Chapter 90: Chapter 90: Pout

Arion watched Dean go with a calm that fooled most people.

Dean’s footsteps vanished into the bathroom, and the door clicked shut with a soft finality that felt louder than it should have. The room, which had been warm and close and scented with calm for hours, immediately changed shape around Arion’s awareness. The air thinned. The heat went elsewhere. Even Boreas shifted in place at the foot of the bed, letting out a low, dissatisfied huff, as if the configuration had been altered against his better judgment.

Arion lay on his back and stared at the ceiling for a moment like a man trying to remember why he ever tolerated distance.

His chest felt… wrong. He wasn’t in pain anymore.

He could still smell Dean in the sheets and on his own skin – faint warmth layered under vetiver, that clean, steady calm that didn’t demand anything and somehow gave everything – but it wasn’t the same as having him within reach. It wasn’t the same as breathing in the pheromones straight from the source, as if Dean’s body was a quiet anchor that told Arion’s nerves they didn’t have to prepare for impact.

Arion exhaled slowly.

He became painfully aware of the shape his arms had been in all night.

Empty.

His fingers flexed once on the blanket, a reflex that expected resistance, expected warmth, and expected that familiar weight to be there because it had been there and because his body had decided that was the correct state of the universe.

Nothing.

Arion frowned.

It was subtle enough that no photographer would have caught it, and no general would have dared comment on it, but the expression was there – an offended crease at the brow, a tightness at the mouth that looked, if anyone had been foolish enough to observe it, suspiciously like pouting.

Arion froze as the realization landed.

He was pouting.

Over an omega leaving his arms for five minutes.

Arion stared at the ceiling again, as if the ceiling might apologize for the indignity.

Boreas lifted his head, brown eyes tracking Arion with that maddening canine calm that suggested he understood everything and was judging accordingly.

Arion’s gaze slid to him.

Boreas blinked once, slow and pointed, then put his head back down with the smug serenity of a creature who had already decided Dean was pack and Arion was simply coping.

Arion’s jaw tightened.

He could hear Dean moving behind the door – water cutting off, the soft rustle of fabric, and the muted cadence of someone who was trying very hard to act like this morning was normal. As if being pinned by a crown prince for hours and used as a living sedative was something you could simply file away as a ’minor inconvenience’ and move on from.

Arion lay still, watching the door like it was a battlefield map.

The handle shifted, and Dean stepped out.

He looked… composed, in the way people looked composed when they were lying. Hair slightly messier, eyes sharper, posture too careful. He had that controlled expression that said, ’I will not be bullied by hormones or royalty, even if I am currently both threatened and entertained by them.’

Arion watched him cross the room with calculated patience, the way someone walks past a sleeping predator while pretending the predator is definitely asleep.

Dean didn’t look at the bed until he had to.

Then his gaze flicked over – brief, wary, and annoyingly fond for a heartbeat – before he slapped it shut.

Arion didn’t move or speak.

He simply kept his eyes open, tracking Dean with the unsettling patience of a man who knew exactly how this would end.

Dean paused at the edge of the bed as if he was considering saying something responsible.

Then he seemed to decide against it.

He cleared his throat. “Well.”

Arion’s eyes narrowed a fraction, attentive.

Dean gestured vaguely toward the door, as if he could wave himself into freedom. “I’m going to go to my room.”

Arion blinked once.

It was the only warning Dean got.

Dean tried to step away.

Arion moved fast enough to make Dean’s instincts tense before his mind could argue. Arion’s hand shot out and caught Dean’s wrist effortlessly, fingers closing in a firm, warm grip that stopped him mid-step like the palace itself had decided Dean was not leaving.

Dean froze.

Boreas lifted his head immediately, ears pricking, as if this was the start of something interesting.

Dean stared down at the hand on his wrist like he was watching a new law being written in real time.

“Arion,” Dean said slowly, voice dangerously calm, “what are you doing?”

Arion’s gaze held his, unhurried. “Keeping you.” He dared to smile brightly.

Dean stared at that smile like it was a weapon disguised as charm.

“You’re awake,” Dean said, enunciating each word the way you did when you were trying very hard not to commit a felony. “You are lucid. You are a crown prince. This is the moment you let go and pretend you weren’t just… doing that.”

Arion shifted his thumb against the inside of Dean’s wrist, confirming contact as if he enjoyed the fact that Dean’s pulse was alive beneath his hand.

“I am pretending nothing,” Arion said.

Dean’s brows rose. “That’s not a negotiation.”

Arion’s smile remained bright, unfairly so for a man who had been half-dead with exhaustion hours ago. “Correct.”

Dean inhaled through his nose, a controlled breath meant to steady something in himself that wanted to react on instinct. “Arion.”

Arion tipped his head, listening like he was being reasonable. Like he hadn’t just made a decision with his hand around Dean’s wrist.

Dean tried again, softer, almost diplomatic. “I’m going to my room.”

Arion’s gaze flicked down Dean’s throat and back up, shameless.

“No,” he said.

Dean blinked once.

It wasn’t even the refusal that offended him. It was the ease. The way Arion acted like this was simply an administrative correction.

Dean’s mouth tightened.

“I’m not a blanket,” Dean said.

Arion’s eyes narrowed, thoughtful, as if he was genuinely considering the argument. “You are,” he said a beat later, “a very effective blanket.”

Dean’s lips parted, then closed again on sheer disbelief. “That’s… not a compliment.”

“It is to me.”

Dean’s shoulders rose and fell. His gaze cut briefly to Boreas, who had lifted his head higher now and was watching Dean with the placid sympathy of a dog who knew exactly what was happening and had already accepted the outcome.

“Don’t you dare,” Dean muttered at the animal.

Boreas blinked slowly and, without moving his body, thumped his tail once against the bedding like a judge stamping approval.

Dean looked back at Arion.

Arion’s expression remained open and bright, but there was a territorial and stubborn edge beneath it, a quiet statement that he had found something that calmed his nerves and would not, under any circumstances, let it go unsupervised.

Dean tried to pull his wrist free.

Arion didn’t yank him back. He simply held with calm strength, making the attempt useless without ever making it a struggle. It was worse that way. It made Dean feel like the one escalating.

Dean’s eyes narrowed. “I will scream.”

Arion’s brows lifted. “You won’t.”

“You underestimate my capacity for public humiliation,” Dean replied, sweet and venomous. “I come from a family of dukes and emperors. We weaponize embarrassment.”

Arion’s smile flickered, just slightly, like the thought amused him. “Tell me, then,” he murmured, “what would you scream?”

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