Chapter 125: Chapter 125: Quiet

The door shut behind Nero with a soft click.

Silence followed.

Dean stayed exactly where he was, elbows on the table, face in his hand for one brief second longer than pride allowed. When he lowered his hand, he forced himself back into composure the way he always did: spine straight, expression neutral, shoulders deliberately loose, like none of this had happened and he hadn’t just been verbally dissected by three heirs over breakfast.

Arion didn’t speak.

He stood behind Dean’s chair, unmoving, tall enough that his shadow reached the table even in morning light, his presence a steady weight. He didn’t touch Dean again. He didn’t reach for the cup. He didn’t pace.

He just… watched.

Dean could feel it without looking. He lifted his coffee and took a sip to give his hands something to do.

The bitterness hit his tongue and did nothing to cool the heat crawling under his skin.

“You’re being weird,” Dean said finally, because the silence was starting to feel like it had edges.

Arion’s voice was low, even. “I’m being quiet.”

Dean’s eyes narrowed. “That’s what I said.”

Arion didn’t answer.

Dean set the cup down carefully, because suddenly everything felt too fragile, like one wrong sound would crack the room.

He didn’t turn around.

He could feel Arion’s attention like a hand hovering an inch from his throat.

Then Arion took a step closer, the faint brush of fabric and soft sound of his breath changing.

Dean’s pulse jumped anyway, traitor.

Arion’s hands slid to Dean’s waist from behind.

Dean stiffened on instinct. “Arion—”

Arion lifted him with the ease of someone seven feet tall and trained to carry power. Dean’s chair scraped faintly as he was removed from it, as if an object was being moved with complete authority.

Dean’s breath caught. “Are you—”

Arion placed him on the table.

Dean’s thighs met the polished surface, his back straightening automatically, his hands bracing for balance. The table felt cold under him, making him aware of every inch of his own body and the fact that he was now at Arion’s eye level.

Dean’s breath hitched. “What the hell are you doing?”

Arion’s gaze was dark, fixed on his mouth. “He enjoyed that.”

Dean stared at him, incredulous. “Who? Nero? Of course he did; he’s a sadist in expensive clothing. He lives for other people’s misery.”

“He enjoyed seeing you flustered,” Arion corrected, his voice a low growl. “He looked at you like he knew something I didn’t. Like he had a right to that part of you.”

Dean’s anger flared. “He doesn’t. He’s just an asshole. It’s his entire personality.”

“He’s an asshole who knows you.” Arion’s voice dropped, the words a rumble against Dean’s skin. “He knows more about you that I even have the chance to learn.”

The jealousy in his tone was raw, an unfamiliar, jagged edge to the usually controlled self.

“He’s my friend, Arion,” Dean said, his own voice tight. “That’s all.”

Arion leaned in, his face so close Dean could feel the warmth of his breath. The possessiveness radiating off him, the pheromones making the large room feel smaller.

“He’s compatible with you,” Arion said, his voice low, roughened by restraint. “More than me, so why did both of you lie?”

Dean stared at him for a beat, and his brain – traitor – did the thing it always did when Arion got like this: it stopped being useful.

Because Arion’s voice wasn’t just low and charming even when a little mad. It slid under Dean’s skin, settled somewhere in his ribs, and made his pulse spike and head spin.

And Arion was too close.

Close enough that Dean couldn’t help but notice the size of him, the way his shoulders blocked light, and the way the fabric of his shirt pulled across a large chest when he breathed. Close enough that Dean’s hands, still gripping the front of that shirt from instinct, registered muscle beneath it. Arion’s arms bracketed him in, making Dean acutely aware of what ’seven feet tall’ meant when it came with strength and control and the kind of restraint that looked like a choice renewed every second.

Dean’s mind, which had always been annoyingly orderly, tried to file the sensation somewhere safe.

It ended up under ’reasons I’m in trouble.’

He swallowed.

“You’re wrong about one thing,” Dean managed, voice steadier than his heartbeat deserved. “He has no more chances than you. We are compatible, yes, but that doesn’t mean I like him that way.”

Arion’s eyes narrowed – gold, burning, and jealous in a way that made Dean’s stomach drop. He didn’t soften. He didn’t look reassured. He looked like he was refusing comfort on principle, which was infuriatingly attractive for reasons Dean refused to psychoanalyze.

Dean’s fingers tightened on Arion’s shirt just to have something to control.

“Then explain,” Arion said quietly. The control in his tone was worse than anger.

Dean exhaled through his nose. “Because Nero likes to torment me.”

Arion’s gaze didn’t move. “That’s not an explanation.”

“It is,” Dean insisted, frustration sparking even as heat coiled low in his stomach at the way Arion’s attention stayed locked on him like he was the only thing in the room. “It’s his hobby. He’s always done it. He does it to Zion. He does it to Sebastian. He’d do it to a priest if the priest looked easy to upset.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Arion said.

Dean’s throat tightened, because Arion wasn’t asking about Nero’s personality.

He was asking about the right.

The look Nero had given Dean was like he had access. Like he knew where to press.

And Arion’s jealousy, quiet as it was, had teeth.

Dean glanced away for half a second, then forced himself back, because stalling was what he used to do, and Dean was trying, humiliatingly, to stop.

“He lied about the compatibility because he liked someone else,” Dean said.

Arion went very still.

Dean continued before Arion could turn that stillness into a weapon.

“Obsessed,” Dean corrected, because accuracy mattered. “It wasn’t just a crush. It wasn’t casual. It was Nero deciding the world could burn as long as he got what he wanted.”

Arion’s voice was flat. “Who?”

Dean’s mouth twitched. “I don’t know.”

Arion’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t know or you won’t tell me?”

“I don’t know,” Dean repeated, sharper, because Arion wasn’t the only one who could get possessive. “And I didn’t want to know. Whoever it is, they’re either very brave or very doomed, and I didn’t feel like carrying that information around my skull.”

Arion studied him like he was looking for a crack.

It would have been almost funny if Dean hadn’t been sitting on a table, doing treason.

Because Arion knew Nero. They were cousins. They’d grown up in the same orbit, the same ridiculous royal ecosystem, with the same tutors, ceremonies, and family dinners where half the room was plotting while the other half pretended not to.

Arion had spent years reading Nero the way you read weather: predicting shifts, anticipating damage, understanding exactly how sharp a smile could be.

He should have been able to fill in the blanks without asking Dean to.

But jealousy had turned Arion’s focus narrow and brutal. It had made him forget context and cling to the only thing that mattered right now: Dean, the match in the air, and the fact that Nero had looked at Dean like he had a chance too.

So Arion asked anyway, like a man who couldn’t afford assumptions.

Dean exhaled slowly. “Arion. You know him.”

Arion’s jaw tightened. “I know what he is.”

“And you know,” Dean pressed, voice low, “that Nero doesn’t confess. He doesn’t… offer people his throat. He hides what matters until it’s safe, and he never thinks it’s safe.”

Arion’s gaze flickered, just once, as if that landed somewhere behind the jealousy and hit memory.

Dean didn’t give him time to retreat back into suspicion.

“I think even the person he’s obsessed with doesn’t know,” Dean said, quieter. “Because Nero wouldn’t risk letting the palace smell it before he controls everything. You know it.”

Arion went very still.

Not because Dean had said Nero had someone.

Arion already knew Nero was capable of obsession.

Because Dean had said ’you,’ and for a second Arion’s control slipped just enough that Dean saw the truth: Arion wasn’t only jealous of Nero’s history with Dean.

Arion was jealous of anything that could take his mate away from him.

Dean’s fingers tightened on Arion’s shirt, anchoring himself in the solid warmth of it.

“You’re too focused,” Dean murmured. “You’re acting like Nero is a stranger.”

Arion’s voice stayed low. “Right now, he is.”

That answer should have been ridiculous.

It wasn’t.

It was honest in the way jealousy always is: irrational, territorial, and inconveniently sincere.

Dean swallowed.

Then, tired of explaining and watching Arion spiral into a quiet war, he leaned in and kissed him.

A kiss that cut the question off at the root and replaced it with something Arion couldn’t interrogate.

Arion froze for half a heartbeat, caught, then his hands firmly grasped Dean’s hips, holding him fixed on the table as if Dean belonged there and the world could adjust.

Dean kissed harder, letting all the unspoken things pour into it: ’You’re not losing. You’re not wrong. You’re just loud inside right now.’

When he pulled back to breathe, his lips were warm and his voice came out rough.

“He’s not interested in me like that,” Dean said.

Arion’s eyes stayed on his mouth. “I know.”

“Do you?” Dean asked, amused.

Arion’s hand tightened once, carefully. “Yes.”

Dean paused for a beat before kissing him again, slower and deeper, making his point in the only way Arion could not resist.

And if Arion was still jealous, still possessive, still burning quietly under control—

Dean decided, with bleak amusement, that at least it was a jealousy he liked.

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