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“You didn’t answer my question,” Sorin remarked after a while, but he was smiling as he said it, so blissfully in love that it seemed to Bertram like it wouldn’t bother him if he answered the question or not. “Did you already speak with your father?”
“Nae.”
“Have you changed your mind about reaching out to him, then?”
Bertram shook his head. “That isn’t it.”
“Then what’s the matter?”
He considered the question carefully. “It’s just… I cannot help but feel like there isn’t a point. Why should I go through the trouble when nothing will change?”
“What do you mean?”
“Peregrine seemed to think I can convince my father we are not the villains the council would make us out to be. He thinks if I do, we would be able to go home and live freely in Amethyst territory—that we could lead a quiet, simple life just like the ones my brothers and their mates lead, as part of the Drake family. But is that really what we want? Is that what you want? I fear that should we return, it would be like it always was—even with the Pedigree largely abolished, the truth is that society has not changed because the hearts of dragons have not changed. Dragons are as stubborn and as set in their antiquated ways as they have always been. Do we really want to retake our place in a society that cares for the comfort of its elite above the well-being of everyone else? I do not know if my heart could take it. Abolishing the Pedigree is a good first step, but it was only a symptom of a disease. A disease we may not be able to cure.”
“Maybe not, but when has the impossible ever stopped us?” Sorin curled his pinkie a little more tightly—a little more possessively—around Bertram’s. “We have never let the odds get the best of us. If they won’t kill us for what we’ve done, why wouldn’t we want to go back? We might not ever be able to change them, but even if they never see things our way, times are changing. A new generation is rising up, and they will hear us. We can teach them. Help them see that the old ways aren’t the best ways. And maybe, in time, when enough of us speak up, we will be heard, and the world will be better for it. But that will never happen if we stay here.”
“Are you certain?” Bertram asked. “Even after all that’s happened, you’d go back and try again?”
“Are you saying you wouldn’t?”
Bertram’s heart panged painfully.
He thought of his family.
His father, his brothers, and all the nieces and nephews he would never get a chance to meet.
Finally, he looked over his shoulder at the manor, where the silhouettes of his brothers’ mates watched on.
“We are fighters,” he affirmed, returning his gaze to the horizon and tightening his pinkie around Sorin’s in turn. “Now and forever. If you believe there is still hope for us, I will not give up. I will fight with you until the end, whenever that might be.”
Sorin cuddled closer, and Bertram took the phone and unlocked it like Misha had shown him. His fingers knew their way across the keys, his father’s number burned into his memory.
The phone rang once, twice, a third time, and right before it went to voicemail, the call connected.
This was it.
The battle for their future had officially begun.
29
Bertram
“Who is this?” demanded a foreboding Grimbold upon answering the call. “And how did you get this number? Whoever you are, speak.”
“It’s me, Father. It’s Bertram. My personal number has been disconnected, so I am calling you from a different secure line.”
“Bertram?” Grimbold no longer sounded snappish—he sounded alarmed. “Child, what is going on? You disappeared without a trace, and now every mated omega in our family has vanished, too. Were you captured? Was it that mad omega? I assume, since you are calling, that you have taken care of things. Where are you now? We will come at once, and we will bring you home.”
An uneasy beat of silence passed.
“I’m afraid you’ll be doing no such thing,” Bertram finally said. “I am not calling with good news, Father. I am calling to tell you a difficult truth—one I’ve owed you for some time. The agent you raised me to be is no more. Frederich is dead and gone.”
Beside him, Sorin pressed a reassuring kiss against his shoulder, and despite the heaviness of the conversation, Bertram couldn’t help but smile. He rested his head atop Sorin’s and closed his eyes, focusing on the love that radiated through their mate bond. Alone, he had never had the courage to stand up to his father, but he was with his mate now, and with him, it felt like anything was possible. He was whole now. Secure in himself and his decisions. Whatever came of this conversation, he would be okay, because they were together.
“Explain,” Grimbold said sternly.
And so Bertram did.
