Chapter 80: Chapter 80: Duty

Tyana failed first. She choked on her drink and coughed, eyes watering. “An hour and a half?”

Ariana’s composure cracked into a small, helpless smile. Even Caroline’s mouth twitched.

Minerva, absolutely delighted, leaned her chin into her hand. “That’s not a relationship, darling. That’s a meeting.”

“It was a mistake,” Dean muttered, because he refused to be romantic about it. “I panicked. She said yes. Then we walked around a park like two people pretending to be normal, and the entire time I could feel her judging me.”

Tyana wiped at her eyes, still laughing. “Oh, she loved you.”

“She loved mocking me,” Dean corrected. “Different genre.”

Arion’s gaze stayed on Dean, unreadable in that controlled way of his. But his pheromones created the sensation that made Dean’s nape prickle from the alpha’s curiosity.

“Why did it end after an hour and a half?” Arion asked, too calm.

Dean turned his head toward him slowly, suspicion sharpening. “You’re not allowed to be curious like that.”

“I am allowed,” Arion said, unbothered. “I’m your fiancé.”

Dean grimaced. “That is not how permission works.”

“It is in my head,” Arion replied, and Otto made a small sound into his glass like he’d just swallowed a laugh.

Dean pointed his fork at Arion like it was a warning. “Do not start.”

Arion’s golden eye didn’t flicker. “I’m listening.”

Dean exhaled, then gave the truth the way he gave most truths, wrapped in sarcasm so nobody could stab him with it later.

“Because Sylvia stopped walking in the middle of the park, looked me dead in the face, and said: ’Dean, this is weird.’”

Minerva’s shoulders shook with silent laughter.

Tyana leaned forward, delighted. “And you said?”

“I said, ’Yes.’” Dean’s mouth twisted. “And then she said, ’Great, then we agree,’ and bought me a hot chocolate like I’d survived a traumatic event.”

Tyana absolutely lost it.

Ariana covered her mouth with her napkin, dignity hanging by a thread.

Caroline’s eyes softened. “That’s… actually sweet.”

“It was humiliating,” Dean insisted.

“It was friendship,” Minerva corrected, warm and smug. “She saw you trying and didn’t let you drown.”

Dean’s ears warmed. He hated that Minerva made it sound kind.

Arion’s gaze stayed on Dean’s face like he was mapping every detail. “So you asked her out,” he said, slowly. “It went badly. And she handled it without cruelty.”

Dean narrowed his eyes. “Don’t make her sound like a saint. She called me a ’socially distressed deer.’”

Tyana wheezed. “That’s accurate.”

Dean glared at her.

Before he could respond, an alarm rang from Arion’s phone, loud enough for everyone at the table to recognize it as something out of place at lunch.

Arion’s hand stilled.

The entire room shifted with him, like a flock moving as one.

Otto’s gaze lifted instantly. Minerva’s smile softened into calm focus. Ariana’s posture straightened. Tyana’s amusement tucked itself away. Caroline’s eyes sharpened, already scanning Arion’s expression as if reading a report off his face.

Arion glanced down at the screen.

Dean knew about the beasts. Everyone in Palatine knew, in the abstract way you knew about storms happening in another country, but it was not something you pictured entering your day like this.

He had expected protocols. A chain of command. Orders relayed. Men dispatched.

He hadn’t expected Arion to go himself so easily. Like it was an obvious, nonnegotiable thing.

Arion’s thumb moved once. His golden eyes flicked across the alert, and whatever warmth he’d been letting Dean have vanished into a locked drawer.

“Border,” Arion said, voice even.

Otto didn’t need clarification. “Trespass?”

“Confirmed,” Arion replied. “Beasts. Two packs. One breach point, one decoy movement.”

Dean’s fingers tightened around his fork. He glanced at Arion’s face again, looking for hesitation.

There wasn’t any.

Tyana blinked. “During lunch?”

Ariana’s mouth twitched. “They’re considerate like that.”

Minerva leaned back slightly, already weighing it. “How close to civilians?”

Arion scrolled once, the screen’s glow catching faintly against his lashes. “A village route. If they shift east, they’ll hit the outer farms first.”

He rose and placed his napkin on the table with a soft thud.

“I will return in about two hours,” he said, tone calm, already halfway out of lunch and into command. His gaze flicked once toward Dean. “Don’t scare him until then.”

Tyana’s grin went sharp. “He told us not to scare you,” she announced, immediately delighted by the concept.

Dean stared at her. “That was absolutely not a request for you to interpret creatively.”

Ariana’s voice stayed smooth. “It’s not creative. It’s instinct.”

Caroline’s eyes lingered on Dean for a beat, less amused than the others, like she was actually taking inventory of what this was doing to him. Then she spoke, quiet and practical. “Eat. You’ll feel worse if you don’t.”

Dean’s jaw tightened. “I’m fine.”

Minerva hummed softly, unfooled, and rose to escort him to the door with the elegance that only imperial households could achieve without appearing choreographed.

“Two hours,” Minerva repeated, as if pinning it to the air. “Try not to make it three.”

Arion’s mouth twitched faintly. “I don’t like being late.”

“That’s because you don’t sleep enough to understand time properly,” Minerva replied sweetly.

Otto stood as well, his gaze already distant, indicating that he was mentally updating the country. “Take who you need.”

Arion gave a single nod. He didn’t look at Otto like a son asking permission. He looked like the Crown Prince receiving a confirmation of something already decided.

Then he returned one last glance to Dean, his golden eyes steady and quiet in their intent.

Dean caught it, and his stomach did that stupid, traitorous thing again: tightened, then dropped, like his body wanted to follow.

Arion didn’t say anything else. He just left.

The door closed behind him with a clean, controlled sound.

For half a second the dining room felt too large, like someone had removed a weight that had also been warmth.

Boreas lifted his head immediately, ears flicking toward the exit. His tail thumped once.

Dean looked at the dog. The dog looked at Dean, unblinking, as if evaluating whether Dean could be trusted to remain alive for the duration of Arion’s absence.

Tyana leaned forward, elbows on the table, eyes bright with chaos she absolutely should not be allowed to have before noon. “So,” she said lightly, “what was it like being carried like a princess?”

Dean’s fork paused midair. Slowly, he set it down.

Minerva’s voice drifted from her seat, mild and pleased. “Tyana.”

Tyana smiled wider. “What? I’m not scaring him. I’m bonding.”

Dean stared at her with the exhausted patience of a man who had survived Palatine politics and believed he’d earned peace. “If you ’bond’ with me like this for two hours, Arion will come back and kill you himself, and I will testify on his behalf.”

Ariana made a quiet sound that might’ve been approval. Caroline’s mouth twitched.

Otto sat back down like none of this had happened, poured himself coffee, and said, with maddening calm, “Eat first. Threaten my daughter later.”

Dean reached for his water, took a sip, and then glanced again toward the closed door.

Two hours.

He hated that his brain immediately started counting what two hours could become if the world decided to misbehave.

Boreas, as if sensing it, got up and moved closer to Dean’s chair, settling beside him with the heavy finality of a guard dog assigned by fate itself.

Dean exhaled through his nose and continued the lunch.

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