearly black.
Gregor took the step.
Fergal kissed him.
Not the kiss Gregor had imagined in the dark, shameful hours when his discipline faltered and his mind wandered where he’d forbidden it to go. Those imagined kisses had been desperate, hungry—the violent release of years of suppression, all heat and teeth and the kind of need that left bruises.
This was nothing like that. This was soft—Fergal’s mouth brushing his with a tenderness so careful it felt like a question rather than a statement. Warm breath and the faintest pressure of lips, barely there, as if Fergal was afraid that too much force would shatter something fragile between them.
Gregor stood frozen. His hands hung at his sides. His eyes were open. Every muscle in his body was locked in the paralysis of a man experiencing something his mind had classified as impossible.
Fergal pulled back. Just an inch, just enough to search Gregor’s face with those dark eyes. “Stay with me. Don’t go behind the wall. Stay right here.”
Gregor’s hands moved. They rose slowly, as if through water, and came to rest on Fergal’s waist. His fingers curved around the lean muscle there, feeling warmth through thin fabric, and the contact sent a tremor through his body that started in his palms and radiated outward until every nerve was singing.
“I’m here,” Gregor said, and his voice belonged to someone he didn’t recognize. Someone who hadn’t spent centuries building walls. Someone capable of standing in the open and letting himself be seen. “I’m here.”
Fergal smiled. Radiant. Triumphant. Trembling at the edges with an emotion too vast to contain. And then he leaned in again, and this time, Gregor met him halfway.
The second kiss broke something open inside Gregor that he hadn’t known was sealed.
His mouth opened under Fergal’s, and the sound that escaped him was low and broken and came from a place so deep he hadn’t known it existed.
Fergal’s hands slid from his jaw into his hair, fingers threading through the strands.
Gregor pulled him closer by the waist until their bodies pressed together from chest to thigh and there was nothing between them but heat.
Fergal was warm. Impossibly warm. Dragon fire burning beneath his skin, and Gregor’s body responded instinctively, his own fire rising to meet it until the air between them shimmered.
They were pressed so close that Gregor could feel Fergal’s heartbeat against his own chest—fast, hard, hammering with the same desperate rhythm as Gregor’s.
The kiss deepened. Fergal’s tongue touched his lower lip, tentative, asking, and Gregor opened for him with a groan that vibrated through them both.
Fergal tasted like coffee and something sweeter underneath, and he kissed the way he did everything else—with fierce, focused intensity, holding nothing back, pouring himself into the act so completely that Gregor felt it in his bones.
Gregor’s hands tightened on Fergal’s waist, then slid to the small of his back, fingers spreading across the base of his spine. He felt muscles shift and flex beneath his palm, and Fergal arched into the touch with a soft, shattered sound that nearly dissolved what remained of Gregor’s restraint.
He wanted more. He wanted to lift Fergal onto the workbench, stand between his thighs, and kiss him until neither of them could think.
He wanted to peel that shirt off and map every inch of skin with his mouth.
He wanted to hear every sound Fergal was capable of making and commit each one to memory.
He wanted to bury himself inside Fergal—if he was even open to that, what with both of them being alphas.
But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
He’d already crossed a line tonight he never thought he would, and he wasn’t sure how he’d look at himself in the mirror tomorrow. For now, this would have to be enough.
And so he kissed him again until everything faded but Fergal.