Chapter 60: Chapter 60: Eight

“Eight.”

Dean blinked like the number had slapped him.

It wasn’t the number itself – Dean was not naïve enough to expect a dominant Crown Prince with a military career and a country on his shoulders to have lived like a monk. It was the way Arion said it. Like a fact placed on the table with the same firm calm he used for Parliament, monsters, and borders.

Dean leaned back slowly, the leather accepting him like a quiet conspiracy. “Huh,” he said, because his mouth needed to do something that wasn’t showing emotion.

Arion’s gaze didn’t move. “You are surprised,” he noted.

Dean’s lips pulled. “That’s mild respect,” he said, then added quickly, because he refused to let Arion think he’d won anything, “for honesty. Not for… whatever this is.”

Arion’s mouth twitched, faintly. “Why would I lie?” he asked, like a reminder and a warning.

Dean stared at him for a beat, then narrowed his eyes. “Okay. Eight.” He lifted a hand, palm up, demanding the rest the way he demanded numbers. “Why?”

Arion didn’t hesitate, and that was the part that made Dean’s stomach go a little tight, because Arion was answering this the way he answered governance.

“As a dominant alpha,” Arion said, voice calm, “I have ruts.”

Dean’s brows lifted. “Yeah, I know the concept. I have an older brother who’s a dominant alpha. Thank you for the biology lesson.”

Arion’s golden eye stayed unblinking. “I’m not giving you a lesson,” he said. “I’m giving you context.”

Dean fell quiet, because that tone meant Arion was about to be painfully straightforward.

“I can manage for a while,” Arion continued. “Inhibitors and discipline help. I can push it back for months – sometimes close to a year if circumstances allow and I’m not injured or overextended.”

Dean’s throat moved. “And if they don’t allow?”

Arion’s gaze held his, steady and intent. “Then my own pheromones become toxic to me.”

Dean’s expression shifted despite his best efforts. He stared at Arion like he was trying to decide whether this was a medical fact or a metaphor for monarchy.

“You know…” Dean said slowly, picking his words like they were glass. “Sebastian had twelve until now. I’m just surprised that someone with a more urgent need for stabilizing is…” His mouth twisted. “Tamer. Yes. Tamer.”

Arion’s brow rose.

Dean lifted a hand immediately, defensive. “I’m not calling you boring. I’m calling you… less chaotic than expected.”

Arion held his gaze for a long moment. Then he said, with maddening simplicity, “Sebastian is not Alaminian.”

Dean blinked. “That’s…”

“A complete answer,” Arion finished, and the faintest hint of amusement warmed his eyes. “But if you want the longer one…”

Dean’s lips pressed together. “I didn’t say I wanted…”

“You compared me,” Arion said, calm as ever. “So I’m clarifying the variables.”

Dean stared, then muttered, “God, you really do talk like you’re filing a report.”

Arion shrugged slightly. “It works.”

He leaned back, coat folded neatly across his lap, posture controlled even in comfort. It made him look older than he was, not in years, but in the way he occupied space like he’d learned early what happened when you didn’t.

“Sebastian uses people as noise,” Arion said. “Distraction. Proof. Sometimes punishment. Sometimes ego.”

Dean’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t know him.”

Arion’s gaze didn’t flicker. “I know the type. They exist everywhere.”

Dean’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t interrupt, because Arion was speaking with that same blunt, practical tone he used when talking about monsters. Like he wasn’t judging, he was simply naming things that bit.

“I don’t,” Arion continued. “Because I can’t afford it.”

Dean’s mouth twisted. “Because you’re Crown Prince.”

“Because I’m a dominant alpha,” Arion corrected, and there it was again, the way he kept dragging the conversation back to the body like the body was the first empire anyone ever had to govern. “And because in Alamina, we learned early what happens when a stronger creature takes what it wants for sport.”

Dean’s throat moved. “The monsters.”

“Yes.”

The jet’s muted roar filled the pause, soft and constant, the kind of sound that made privacy feel too close and honesty feel unavoidable.

Arion’s gaze stayed on Dean. “Eight isn’t ’tame,’” he said. “It’s controlled. It’s managed. It’s the number that kept me functional without breaking anyone.”

Dean’s brows drew together. “So they weren’t… lovers.”

Arion didn’t flinch. “No.”

Dean exhaled slowly. “Arrangements.”

“Yes.”

Dean stared at him, then gave a small, reluctant nod. “Okay. Fine.” His voice dropped, more serious despite his best efforts. “But you said toxic. That’s… dangerous.”

Arion’s eyes narrowed slightly. “It becomes dangerous if ignored,” he said. “And I don’t ignore problems until they turn into disasters.”

Dean’s mouth twitched. “That’s another Alaminian motto, isn’t it.”

“It should be.”

Dean let out a short laugh that wasn’t quite humor. Then he looked at Arion again, really looked, and for the first time since the number had left Arion’s mouth, Dean’s expression softened into something that wasn’t teasing or defensive.

“So you weren’t ’tamer,’” Dean said quietly. “You were… careful.”

Arion’s gaze held his. “Yes.”

Dean swallowed, then forced a scoff because sincerity made him itch. “Still an asshole.”

Arion’s mouth curved faintly. “Obviously.”

Dean’s lips twitched despite himself. Then he tilted his head, eyes sharp again, because Dean always came back to the point like a dog with a bone.

“Okay,” Dean said. “So if your need is more urgent than Sebastian’s, and you managed it with eight arrangements…” His brow lifted. “What happens now that you’re engaged to me?”

Arion’s golden eye held his, unblinking. He opened his mouth… but Dean had already changed his mind.

“You know what?” Dean said quickly, a little too quickly. “I don’t want to know.”

Arion laughed, low and real, like the sound lived somewhere private in him and Dean kept accidentally finding it. With a flick of his hand – his watch catching the cabin light – he summoned an attendant and handed over the neatly folded coat without looking away from Dean.

The attendant vanished as silently as he’d arrived, as if the jet itself absorbed him.

Arion’s gaze stayed steady. “But you are curious,” he said, calm as ever. “And it will happen at some point.”

Dean’s ears warmed. “You’re making it sound like a scheduled meeting.”

“It is,” Arion replied without hesitation.

Dean scoffed, but his fingers tightened around the armrest. “I hate you.”

“No,” Arion said, because he loved correcting Dean more than oxygen. “You like my face.”

Dean’s eyes narrowed. “Stop saying that.”

Arion’s gaze dipped briefly to Dean’s mouth and then returned to his eyes, steady. “You brought it up.”

Dean looked away toward the hallway again, the one leading to the two bedrooms, and immediately regretted having eyes.

“Okay,” Dean muttered, forcing his voice back into sarcasm because sarcasm was armor. “So it’s going to happen. Eventually. Fine. But you don’t have to say it like you’re counting down.”

Arion leaned back, unbothered, the luxury of the private cabin making his stillness feel even more deliberate. “I am counting down, Dean,” he said plainly. “But I won’t force you. I won’t coerce you into anything you don’t want.”

The words hit with the same blunt weight as everything else he’d said tonight. No romance. No softening. Just a boundary drawn in ink.

Dean stared at him, throat working once.

“That’s… a low bar,” Dean said finally, trying for sarcasm and landing somewhere closer to honesty.

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