Chapter 161: Chapter 161: Summer Plans

By the time Nero reached Arion’s office, the day had turned into something flat and metallic.

He had gone through the rest of it on training and habit alone. Signed what needed signing. Answered what required answers. Sat through the remainder of the meeting with Sebastian across the table and treated him exactly the way he had promised: with perfect civility and nothing else.

It had unsettled Sebastian far more than anger would have.

Nero no longer had the energy to enjoy that.

Arion’s office was quieter than most rooms in the administrative wing and larger too, built for his size and habits rather than court aesthetics. The desk was wide, the chairs deep, the shelves lined not with decorative nonsense but reports, maps, military ledgers, and sealed files. One full wall held the summer campaign projections already in draft: routes, infected-zone movement, supply corridors, field rotation proposals, and seasonal risk assessments.

Nero stopped in front of the largest map and looked at the marked sectors without really seeing them.

Summer.

Return deployment.

He heard Arion before the door fully shut behind him.

Not because Arion was loud. Because they were what they were.

“Sit,” Arion said.

Nero didn’t.

He kept his eyes on the map, hands loose behind his back, posture too still to be restful.

After a moment, Arion walked around the desk and stopped a few feet away. He didn’t repeat himself.

Nero eventually crossed to one of the chairs and sat, not because he wanted to but because standing made him feel too much like he was waiting for judgment.

Arion took the chair opposite him, one ankle over the other knee, his expression unreadable in the way only family could be when they were trying not to start scolding.

For a few seconds, the only sound was the faint hum of the office climate system and the muffled life of the palace far beyond the walls.

Then Arion said, “Why did you threaten him?”

Nero’s gaze lifted.

Of course Arion had heard it. He had likely heard half the balcony from two floors away if he’d wanted to. The palace was full of thick walls and beautiful lies, but some things still carried.

Nero looked away first, toward the campaign map again. “I didn’t threaten him.”

Arion didn’t move. “No?”

“No.” Nero’s voice stayed even, but the exhaustion in it had become too heavy to hide completely. “I told him to stay away from me.”

Arion watched him for a moment. “That isn’t all you did.”

Nero let out a slow breath through his nose.

“No,” he said. “It isn’t. But I don’t want to discuss that part with a man like you.” His gaze shifted toward Arion at last, tired and sharp at once. “You threatened Dean too. You just dressed it better and pushed until he gave in faster.”

That made Arion still for half a beat.

Then, to Nero’s immediate annoyance, he leaned back in his chair and grinned. “Fair point.”

Nero gave him a long, unimpressed look.

Arion’s grin only deepened by a fraction. “It does seem to be a family weakness. They don’t take us seriously, and then we overreact.”

Nero looked back toward the courtyard through the office windows, jaw set. “That isn’t funny.”

“No,” Arion said, still too calm. “Not particularly.”

A pause stretched between them.

Then Arion folded one arm over the other and asked, more evenly this time, “Are you really going to stay away from him?”

“Yes,” Nero said while watching the courtyard.

That wiped the last of the amusement from Arion’s face.

He studied Nero for a long moment, and when he spoke again, his tone had changed, the teasing fading into the older brother tone he used with his siblings.

“For how long?”

Nero’s mouth flattened slightly. “As long as it takes.”

“To stop wanting him?”

Nero did not answer immediately.

Below them, the courtyard staff crossed the stone in quiet lines, winter light sitting pale across the palace walls. Somewhere farther down, a gate opened and shut. The world continued with offensive normalcy.

Finally Nero said, “That isn’t the goal.”

Arion’s brow shifted. “No?”

“No.” Nero kept his eyes outside. “The goal is to stop putting myself in front of someone who looks at me and sees a stage of life instead of a man.”

He leaned back into his chair then, one ankle over his knee, all careless elegance sharpened by exhaustion. A bitter smile reached his face, handsome and cold in equal measure.

“Odd,” he said, “how people can watch me on a field taking down something that needs ten betas or two dominant alphas to kill, and somehow that makes me mature enough for blood, command, and burial counts.” His gaze stayed on the winter courtyard beyond the windows. “But I confess that I like someone, and suddenly I’m a child.”

The room went quiet.

Arion did not interrupt.

He knew better than to speak too soon when Nero sounded like this.

Nero’s mouth flattened faintly. “He can look at me covered in beast blood and think I’m old enough to stand there. Old enough to order men into danger. Old enough to come back with things on my hands that don’t wash off.” A pause. “But wanting him is apparently where he draws the line.”

That landed harder than anything before it.

Arion leaned back a little farther, studying his cousin properly now. He knew Nero better than anyone else, and the man was far from childish; he had his chaotic moments, but he was willing to do his duty no matter what it cost him.

Arion’s voice, when it came, was lower. “He didn’t think it through.”

Nero laughed once under his breath, with no amusement in it. “No. He did exactly what he always does. He took the version of reality that protected his comfort and spoke from there.”

Arion said nothing.

Because yes. That sounded like Sebastian too.

Nero turned his head at last, looking back into the room instead of at the windows. “That’s the part that annoys me most. Not that he said no. I could survive a no.” His jaw shifted once. “It’s that he made it about me being young. Something to outgrow. As if I handed him embarrassment instead of truth, and then he packed it neatly with ’no one wants that.’”

The last part landed flat and ugly between them.

Arion’s expression changed by a fraction.

“No one wants that,” he repeated, tasting the words.

Nero laughed once, without any humor in it. “Yes.”

Arion leaned back in his chair, one hand resting against the armrest, gaze fixed on his brother now instead of the files. “That was careless.”

“That was insulting.”

“That too.”

Nero looked away again, out toward the courtyard, where the palace continued to pretend that human beings were simpler than they were. “It would have been easier if he’d just said he didn’t want me. I could have respected that.” His mouth flattened. “But he had to make it ridiculous…” A bitter edge entered his voice. “Doesn’t he realize how many people would sell their soul to be changed into a dominant omega?”

That made Arion freeze at the words because it was true, and they both knew exactly how true.

There were many ambitious, scared, lonely, and desperate people in the empire. Full of people who wanted more power, more compatibility, and more certainty. Full of people who would have treated such a possibility like divine favor. A chance to be wanted by an enigma and remade by it. An enigma with the path of a king in front of him.

Arion leaned back slightly in his chair. “Yes,” he said. “He does realize it.”

Nero’s gaze flicked toward him.

Arion held it. “That’s part of why he reacted like that.”

“Well, let’s see how much can he stay away from me.” Nero said and raised to leave.

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