Chapter 104: Chapter 104: Decontamination

Arion shut down.

It happened in layers, first the edge went blunt, then the heat under his skin stopped prowling and started sinking, then his eyes lost that sharp, feral brightness and turned heavier, slower, like the world had become distant enough to be tolerated.

Seven watched it with the exact expression of a man who had seen too many princes insist they were fine until their bodies proved otherwise.

He had not used only inhibitors.

He’d used a mix.

A pharmacological cocktail that, if Seven had injected it into a normal person, would have knocked them out like a sack of stone.

The kind that could probably knock down a horse.

On Arion, it merely made him… human.

Barely.

Arion’s head lifted from Dean’s lap with visible effort. His hands, still on the carpet, flexed once, then went still. His breathing slowed into something controlled and heavy, the aftertaste of rut dulled by chemistry and willpower.

Seven didn’t say, ’I told you so,’ but he was thinking it so loudly that everyone could see it, even behind the mask.

Arion blinked slowly, and his gaze climbed to the sofa as if tethered.

Dean was still asleep, thrown over the cushions in the loose, exhausted sprawl of a dominant omega who had spent himself on control. His breathing remained deep and steady, his face softened, and one hand was slack against the throw.

Arion’s instincts twitched.

’Keep him in sight.’

The physician’s gaze followed Arion’s.

Then, without a word, Seven reached into his case again and pressed a second device into Arion’s thigh, smaller, an automatic tranquilizer pulse layered under the inhibitor line to keep Arion from climbing back to the edge the moment his pride returned.

Arion didn’t even flinch.

That alone was proof that the dose had been administered.

“Good,” Seven muttered under the mask, more to himself than to Arion. “Stay down.”

Arion’s eyes narrowed faintly. “I’m not a dog.”

Seven’s gaze was pure judgment. “You’re worse. A crown prince.”

Arion’s mouth twitched like he might smile, but the drugged heaviness in him swallowed it before it could become arrogance.

He pushed up slowly from the floor, one hand braced on the sofa edge. The movement was controlled, but it wasn’t graceful. Not anymore. Not with chemistry dragging him down and instincts still fixed on the sleeping omega.

Seven stood and stepped back, giving him room, still watching like a man prepared to sedate him again on principle.

Then the suite door opened.

Staff entered in a controlled formation, with two wearing protective masks, one carrying a sealed canister cart, and a portable ozone unit designed to quickly neutralize scent contamination. They moved silently and carefully, eyes down, not acknowledging the scene in the sitting room, because this palace taught its people to survive by pretending not to notice anything significant.

They began decontamination immediately.

A low machine hum deepened. A warning light blinked. The ozone cycle primed.

Seven turned toward them and made a sharp hand motion – wait, not yet – because Dean was still here, and ozone didn’t discriminate between pheromones and lungs.

Arion’s attention didn’t leave Dean.

He stepped closer to the sofa, hands hovering for a moment like a man negotiating his own restraint.

Then he slid one arm behind Dean’s back and the other under his knees and lifted him.

Dean didn’t wake.

His head lolled against Arion’s shoulder, lashes unmoving, body heavy with real sleep. A faint thread of lemon-mint clung to him, muted now, but still enough to make Arion inhale too deeply and then stop himself with visible effort.

Seven’s eyes narrowed.

Judgement passed like a clean blade.

He didn’t speak it aloud, because Seven was many things, but he wasn’t suicidal. Also, he didn’t need to. Arion could feel it anyway, as clearly as he could feel the weight of Dean in his arms.

“You’re moving him,” Seven said at last, voice flat.

Arion didn’t look away from Dean’s face. “Yes.”

“To your suite,” Seven guessed.

Arion’s jaw flexed. “Yes.”

Seven’s brows lifted. “Because you can’t tolerate him out of your sight.”

Arion’s mouth twitched, humorless. “Correct.”

Seven didn’t argue. He only stepped aside and gestured toward the inner corridor – go, before the ozone cycle starts.

Arion moved, and Dean cradled against him like something irreplaceable.

Behind them, the staff began closing secondary doors and prepping the room for scent neutralization. Under its stone skin, the palace was modern – panels, seals, protocols, and hidden technology to prevent the worst-case scenario from making headlines.

Arion’s instincts didn’t care about headlines.

They cared about the omega in his arms.

He crossed the threshold into his private corridor, the one that led deeper into his suite – the bedroom, the safer air, the place he could keep Dean close without drowning him. The tranquilizers made his limbs heavier, but they couldn’t pull him away from Dean. Nothing could, not now.

Seven followed at a distance of three steps, mask still on, eyes watchful.

Silent judgement, loud enough to be felt.

They reached Arion’s bedroom.

Arion lowered Dean onto the bed with careful hands, pulling the blanket over him automatically, tucking it in at the shoulder the same way he had earlier, as if his hands remembered the ritual now.

Dean murmured something unintelligible and shifted, cheek pressing into the pillow.

Arion froze, breath catching.

Then, slowly, he sat on the edge of the bed, one hand resting on the coverlet near Dean’s hip.

Seven stood in the doorway, arms crossed.

Arion didn’t look at him.

If he did, Seven would win.

A soft sound from the outer corridor broke the stillness.

Footsteps.

Light, quick, familiar.

Sylvia appeared, breathing a little fast from having been outside, hair slightly wind-tousled, with Boreas at her side like a proud escort. The dog looked happy in the uncomplicated way only animals could look happy while the humans around them were imploding.

Sylvia stopped dead.

She took in Seven in a mask.

The hint of medicinal scent neutralizer in the air.

Arion on the edge of the bed.

Dean asleep.

Boreas’s tail slowed.

Sylvia’s eyes widened slightly, then narrowed with immediate intelligence. For once, she did not speak.

Not one word.

She didn’t point. She didn’t grin. She didn’t weaponize the moment.

She simply reached down, clipped a hand gently to Boreas’s collar, and tugged.

Boreas immediately resisted, because Boreas had excellent taste and no sense of timing.

Sylvia braced her heels and pulled harder, whispering through her teeth, “Not now.”

Boreas gave one last longing look toward the bed, ears perked, as if considering whether he could lie down beside Dean and refuse to move for the next week.

Arion’s gaze lifted briefly.

Boreas froze.

The dog made a small, defeated sound and finally allowed Sylvia to lead him away, tail wagging slower now, as if even he could tell the pack was not stable enough for visitors.

Sylvia glanced back once from the doorway.

Her expression was unreadable.

Then she slipped out without a sound, dragging Boreas with her like a civilian evacuating a war zone.

The door clicked shut.

Seven remained in the doorway, judging in silence.

Arion stayed on the edge of the bed, hand near Dean, watching the rise and fall of his breathing like it was the only data point that mattered.

Outside, ozone hummed in the sitting room as staff decontaminated the air.

Inside, the prince – drugged, restrained, and still dangerous – kept his eyes on the sleeping omega and forced himself, one breath at a time, to do the only thing Dean had asked of him all day.

Behave.

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