Chapter 93: Chapter 93: Physician

“I’ve come here as fast as I can, only to meet the allegedly injured crown prince in his bedroom, a room filled with pheromones so thick that it is still ventilating after three hours. And a bitten lip. What is this?” the man asked, pacing through the sitting room of Arion’s suite while followed by a very happy Boreas.

“You are my physician, Seven,” Arion said, unbothered.

Seven stopped mid-step and turned on him with the slow, dawning expression of a man realizing he had been summoned under false pretenses.

“I am,” Seven agreed, voice strained with professional dignity hanging by a thread. “Which implies injury. Blood. Backlash. Internal damage. Possibly organs attempting to resign.”

He pointed two fingers toward Arion’s face.

“Not… romance.”

Arion blinked once. “It’s not romance.”

Seven’s eyes narrowed. “Your lip is bitten.”

Arion’s gaze did not shift. “I am aware.”

Seven stared for a long beat, then looked past Arion and into the hallway as if expecting a second patient to appear carrying a written confession.

Nothing.

Just quiet palace air and the lingering scent of an omega that had no business still being that present on the furniture.

Seven turned back slowly.

“Let me be clear,” he said, enunciating like he was speaking to a dangerous animal. “You called me here because you were ’unwell.’”

“You were called by the system, not me,” Arion said, taking a sip of his coffee.

Seven stared at him.

Arion sat in the sitting room like a man hosting a polite morning visit instead of the aftermath of a pheromone incident. He had showered after Dean left, because he was not an animal, allegedly, and changed into clean clothes that looked far too relaxed for royalty. His hair was still faintly damp at the nape. His face was composed. His lip was still bitten.

Which was, apparently, a statement he intended to keep making.

The coffee cup in his hand was expensive porcelain, the kind used in diplomatic receptions. Arion drank from it with slow calm, as if he hadn’t spent the early hours attached to his fiancé like a survival mechanism.

Seven’s gaze flicked to the windows again, which were still cracked open. Winter air slid in stubbornly, dragging the scent out by degrees, but the room still held onto it like a memory.

Seven’s mouth tightened.

“The system,” Seven repeated, with the careful tone of a man stepping around a landmine. “Meaning the alerts that trigger when your vitals…”

Arion’s eyes lifted briefly. “Yes.”

Seven’s brow rose. “So your vitals flagged you as unwell.”

Arion took another sip, unbothered. “Yes.”

Seven’s stare sharpened. “And you’re telling me you didn’t request me.”

“I didn’t,” Arion said calmly. “You’re here because the palace thinks I’m dramatic.”

Seven paused.

Then his eyes narrowed like a man doing math that offended him. “The palace does not ’think.’ The palace measures.”

Arion’s mouth twitched. “Then it measured me as dramatic.”

Seven opened his mouth, closed it, and turned slightly as if he needed to walk off the irritation before it became a professional violation. Boreas trailed him with cheerful devotion, tail wagging like this was an excellent morning routine and not a man’s last thread of sanity fraying.

Seven stopped pacing just long enough to look back.

“You,” Seven said, “have never triggered a system call from being ’dramatic.’ You trigger it from pheromone backlash, channel strain, exhaustion levels that qualify as criminal, and injuries you deny until you collapse in a hallway.”

Arion’s gaze remained serenely on Seven. “And?”

Seven stared.

Arion took another slow sip.

That was when Seven finally noticed what should have been obvious from the start: Arion was not braced.

There was no tension in his shoulders. No tightness around his eyes. No subtle tremor in his fingers holding the cup. No sharpness to his breathing. The prince’s scent was steady, calm, and properly contained – like a dominant who had slept, not like a dominant who had been running on anger and willpower for years.

Seven’s suspicion sharpened into something specific.

He turned his head and looked, very pointedly, toward the bedroom, then toward the corridor beyond, as if Dean might appear at any moment with a smug expression and a second bite.

Nothing.

Just air.

And that lingering omega scent that refused to admit it had been here for hours.

Seven’s gaze snapped back to Arion.

Arion’s mouth curved. He had the expression of a man who knew he was being read and was enjoying the process.

Seven’s eyes narrowed. “You showered.”

Arion blinked once. “Yes.”

“You changed,” Seven continued, voice flattening.

“Yes.”

“And yet,” Seven said slowly, gesturing around the room like he was presenting evidence to a court, “we are still ventilating a pheromone storm.”

Arion took a final sip of his coffee, then set the cup down slowly. “It was a very effective storm.”

Seven stared at him.

“You’re smiling,” Seven accused.

Arion’s expression remained neutral. “No, I’m not.”

“You are,” Seven said, with the exhausted certainty of a man who had seen war and still found this worse. “You look like you’re trying not to smile.”

Arion lifted his brows faintly. “That’s your medical opinion?”

“That is my,” Seven hissed, “unfortunate observational reality.”

Boreas sat down between them as if witnessing a formal debate. His tail thumped once against the rug.

Seven pointed at the dog without looking away from Arion. “And he’s happy.”

Arion glanced down at Boreas. “He likes Dean.”

Seven’s eyes went slightly wider.

Then he narrowed them again with renewed fury. “So he was here.”

Arion sighed, the sound long-suffering in a way that suggested he’d fought wars with less annoyance. “Seven. My fiancé was here the other night. He is the highest-matching dominant omega in the world and was kind enough to help me.”

“Did you sleep together?”

“For the love of… No,” Arion said.

Seven’s stare held for a beat longer, as if he could pressure reality into confessing.

Then he took a slow breath through his nose, the kind physicians took right before delivering bad news or committing a felony.

“Say it again,” Seven said, voice clipped. “But slower. So I can write it down without my pen catching fire.”

Arion’s eyes narrowed. “No.”

“Arion.”

Arion leaned back into the sofa with the calm arrogance of a man who had survived beasts and believed he could survive a doctor. “We shared a bed. We did not have sex. There was no mark. No bond.”

Seven’s brow twitched. He reached into his coat with unnecessary force and pulled out a small tablet and stylus, holding them like weapons.

“External pheromone stabilization,” Seven muttered while he wrote. “Unbonded. Non-sexual.”

Arion watched him, expression unreadable.

Seven paused mid-scribble and looked up. “And you did not,” he emphasized, “attempt to bite him.”

Arion blinked once. “No.”

Seven’s gaze sharpened with immediate suspicion. “That was too quick.”

Arion’s mouth twitched. “I didn’t.”

Seven wrote something that looked like a curse in medical shorthand, then snapped his eyes back up. “Did he bite you?”

Arion didn’t answer for half a second.

Seven’s pen froze.

The prince’s tone remained even. “What do you think happened to my lip?”

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