Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Fergal was going to kill him.
Not literally—though the temptation was growing by the hour—but the fantasy of wrapping his hands around Gregor’s thick neck and squeezing until some honest emotion came out of the man was becoming alarmingly vivid.
“Section Twenty-Three addresses the protocol for emergency succession,” Gregor said, his eyes on the Codex, his voice carrying the same flat, professional tone he’d been wielding like a shield since Fergal had walked into the library twenty minutes ago.
“In cases where the king dies without a designated heir of age, the Code provides for a regency council to—”
“Are we really doing this?”
Gregor looked up. His face was a mask of polite inquiry, as if Fergal had asked about the weather rather than the fact that they’d had their tongues in each other’s mouths twelve hours ago. “Doing what, Your Highness?”
Your Highness. The verbal equivalent of a castle gate slamming shut, complete with the portcullis and the boiling oil.
Fergal leaned back in his chair, studying the man across from him.
Gregor looked exactly as he always did—immaculate dark shirt, sleeves rolled to the forearms because apparently the man had taken a sacred vow to torment Fergal with those forearms until one of them died, posture straight enough to make a ruler jealous.
Not a hair out of place. Not a single indication that anything had changed between them.
Except for the coffee.
Gregor had brought two cups today. His own—the familiar ceramic mug of tea, steam curling from it—and a second, placed at the far corner of the table, as far from Fergal as geometrically possible while still being on the same surface.
As if Fergal’s coffee had been relocated to a different postal code.
Plus, the mug was black—as dark as Fergal’s mood by now.
Yesterday, the coffee had been at Fergal’s right hand, placed there by Gregor with the care of a man who’d memorized exactly where his student liked it. Today, it was in exile.
“Pretending,” Fergal said. “Are we really pretending last night didn’t happen?”
“I don’t know what you’re referring to, Your Highness. Last night, I was in my workshop. You were in your quarters. Nothing of note occurred.”
The lie was delivered with such seamless composure that Fergal almost admired the craftsmanship. Almost, because there was the faintest tension at the corner of Gregor’s left eye. The telltale sign that the man was clenching his jaw so hard his back teeth were probably filing themselves down.
Fergal could push. He could get up, cross the room, stand close enough that Gregor would have to acknowledge his existence as something other than a student to be lectured at.
He could reference the kiss directly—the softness of it, the sound Gregor had made, the way his hands had trembled on Fergal’s waist.
He didn’t. Not because he was being noble about it, but because he’d tried the direct approach for two years and it had gotten him exactly one kiss and a whole lot of walls. If Gregor wanted to pretend, fine. Let him pretend. Fergal would find another way in. He always did.
“Emergency succession,” he said flatly. “Sure. Let’s do that.”
Something flickered across Gregor’s face—surprise, maybe, or suspicion. He’d been braced for an assault and had gotten compliance instead, and the recalibration was visible if you knew where to look.
They worked through the material for another forty minutes.
Fergal engaged with the content because it was genuinely important—succession law was foundational to clan governance and understanding it was critical for any future king.
Which, as the only living heir to the Fitzgerald throne, was exactly what Fergal would one day be.
The thought settled over him like a cold blanket.
One day, his father would die, and Fergal would inherit a clan run by a king who’d stopped listening years ago, advised by men Fergal was increasingly certain were enemy operatives, in a compound where omegas were beaten and no one faced consequences.
And the man he was in love with—the only person with the experience and loyalty to help him fix it—was sitting four feet away pretending they hadn’t kissed.
Fantastic.
He was halfway through a question about the legal requirements for appointing a new commander when the library door burst open.
Gregor was on his feet with his hand on his gun before Fergal had registered the sound.
The guard in the doorway was white-faced and breathing hard, as if he’d run the length of the compound.
“Your Highness.” The guard’s voice cracked on the title. “The king. There was an ambush. The king and Prince Brian. They were out flying, and when they returned, there was an ambush. They’re both…”
He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to.
The world tilted.
Fergal heard the words, processed their meaning, and felt something inside him disconnect, as if a wire had been pulled from its socket.
The library was suddenly too bright, the fire too loud, the guard’s face too detailed—every pore, every bead of sweat, the exact shade of white his skin had turned.
“Both of them?” Gregor’s voice came from very far away, sharp and hard. “How?”
“Crossbow bolts straight to their hearts.”
“How long ago?”
The guard checked his watch. “Seven minutes. We just got the call.”
Fergal opened his mouth to say something—what, he didn’t know—and no sound came out. His mother was dead. His brother was dead. And now his father and uncle were… All of them were gone.
The disconnect widened. He was aware of his body standing in the library, aware of the fire crackling, the guard waiting for orders, and the Codex still open on the table to the section about emergency succession, but he couldn’t feel any of it.
He was floating above himself, watching from a distance, and the thought that kept circling was absurd and irrelevant and wouldn’t stop: we were just studying emergency succession.
We were literally just studying what happens when the king dies.
Then Gregor’s hand was on his arm with a firm, grounding grip that pulled Fergal back into his body with the force of a physical blow. He gasped—actually gasped, as if he’d been underwater—and found Gregor standing between him and the door, his body angled to shield Fergal from view.
“Breathe.” Gregor’s voice was low, pitched for Fergal’s ears only. The professional mask was gone. What was underneath was fierce, focused, the expression of a man whose priorities had just been rearranged with violent clarity. “Look at me, Fergal. Breathe.”
Fergal breathed. In. Out. In again. The world solidified around him, edges sharpening, sounds returning to their proper volume.
“There you are,” Gregor murmured. His hand didn’t leave Fergal’s arm. “Stay with me.”
The same words Fergal had used last night. Stay with me. Hearing them reflected back, in Gregor’s voice, in this context, almost broke him.
But there was no time to break. Not now. Because…
He swallowed.
Because he was the king now. His father was gone, and even without the coronation ceremony, he was his successor. He was now king of the Fitzgeralds. Gods help him.
He straightened his spine and raised his chin. “Lock down the crime scene. No one touches or disturbs anything until Gregor has had a chance to look at it.”
The guard blinked. “Your Highness, Ruben is already on his way to investigate.”
Ruben. The man who couldn’t find his own ass with a flashlight and a map. Who was, most likely, completely under Duncan’s control. That wouldn’t do. He turned to Gregor. “I’m naming you commander of the Fitzgeralds, effectively immediately.”
Gregor nodded, but the guard’s mouth dropped open. “Your Highness, I’m—”
“Your Majesty,” Gregor interrupted him, his tone frigid. “He’s King Fergal now, and your king just gave an order, son.”
The guard snapped to attention. “Yes, Commander.”
Gregor turned to the guard, and the transformation was instantaneous.
The man who’d just pulled Fergal from the edge of shock became the commander—cold, efficient, lethal.
“Call back Ruben and lock down the compound. No one enters or leaves. Double the perimeter guard. And no one, and I mean no one, touches the crime scene until I’ve examined it. ”
“Yes, sir.”
“And find Duncan and Donovan. I want to know where they are right now. Not where they say they are, but where they actually are. Verify independently.”
The guard hesitated. “Sir, they’re senior advisors. I’m not sure I have the authority to—”
“Consider it a direct order from the king.” Gregor’s tone left no room for discussion. “Go.”
The guard hurried out, his mind probably swimming with all the orders he’d been given.
They were alone in the library. The fire popped and hissed. The Codex lay open on the table, its pages yellowed with age, the section on emergency succession staring up at them like a prophecy.
Fergal looked at Gregor. “You think it was them.”
“Yes.” Gregor’s jaw tightened. “I also think that whoever did this will have a story ready. A convenient enemy to blame. Evidence that points anywhere but at them.”
Dragon slayers. That was what they’d say.
Fergal could see it coming with the clarity of a legal argument laid out in precedent and proof.
The dragon slayers killed the king, just as they’d killed dragons for centuries.
Always in dragon form because their oath required that, so it fit perfectly.
A tragic, unprovoked attack by an ancient enemy.
Rally the clan. Close ranks. And in the chaos and grief, who would question the advisors who stepped up to guide the young, inexperienced new king?
“I need to see him,” Fergal said.
Gregor’s hand tightened on his arm. “Not yet. Let me examine the scene first…and assess the state of his body.”
“He’s my father, Gregor.”
The words came out broken, cracked down the middle by a grief that surprised Fergal with its ferocity.
He’d spent years frustrated with his father, years angry at his failures and his cowardice, years wishing for a father and even more, for a king who was different.
But underneath all of that frustration and anger, he was still a boy who’d lost his mother at twelve, his brother shortly after that, and who had wanted, desperately and uselessly, for his remaining parent to see him.
To be proud of him. To choose him over the sycophants and the whiskey and the willful blindness.
That chance was gone now. Whatever conversation Fergal had hoped they’d eventually have—the one where the king finally listened, finally understood, finally said the words Fergal had been waiting his whole life to hear—it was never going to happen.
His eyes burned. He blinked hard, forcing the tears back. Not here. Not yet. He could grieve later, in private, when the compound was secure, the immediate threats were contained, and he didn’t have a hundred dragons looking to him for leadership he wasn’t ready to provide.
“I know he’s your father.” Gregor’s voice was so quiet that Fergal almost missed it.
His hand slid from Fergal’s arm to the back of his neck—a touch so intimate and so unlike anything Gregor had ever done in a space where they could be seen that it short-circuited Fergal’s attempt at composure entirely.
“And I’m sorry. I am so sorry, Fergal. But right now, I need you to let me do my job.
Let me make sure it’s safe. Then I’ll take you to him myself. ”
Fergal nodded because he didn’t trust his voice.
“And, Fergal?” Gregor’s hand was warm and steady against his neck, his thumb brushing the hair at Fergal’s nape in a motion that was almost certainly unconscious.
“You’re the king now. Which means your safety is the single most important thing in this compound.
I’m not leaving your side. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not until I understand what happened and who’s responsible. Is that clear?”
“Crystal.” Fergal’s voice was rough, but it held. He straightened his shoulders, the way his mother had taught him when he was small. Spine first, then the rest. “Go secure the scene. I’ll be right here.”
Gregor hesitated. The conflict was visible—the tactical need to examine the scene warring with the visceral refusal to leave Fergal alone.
“I’ll be right here,” Fergal repeated. “In the library. Where the door locks, the windows don’t open, and you’ve placed enough wards to stop a small army. I’ll be fine for twenty minutes.”
The ghost of something that was almost a smile crossed Gregor’s face. “You’ve been paying attention to my security measures.”
“I’ve been paying attention to everything about you for years. One would think you’d have noticed by now.”
Gregor held his gaze for a beat, and in that brief, unguarded moment, everything he’d been hiding all morning was right there. Not behind a wall. Not locked away. Just there, raw and real and blazing, and it said everything his careful words wouldn’t.
Then the mask slid back into place, and he was moving. He activated the library’s wards with a gesture, checked the corridor, and was gone.
Fergal stood alone in the library. The fire crackled. The Codex waited on the table. Outside, he could hear the compound reacting to its new reality—boots on stone, voices raised in alarm, phones beeping with the steps of the lockdown protocol being executed.
He looked at the cups of tea and coffee on the table.
His own mug, exiled to the far corner. Gregor’s tea, still steaming, abandoned for the second time in their history.
Fergal walked over and picked up Gregor’s cup.
He held it in both hands, the way he had that first night in the library when Gregor had fled and left his tea behind.
He was the king now. Twenty-six years old in human terms, with a law degree and a dead father and a clan full of people who were about to learn that the world as they knew it had ended.
He had no experience, no known allies beyond Gregor, and at least two enemy operatives embedded in his inner circle.
Fergal set down the teacup. He closed the Codex with a soft, deliberate thud. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand—one quick, fierce motion—and straightened his spine.
Then he sat in his chair and waited for Gregor to come back because that was the one thing in this new, terrifying world he was absolutely certain of.
Gregor would come back.