Chapter 18: Chapter 18: Backlash

Dean had barely taken a few steps toward the manor when the unease settled in.

A quiet, crawling sense that something didn’t quite fit, as if the world had shifted by a fraction of a degree and his body detected it before his mind.

Everything looked the same as it always had. The wrought-iron gates, the gravel path, and the familiar outline of the Fitzgeralt estate rising ahead of him in the soft evening light. The car idled behind him, engine purring low, waiting to pull away. He should have felt relieved that it was over.

Instead, his thoughts kept circling back to the man still sitting inside that car.

Arion had been… restrained.

For someone who had just threatened, argued, apologized, and then calmly laid out his intention to draw Dean back to Alamina, he had let him go with an ease that didn’t fit. No last attempt to press, no lingering presence, no quiet insistence on walking him to the door. For a man who had been willing to use blackmail to keep him close, the distance now felt wrong in a way Dean couldn’t quite name.

Maybe the slap had bruised his ego more than he let on.

Maybe he was already calculating his next move.

But none of those explanations quieted his instincts howling at him that something was terribly wrong.

The car’s engine shifted, the faint change in pitch signaling that it was about to reverse.

Something in Dean’s chest tightened.

“Wait,” he said, the word slipping out before he had time to weigh it, sharp enough that the driver’s head turned slightly.

Dean turned back, his steps quickening without conscious decision, his hand already reaching for the handle as if his body had made up its mind long before he had. The sense of wrongness spiked, instincts flaring like a warning bell.

He pulled the door open.

The interior light flicked on.

For a heartbeat, everything looked… normal.

Arion was still in his seat, tall frame angled slightly forward, one arm braced against the door, the other resting in his lap. His face was composed, features smooth, almost peaceful in the dim glow.

If one ignored the fact that his eyes were closed.

Dean’s breath caught.

“Arion?” He said, sharp now, with no trace of earlier heat, only alarm.

No answer.

Up close, the signs leapt out at once. The unnatural stillness of his chest. The faint sheen of sweat at his temples. The way his jaw was clenched in pain and his skin had lost some of its color, the warm gold drained to almost white.

’Unconscious.’

Dean swore under his breath and leaned in, one hand coming to Arion’s shoulder, shaking him once, then harder.

“Hey. Don’t you dare do this now.”

Still nothing.

The driver had already turned in his seat, concern breaking through protocol. “My lord…”

“He collapsed,” Dean said, the words coming out tight, controlled by instinct rather than panic. “He was fine two seconds ago.”

Except he hadn’t been, and Dean knew why and didn’t like the answer. He’d been holding himself together, burning through whatever limits his body had with the same stubborn will he used on everything else.

And now the cost had come due.

Dean’s hand slid from Arion’s shoulder to his throat, fingers pressing lightly where the pulse should be. It was there. Strong and extremely fast.

Relief and dread tangled in his chest.

“Get help,” Dean ordered, already halfway into the car. “Now. And don’t you dare move him until a physician is on the way.”

The driver was already reaching for his comm.

Dean stayed where he was, one hand braced against the seat, the other still at Arion’s throat, calming himself in the thrum of life beneath his fingers.

A sudden movement cut through the stillness.

Long, strong fingers closed around Dean’s wrist. The grip was firm, causing Dean to freeze where he was.

Arion’s eyes were still shut, but his voice came low and rough, dragged from somewhere deep in his chest. “A physician won’t help.”

Dean’s breath stuttered at the sudden warmth. “You’re in no state to decide that.”

“I am,” Arion murmured. “I’m not sick, it’s the backlash of my dominant pheromones.”

His grip tightened just enough to keep Dean from pulling away. Heat rolled off him in waves now, uncontrolled, the aftershock of power forced too tightly, too long.

“You need treatment,” Dean insisted, looking at the driver that alerted the security team and was waiting right outside the car. “You need…”

Before he could finish, Arion pulled.

The motion was sudden but careful, drawing Dean fully into the car and off balance. In the next heartbeat, Dean found himself seated across Arion’s lap, the prince’s arm coming around his back, pining him there with surprising strength for someone who had been unconscious seconds earlier.

“Arion!”

Arion’s head tipped forward, resting against the junction of Dean’s neck and shoulder. His breath was hot and uneven, and the faint brush of his hair against Dean’s skin sent a sharp, startled awareness through him. He inhaled deeply before speaking again.

“You want to help?” Arion asked quietly, voice muffled against him. “Then don’t call a doctor.”

Dean went still, pulse racing. “Then what do I do?”

Arion’s fingers flexed once around his wrist, then slid to his forearm, closing the last sliver of space between them. “Let your pheromones out,” he said. “Just a little. If you want this to stop.”

Dean stared at the dark window, mind reeling. “You’re asking me to…”

“To answer mine,” Arion finished. “They’re burning me alive. Yours can stabilize them. You felt the resonance between us in the restaurant.”

Dean swallowed. “You should have told me.”

“I’m telling you now,” Arion said softly. “And just to be clear, this time I’m not ordering. I’m asking you.”

He shifted slightly, careful, still nuzzled against Dean’s neck as if even the faint scent of pheromones were better than anything he was experiencing. “If you don’t want to, I’ll ride it out. It will just… take longer.”

Dean’s heart hammered.

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