Chapter 167: Chapter 167: Ability

Arion stared.

For once – glorious, astonishing once – he looked genuinely shocked.

Dean looked up at him, breathing slightly harder now from adrenaline and fury and relief and the sheer private thrill of having interrupted inevitability with his own two hands.

“What?” Dean said, because if the universe had handed him this exact moment, he was absolutely going to enjoy it. “Did you think I couldn’t?”

Arion’s eyes dropped to the open collar in Dean’s hand, then rose again to his face.

“It would be impossible unless—”

“Unless I can override your pheromones?” Dean asked, smiling now, bright and sharp and much too pleased with himself. “Yes. That is one of my abilities.”

He lifted the collar between them and, after just enough pause to make it count, presented it back to Arion.

“Now,” he said, with all the grace of a man reclaiming the structure of his own life, “can we do this properly?”

That, finally, broke Arion’s composure; a low laughter escaped him and was enough for the whole atmosphere in the room to shift with it.

He took the collar from Dean’s hands and asked, with a dashing grin that should have been taxed heavily by the state, “May I?”

Dean stared at him.

He then narrowed his eyes. “You’re very pleased with yourself for a man who just lost the argument.”

“I didn’t lose it,” Arion said, his golden gaze fixated on Dean.

“You absolutely did.”

“I adjusted.”

“That,” Dean informed him, “is the most princely possible synonym for losing I have ever heard.”

Arion’s grin remained.

Dean, because there were limits to how much smugness he could tolerate in one evening from a seven-foot heir who somehow kept becoming more handsome when he was forced into manners, lifted his chin a fraction, and said, more quietly now, “Ask properly.”

That wiped the grin back into something smaller.

Better.

But unfortunately for Dean’s heart, a lot more dangerous.

Arion stepped close enough that Dean had to look up slightly and therefore became overaware of absolutely everything – the evening light, the suite around them, the open space at his throat where the collar had been for those few bright, rebellious seconds, and the fact that Arion was now actually trying.

When Arion spoke, there was still no ornamental softness in him. No poetic excess. He wasn’t suddenly transformed into a man with flowery speeches or decorative charm.

But he was trying, and that mattered more.

“Dean,” he said, looking directly at him, “will you let me put this on you?”

The question sat between them.

Dean felt the answer move through him before he chose how to arrange his face around it.

Which was irritating.

He folded his arms for one second, unfolding them again just as fast when he realized it ruined the line of his shirt and made him look more defensive than princely. “That,” he said carefully, “was much better.”

Arion’s mouth moved faintly. “That wasn’t an answer.”

“No, it was feedback.”

“I don’t need feedback.”

Dean lifted one brow. “You did five minutes ago.”

That actually earned him another short laugh.

Dean let the silence breathe for a moment longer, because if he was going to say yes, he intended to make Arion wait at least long enough to understand the value of procedure.

Then he turned slightly, giving Arion his back again, but this time by choice, not retreat.

“Yes,” he said. “You may.”

The room went very still after that.

Arion didn’t move immediately.

Dean noticed and because he was himself, he said, without turning, “If you become emotional about basic consent, I will rescind the moment.”

Behind him, Arion let out a slow breath that was suspiciously close to amusement. “Noted.”

Dean felt his hands then, one brushing his hair aside, the other settling the collar once more at the base of his throat. This time the act felt different.

The pearls were cool again, then warm, then simply present.

Arion fastened the clasp carefully.

When the soft click sounded at the back of his neck, Dean closed his eyes for the briefest instant.

Arion’s fingers lingered, one broad hand cupping the back of his neck just below the clasp, thumb brushing once lightly there.

When Dean opened his eyes again, he could see both of them in the glass of the window – himself in the foreground, Arion just behind, one hand still at his nape, both of them held for a second in the sort of stillness that only followed something done properly.

“There,” Arion said quietly.

Dean touched the front of the collar again, fingertips grazing the pearls. “That was significantly less threatening.”

“High praise.”

“It is.” He glanced at Arion’s reflection. “Don’t waste it.”

Arion’s hand slid from his neck to his shoulder, steady and warm. “You really can override pheromone locks.”

Dean turned then, facing him again, and the collar settled against his throat with the movement, elegant and infuriating and already too much part of him.

“Yes,” he said. “Did you think I was bluffing?”

“No.” A pause. “But there is interesting information about you that was never mentioned.”

Dean hummed, visibly amused.

“What else are you hiding?” Arion asked, tilting his head so close to Dean’s temple that warm breath brushed his ear.

Dean turned his face just enough that the question passed through him instead of over him and smiled with the bright, dangerous pleasure of a man who had just discovered fresh leverage.

“That,” he said, “depends very heavily on whether you are asking as my future husband or as a national security concern.”

Arion’s hand remained steady at Dean’s waist. “Both.”

Dean let out a soft, delighted breath. “God. You really do romance like an intelligence briefing.”

“I’m asking a real question.”

“I know.” Dean’s fingers rose once more to the collar at his throat, brushing lightly over the pearls. “That’s why I’m enjoying this.”

Arion’s eyes narrowed by half a degree, not in irritation, just in concentration. “You overrode a pheromone lock without effort.”

“It wasn’t without effort.”

“No?”

“No.” Dean’s mouth curved. “I had to be annoyed first.”

That got him a quiet look.

Dean, because he could not resist it now, leaned just slightly into the warmth of Arion’s breath and said, “You really didn’t know?”

“I knew you were resistant,” Arion said. “I didn’t know how far that went.”

Dean lifted one shoulder. “Far enough.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is a satisfying one.”

Arion’s grip at his waist tightened almost imperceptibly. Not enough to be restraining. Just enough for Dean to notice. “Dean.”

There it was again.

That tone.

The one that carried warning, want, and patience in equal proportions and somehow made him feel both indulged and hunted.

Dean hated that tone… Who was he lying to? He adored it.

He let the moment stretch one breath too long, then relented by degrees. “I can push against pheromonal structures,” he said. “Locks. Pressure. Influence. Things built to assume compliance.” He lifted his eyes to Arion’s. “Not casually. Not always. But if I want through, I can usually get through.”

Arion went very still.

Not on the outside. Arion was too controlled for that. But Dean could see it in the way his eyes changed and how his interest turned into something more than just curiosity.

“You never mentioned that.”

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