Chapter 62: Chapter 62: Relieved

Dean blinked. “What do you mean?”

“You should know,” Dean went on, voice tightening, “that a man like my grandfather isn’t going to be stopped by distance.”

He did know him. Caelan was the kind of evil that didn’t need close oversight. It rotted things through meetings, mail, rumors, and people who wanted to stay in his good graces. He ruined rooms he wasn’t even in.

Arion didn’t blink. “No,” he agreed, “but death has a way of stopping people.”

An attendant appeared like a shadow and placed a glass of amber liquid and ice on the table.

Dean stared at Arion. “Caelan is dead?”

Arion’s fingers curled around the glass with lazy certainty, his cufflinks catching the cabin light. He took a sip like he’d just been offered water.

“But how?” Dean’s mind scrambled, then something clicked with a sick kind of clarity. He leaned forward. “What did you do?”

Arion shrugged. “I killed him.”

Arion talked about killing Caelan as if he had signed a document.

Dean went still. “Why?”

Arion’s golden eye held his. “Because he had other plans for you,” he said, matter-of-fact. “Because he undermined me and tried to collar you to Palatine, as you already know.” He set the glass down quietly. “A lot of people wanted him dead. No one had the reach, the nerve, or the method. The way my pheromones did it will be filed as natural.”

Arion watched Dean carefully, as if bracing for impact. For anger, disgust, and distance. He didn’t like secrets. He valued control, and honesty was a form of control when you couldn’t trust the world not to weaponize silence.

Dean stared at him for a long second.

Then he laughed.

It wasn’t a polite laugh. It wasn’t even a sane one. It was laughter that came from relief so sharp it made his eyes sting. Tears gathered at the corners of his purple eyes, and he didn’t even try to hide them.

“Gods,” Dean choked out, wiping at his face with the back of his hand like he was offended by his own emotions. “Thank you.”

Arion’s brow rose. The scar pulled with it, emphasizing the surprise. “Aren’t you angry?”

“No,” Dean said immediately, like the word had been waiting behind his teeth. “Gods, no.” He grabbed his water, took a sip, and exhaled hard. “Nobody killed Caelan because of the Palatine legacy rule – regicide gets you executed. And not just you. Your entire line. The empire has pheromonal security written into law.”

Arion watched him without interruption.

“If one of my uncles had tried,” Dean continued, voice steady now, “they’d be implicated, punished immediately, and someone else would inherit. Caelan built it that way on purpose. It was easier for everyone to wait for him to die naturally than to lose everything to him.”

He huffed, then leaned back into the seat as if his body suddenly remembered it was allowed to rest.

“I’m betting Grandma Serathine is happy at last,” Dean added, and his mouth twisted with something like grim affection. “She kept him in check for years. Half the reason Palatine didn’t implode earlier was because she had claws.”

Arion’s gaze stayed on Dean, quiet and intent. “She’s formidable.”

“She’s terrifying,” Dean corrected. “And she’s going to throw a party. If she doesn’t, I’ll throw one for her.”

Arion’s mouth twitched faintly. “You’re relieved.”

Dean stared at him like the answer should’ve been printed on the ceiling. “Relieved?” he echoed. “Arion, he spent years poisoning my family from the inside. Do you have any idea what it’s like to realize someone enjoys turning you against people you care about?”

Arion didn’t answer immediately. He watched Dean for a moment, his eyes narrowing slightly as he considered how to respond without worsening the situation.

“I do have an idea,” he said at last. “Not because I lived it the way you did, but because we weren’t blind to it.” He shifted back in his seat, posture still controlled, but his tone softened enough to stop sounding like an official report. “Alamina kept neutrality on paper, yes. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t pay attention.”

Dean’s lips pressed together. “So you knew.”

“We knew there was a fracture,” Arion agreed. “We knew it wasn’t ’family drama.’ We had intelligence, and we had context. Our alliance with Saha isn’t only for good-looking pictures; information moves between us, especially when a country like Palatine starts eating itself.”

Dean let out a breath that sounded too sharp to be calm. “It still feels… obscene that it was visible from the outside.”

“It was visible because Caelan didn’t hide it,” Arion said, voice steady. “He turned it into a pattern. You can only use the same cruelty for so long before it becomes recognizable.”

Dean’s gaze flicked away toward the window, then back. “He made it sound normal,” he muttered. “Like it was the job. Like love was weakness and loyalty was something you rationed.”

Arion’s eyes held his. “That’s why I’m not surprised you’re relieved,” he said, a little more quietly. “Because what you’re describing isn’t just a man who was unpleasant. It’s a man who made cruelty a method.”

Dean swallowed. “Ethan was the excuse,” he said.

Arion’s expression tightened, subtle but real. “Ethan was the means,” he replied. “And Sirius was the target. Your whole family was the battlefield.” He paused, then added, blunt in the way Alamians were blunt when it mattered: “Caelan wasn’t angry because Sirius loved someone. He was angry because Sirius chose something he couldn’t control.”

Dean’s jaw clenched. “So you watched it like… what? A diplomatic risk?”

Arion shook his head once. “We watched it like a warning,” he corrected. “Because Palatine instability doesn’t stay contained. It leaks into trade routes, treaties, and security agreements. It changes how everyone around you has to move.” His gaze didn’t waver. “And because when a ruler learns he can get away with that kind of cruelty, he doesn’t stop at his own walls.”

Dean was quiet for a moment. Then he said, low, “So you’re telling me you already knew what kind of man he was.”

“I knew enough,” Arion said. “Enough to recognize him the moment he started reaching for you.”

Dean’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Reaching for me.”

Arion didn’t soften it. “He wasn’t going to let you go cleanly,” he said carefully. “I doubt anyone from your circle knew this… maybe Lucas did when he saw the collar of Yerofei. But if you would have placed on that collar… you won’t be engaged to me only anymore.”

“What are you talking about?!” Dean visibly panicked.

Arion reached for his tablet, unlocked it and extended it to Dean. “Read.”

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