Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The king of the Fitzgerald clan was shoveling horse manure, and he was doing it with enthusiasm.
Fergal was mucking out a stall in borrowed work clothes and rubber boots that were a size too big, his hair tied back in its usual messy bun, his face flushed with exertion and something that looked suspiciously like joy.
Gregor paused on the path between the main house and the stables, watching Fergal work alongside the pack’s veterinarian—Wilmer, a wolf alpha with an easy manner and an encyclopedic knowledge of livestock that Fergal had raved about the first time he’d met him.
Fergal said something Gregor couldn’t hear, and Wilmer laughed—a real, full laugh that suggested the king of the Fitzgeralds was as charming with a pitchfork as he was with a legal argument.
Then Fergal laughed too, and the sound carried across the morning air like a bell, bright and unguarded and so genuinely happy that the fault line inside Gregor widened even more.
A month. They’d been here a month, and the transformation in Fergal was staggering.
The tension that had been his constant companion since the assassination—the rigid spine, the clenched jaw, the perpetual alertness of a man surrounded by enemies—had softened into something more natural.
He still carried the weight of the crown, but here, among people who didn’t care about his title and valued his willingness to peel potatoes and shovel shit over his royal bloodline, the weight seemed to sit differently on his shoulders.
Lighter. More bearable. Even more now that Rhene had returned safely.
Fergal had found something here that the Fitzgerald compound had never given him. Gregor was experienced enough to recognize it and honest enough to name it. Home. Family.
He watched for another moment, cataloging the image—Fergal, laughing, covered in hay and horse hair, looking more like himself than Gregor had seen in years—then turned toward the meeting he’d been dreading for three days.
Duff Bás was sitting at one of the outdoor tables near the main house, a cup of coffee in front of him and a notebook open beside it.
Gregor had observed his note-taking habit from a distance, the dragon hunter methodically documenting his conversations and observations with the discipline of a man accustomed to intelligence work.
Duff had been here for two weeks, and Gregor still hadn’t reconciled himself to the man’s presence.
Not because he doubted Rhene’s judgment—the pack alpha had explained his reasoning at the meeting, and Gregor understood the logic even if every protective instinct he possessed rebelled against it.
You couldn’t change a man’s mind with arguments alone.
You had to show him. And showing him meant letting him inside the walls, giving him access to the very people he’d sworn to destroy.
Gregor understood the strategy. He even grudgingly admired it. Didn’t mean he had to like it.
He’d been watching Duff from the moment the man had arrived, cataloging his movements, his interactions, his patterns.
Duff moved through the pack like a soldier in unfamiliar territory—observant, cautious, always positioning himself near exits.
He ate alone. He spoke when spoken to but rarely initiated conversation.
He watched everything around him with focused intensity, distrust, and disbelief painted all over his face.
Gregor recognized the look. He’d worn it himself, in the early days after leaving the Murphys, when every act of basic decency from the Fitzgeralds had felt like a trap his mind couldn’t stop scanning for.
“Commander.” Duff rose as Gregor approached, extending his hand.
Gregor shook it. The grip was firm, controlled. “Mr. Bás.”
“Duff is fine.”
Gregor sat across from him, positioning himself with his back to the wall and a clear sightline to both the path and the main house. Tactical habit.
“Thank you for agreeing to meet,” Duff said. “I know you have reservations about my presence here.”
“I have reservations about anyone whose stated mission is to kill the people I’ve sworn to protect.”
“Fair.” Duff didn’t flinch. “I won’t waste your time with reassurances you wouldn’t believe. Instead, I’d like to ask you some questions, if you’re willing.”
Gregor studied him. The red hair, the direct gaze, the careful posture of a man who was uncomfortable but refusing to show it. He was young—late twenties in human terms, though something about his eyes suggested he’d lived more than his years accounted for. “Ask.”
“You were with the Murphy clan for a hundred and fifty years.”
“Approximately. Yes.”
“Why did you leave?”
The question was direct, unadorned, and for reasons Gregor couldn’t fully explain, it bypassed his usual tactical filters.
He’d given his answer to this question before, to Fergal, to Erwan at the Council, to the pack during the intelligence meeting.
But those had been carefully constructed summaries, edited for audience and purpose.
Duff wasn’t asking for a summary. He was asking for the truth, and something in his expression—the raw, almost desperate hunger for honest information from someone who’d been there—made Gregor unwilling to give him anything less.
“Because they started a breeding program,” Gregor said.
“Omegas were assigned to alphas for reproductive purposes. No consent. No choice. The ones who resisted were punished. The ones who complied were discarded once they’d served their purpose.
” He kept his voice clinical, the same way he’d described it to Fergal that evening in the library.
Facts, not feelings. “It wasn’t the first Code violation I’d witnessed, but it was the one I couldn’t rationalize away. ”
Duff’s pen was moving across his notebook, recording details with rapid, efficient strokes. “When did the breeding program start?”
“Around 1822. After the Dragon Council that year.”
“What triggered it?”
“At the time, I had no clue, since I was not high up the ranks of the clan and not privy to their deliberations. But with the knowledge I have now, it was the discovery that Erwan Doyle was a white dragon. The Murphy leadership interpreted this as a future threat and began breeding specifically for magical and combat abilities—purple and red dragons. They wanted to maximize their fighting strength.”
“And the result?”
“Weakened bloodlines from too narrow a gene pool. The occurrence of genetic congenital and physical disabilities rose considerably, and their fertility rates collapsed. By the time the clan was dissolved, clutch survival was nearly zero.” He paused.
“Dishonor has a price, and it collects whether you believe in it or not.”
Duff looked up from his notebook. “You believe that? That dishonor has tangible, measurable consequences?”
“I’ve seen the evidence. The clans that violated the Code—every single one—experienced declining fertility.
The ones that held to the Code fared better.
Jermon’s mate had four eggs, all of which survived.
That’s nearly unprecedented in recent dragon history, and it happened in a clan that’s actively working to restore its honor. ”
Something shifted in Duff’s expression—not conviction, not yet, but the discomfort of a man whose framework was being challenged by data that didn’t fit. He wrote something in his notebook and moved on. “The Murphy finances. How did they fund their operations?”
The question surprised Gregor. “Why do you ask?”
“Bear with me.”
Gregor considered. “They maintained traditional dragon wealth like gold, investments, property accumulated over centuries, like their compound in the Scottish Highlands. Beyond that, I wasn’t privy to their financial operations. I was a guard. Financial matters were handled by the king’s advisors.”
“Did they have external income sources? Anything that seemed out of proportion to what a dragon clan would normally generate?”
“Not that I was aware of during my time there. But I left almost two centuries ago. Anything could’ve changed since.”
Duff set down his pen and leaned back in his chair. The careful professional manner cracked slightly, revealing something rawer underneath. “I’m going to tell you something, and I’d appreciate your honest assessment.”
Gregor waited.
“The dragon slayers have—had—benefactors. Anonymous supporters who funded our operations and donated to cover expenses for equipment, travel, safe houses, weapons, intelligence. They were regular payments, substantial amounts, routed through channels designed to be untraceable. I was told they were wealthy humans who shared our mission. Philanthropists who believed in what we were doing.”
A cold understanding began forming in Gregor’s gut, like ice crystallizing on a still pond.
“I never questioned it,” Duff continued, his voice carefully controlled.
“We’d always had benefactors. It was part of our tradition to work with sympathetic humans who aided the cause.
But recently, I’ve been going over the numbers in my head, and they don’t add up.
The amounts were too large and too consistent for private donors.
The payments correlated with specific operations.
They’d increase before major actions and decrease during quiet periods, as if someone was funding us on a project basis. ”
“You think the Murphys were behind it,” Gregor said because there was no point in dancing around it.
Duff met his eyes. “I think someone with dragon-level resources was funding us, and the Murphys are the most logical candidates. They had the wealth, they had the motive, and they had…” He swallowed.
“They had every reason to keep the dragon slayers operational as a credible threat they could point to whenever they needed a convenient enemy. Yet at the same time, our numbers were dwindling rapidly. Too rapidly.”