Chapter 29 #3
Kerry exchanged a glance with Alistair, the kind of silent communication that came from years of working together. Whatever they were looking for in Duff’s answers, they seemed to be finding it.
“Here’s what I don’t understand,” Kerry said, leaning forward.
“You had weeks with the pack. Weeks among dragons who trusted you, who let you move freely, who were so busy trying to change your mind about dragonkind that they gave you complete access to their compound, their people, their defenses. And you chose to follow one man into the woods instead of using that access to do real damage.”
Real damage. The phrase hung in the air, and Duff caught the subtext beneath it—Kerry wasn’t just questioning his tactics.
He was probing whether Duff had gathered intelligence from the pack that might be useful.
Whether the slayer had information about defenses, about ward configurations, about vulnerabilities the Murphys could exploit.
If he didn’t, what use would they still have for him? None.
“I might be a hunter, but I’m not stupid,” Duff said, injecting the right amount of offended pride into his voice. “Of course I gathered all kinds of intelligence about the Doyle clan. I have not forsaken my sacred oath.”
Kerry’s smile turned pitying. “Ah, yes. The sacred oath. The noble hunter. Your father was the same way—single-minded to the point of blindness.”
Duff’s hands tightened into fists on his knees, a reaction he didn’t have to fake. “Don’t talk about my father.”
“Ronan was a useful man,” Kerry continued as if Duff hadn’t spoken. “Dedicated. Reliable. Not terribly imaginative, but you don’t need imagination in a weapon. You need consistency.”
Weapon. The word landed like a slap. Kerry had called his father a weapon. He’d been a tool to them, an instrument, a thing to be aimed and fired and discarded when empty. And he’d said it with the casual dismissiveness of a man discussing equipment rather than a human being.
Duff let the rage show on his face because hiding it would’ve been suspicious.
But behind the rage, his mind was spinning, analyzing.
Kerry had known Ronan. Had known him well enough to assess his personality.
Had spoken of him in the past tense with the comfortable familiarity of someone discussing a former employee rather than an enemy.
“The point is,” Kerry said, apparently satisfied that Duff’s rage was genuine and uncomplicated, “you’re here now. And we need to decide what to do with you.”
“Kill me. Isn’t that what you do?”
“We’re not barbarians, Mr. Bás.” The hypocrisy of that statement, delivered by a man whose clan had run a brothel at the Dragon Council, was so staggering that Duff had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep his expression appropriate. “We simply want to ensure you’re not a complication.”
“I’m a man in a cell with no weapons and no magic. How complicated can I be?”
Kerry stood, smoothing his trousers. “You’d be surprised. Your bloodline has a history of being more troublesome than expected.” He glanced at Alistair. “Keep him comfortable. We may have use for him yet.”
The door closed. The lock engaged. Duff sat in the dark and breathed.
Your bloodline has a history of being more troublesome than expected.
Bloodline. Not training. Not skills. Not the sacred oath or the hunter’s discipline. Kerry had said bloodline, and the word carried a weight that went beyond casual phrasing. As if the Bás bloodline itself—the blood, the genetics, the inherited fire—was what made them dangerous.
Because it was, wasn’t it? The ember in his chest. The tracking sense that went beyond normal perception.
The protection prayers that warmed the air and pushed back against magical dampening.
The pull he’d felt in the Swedish forest, guiding the wolf toward his traps with a precision that had nothing to do with tactical analysis.
Kerry knew. Or at least suspected. And that knowledge, that the Murphys understood something about the Bás bloodline that Duff himself was only beginning to grasp, was the most dangerous piece of intelligence he’d gathered yet.
He pressed his back against the wall, filing away the new pieces of a puzzle that was becoming clearer with every passing hour.
Tomorrow, he’d tell Fergal what he’d learned.
The weapon comment. The bloodline remark.
Kerry’s knowledge of Ronan. The subtle probing about pack intelligence.
Every piece would go into the case file Fergal was building in that precise, legal mind of his.
We should know what we’re killing, and why, and for whom.
Duff knew now. He knew all of it. And the fire in his chest—the Bás fire, the dragon fire, whatever it was—burned steady and hot and aimed, for the first time in his life, at the right target.
He closed his eyes and whispered the prayer one more time. The air warmed. The dampening eased. And somewhere behind his sternum, the ember that had been dying for two years blazed back to life.
Not as a hunter’s flame.
As something older. Something that had been sleeping in his blood for generations, waiting for the lies to burn away so the truth could finally breathe.