Chapter 102: Chapter 102: At His Knees

Dean slept.

He had gone under in increments against Arion’s shoulder, protesting the entire time in spirit if not in words, and now he was out, breathing slowly, face softened, one hand still tangled loosely in the front of Arion’s shirt as if, even asleep, some part of him had decided to hold on.

Arion sat very still.

The windows remained open. The ventilation ran harder through the hidden channels in the walls, low and discreet behind carved stone and polished wood. Cool winter air moved the curtains and thinned the room by degrees, but it did not erase what had happened here. Vetiver still lingered in the suite, threaded now with Dean’s softer scent and sleep-warm skin.

Arion kept his own pheromones leashed as tightly as he could.

That did not mean they were calm.

It meant he was barely.

He could feel rut prowling under his skin like an animal denied a door. Not yet in full collapse, but close enough that his body had begun the old arguments – secure the bond, deepen the claim, keep the omega near, scented, under your hands, and where your instincts can count his breaths.

And Dean had just handed that animal a feast.

I like you as a person. I have a crush on you.

I was jealous. I am possessive.

Dean, who had looked him in the face and admitted that the bite on Arion’s lip mattered because he wanted it to be his.

Dean, who had been cornered and furious and honest enough to say yes, he wanted Arion.

Dean, who had apparently been having that exact conversation with Sylvia before Arion walked in, if Sylvia’s enthusiastic shouting through an open door was to be believed.

Arion closed his eyes.

That memory alone nearly cost him the rest of his control.

Arion exhaled slowly through his nose and forced his shoulders to loosen.

He could not afford to hold Dean tighter. He could not afford to let instinct read this moment as permission to push. Dean had fallen asleep after regulating both of them, after stopping Arion, after forcing air back into the room because Arion’s body had wanted the exact opposite.

Dean had trusted him anyway.

That trust was a line Arion would not break.

He looked down at Dean’s sleeping face.

The flush was easing from his skin. His lashes rested pale against his cheeks. His mouth, usually sharp or dry or one step from saying something devastating, had softened in sleep into something dangerously unguarded. Every now and then his fingers flexed once against Arion’s shirt, then loosened again.

Arion’s chest tightened with something more violent than hunger.

The instinctive urge to claim, to mark, to drag this all the way to the bond his body had been screaming for since he was old enough to understand he might not survive without it.

But under all of that, threaded through it, something quieter and far worse:

Reverence.

He moved before his instincts could transform movement into grasping.

Carefully, very carefully, Arion slid out from under Dean’s weight and shifted him back against the sofa cushions, arranging a pillow at his side and the throw over his legs. Dean stirred at the loss of warmth, brow faintly creasing.

Arion’s hand came to the back of Dean’s neck for one brief grounding touch.

“Sleep,” he murmured, too low to wake him.

Dean’s expression smoothed again.

Arion remained kneeling beside the sofa for a heartbeat too long, hands curled once against his own thighs.

Then the pressure under his skin surged – a pulse of rut, sharp and demanding, all instinct and heat and possessive delight at the sleeping omega scented through his suite and confessing jealousy like an offering.

Arion shut his eyes, jaw clenching.

When he opened them again, he made a choice that was equal parts restraint and surrender.

He lowered himself completely to the floor; if he remained upright on the sofa beside Dean, he would touch him more than necessary.

So Arion went to his knees on the carpet at Dean’s side, broad shoulders rigid with control, and leaned in until he could rest the weight of his forehead – and then the side of his head – against Dean’s lap.

The position was absurd.

Dean’s hand, slack with sleep, slid from Arion’s shirt and landed against his shoulder, then drifted down into his hair with all the careless authority of someone too unconscious to know what he was doing.

Arion went utterly still.

The touch was light. Accidental. Warm.

It tore through him.

A low sound caught in his chest and died there, strangled before it could become anything louder than breath. He kept his hands flat on the floor, fingers spread against the carpet, as if anchoring himself physically would help. He focused on the cool draft from the windows. On the ventilation hum. On the measured rise and fall of Dean’s breathing above him.

Not on the omega in the sofa.

Not on Dean’s confession.

Not on the jealous, possessive spark in Dean’s voice when he admitted he wanted the mark on Arion’s lip to be his.

Arion laughed once under his breath, the sound wrecked and disbelieving.

“Possessive,” he murmured, too quiet for even sleeping Dean to hear. “You have no idea what you’ve done to me.”

Dean shifted in his sleep. His fingers curled, catching gently in Arion’s hair.

Arion’s eyes closed.

Rut grew stronger, a biological command made crueler by hope.

’Secure him.’

’Bond him.’

’Keep him.’

’NOW!’

’Before the window closes, before politics intrude, before the body fails, before the world takes him away from you.’

Arion breathed through it.

He had lived with this edge for years. Usually, it ended with panic, a countdown buried in blood and chemistry, his body attempting to force survival by pushing him toward bond-securing behavior before he burned out.

This time it came with Dean’s voice in it.

’Date me first.’

’Open the windows.’

’Keep doing that.’

The commands should have grated on instinct.

Instead, they kept him calm.

Arion tipped his head slightly, not enough to disturb Dean, just enough to settle more fully against the weight of Dean’s lap and let the contact exist without taking more.

If he lifted his hands, he could bracket Dean’s thighs and cage him from below.

He kept his palms on the carpet.

If he turned his mouth, he could press a kiss to Dean’s knee through the throw and inhale until the control cracked.

He kept his face still.

If he let himself imagine one step further, his pheromones would flood the suite again despite the open windows.

He thought of Seven instead, glaring over a stylus and threatening injections.

The image helped for almost three seconds.

Arion’s mouth twitched against the fabric over Dean’s lap.

“Seven will be unbearable,” he murmured, voice dry and frayed at the edges. “You should wake up just to suffer with me.”

Dean did not wake.

His breathing stayed deep and even, his body heavy with real sleep, trusting Arion enough to collapse in this room after nearly being pushed to heat and then spending his own strength stabilizing the aftermath.

That trust settled over Arion more effectively than any command.

He bowed his head further, a prince in a sealed suit made modern under old stone, kneeling on the floor with his cheek in his future husband’s lap and his instincts dragging at him like chains.

Outside, the palace moved on with guards in halls, staff in distant rooms, and systems humming quietly behind antique walls.

He took out his phone and dialed an emergency contact for Seven.

He would hate him again.

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