"Who do you think you are?" Caelan pushed up from his seat, impatience flashing through the polish. He clearly had no intention of staying now that the conversation wasn't going his way.
Arion didn't move.
He only hummed, and the air in the room changed - pheromones sliding out of him like shadows, curling through the space with quiet intent. A pressure settled in that made breathing feel like a chore, his dominance easily becoming real even in its restraint.
Caelan stilled.
Arion's smile didn't shift. "A Crown Prince," he said mildly, "of a nation that can bring your little empire to its knees without Trevor as an ally."
His gaze held Caelan's with calm certainty. "You knew that."
Caelan's jaw tightened.
Arion stepped forward - one measured step that made the distance feel like a choice he was allowing.
"And you also knew," Arion continued, voice still soft, "that this collar mess wasn't for Dean."
Caelan's eyes narrowed.
"It was for the parents," Arion said. "For Lucas and Trevor. For Serathine. For Sirius. Anyone who might be tempted to reconsider where their loyalty sits when their sons are involved." His smile sharpened. "You wanted to make sure they didn't 'change parties' for their children."
Caelan's nostrils flared once. "You're imagining…"
"I'm not imagining anything," Arion cut in, still pleasant. "I'm reading you."
The pheromones in the room tightened another fraction, circling, pressing just enough to make it clear that Arion could push if he wanted to, and that Caelan's age did not protect him from biology.
Arion's voice dropped, quieter. "You tried to remind the Fitzgeralts that Palatine still gets to decide what their family wears, what their family endures, what their family calls 'duty.'" He tilted his head. "You were wrong."
Caelan's hands clenched at his sides. "You can't dictate Palatine's traditions."
Arion's eyes flicked, amused. "I'm not dictating your traditions."
He stepped closer again -close enough now that Caelan would have to look up to hold his gaze properly, close enough to feel the cold calm rolling off him.
"I'm dictating my boundary," Arion said. "You don't touch Dean."
Caelan's mouth thinned. "Or what?"
Arion's smile finally softened into something almost polite again, which was somehow the most threatening thing he'd done so far.
"Or," Arion said, "you'll learn what it feels like when someone treats you as a political tool."
Caelan stared at him.
Arion held the stare easily. He was used to men trying to intimidate him with posture. Caelan's intimidation belonged to an era where people pretended age was a shield.
Arion's voice stayed low. "Sit down."
Caelan's jaw worked. For a second it looked like he might refuse out of pride alone.
Then the pheromones in the room shifted again, like a shadow passing over a throat.
Caelan's breath caught.
He sat.
Arion's smile returned, satisfied. "Good."
Then Arion leaned back slightly, reclaiming space with lazy ease, and added, almost conversational, "Now. About your apology."
—
Arion watched the man leave.
Caelan didn't say much after that. Most men like him didn't, not once they'd felt a dominant's pheromones settle into the room and understood, in their bones, that age and titles didn't stop a power like this. Pride could keep you standing for a second. Instinct always won eventually.
Caelan had agreed to apologize. To Dean. To Lucas. Words offered with the stiff reluctance of someone who treated apology like humiliation.
Arion didn't believe a syllable of it.
A man like Caelan didn't apologize because he understood he was wrong. He apologized because he'd been forced into a corner and needed space to breathe.
Arion stood by the window after the door closed, the capital of Palatine spread beneath him in glittering distance.
Was there a point in an apology from a dead man?
The thought landed calmly, almost lazily, and Arion's mouth curved into a smile that held no warmth.
His pheromones had already done their quiet work, leaving behind a fingerprint no one else could see.
Arion had a mixed profile - an anomaly even in Alamina, the type of dominance that never presented the same way twice. Most people thought they understood pheromones because they understood the obvious parts: intimidation, attraction, submission, and control.
They didn't understand what lived in the unseen edges.
Nobody truly knew what Arion could do.
Arion could leave something behind that didn't act immediately. A residue that waited in the body, nested like a quiet countdown. And when Arion decided he no longer needed it… it would finish what it had been told to finish.
Most of the doctors would consider it… a natural death.
He had no intention of ruining the engagement with Caelan's corpse on the palace floor. That would be messy. That would give Palatine a distraction, a martyr and a narrative to keep Dean there even longer.
No.
Caelan would not die here, under chandeliers and witnesses.
He would die when it was convenient.
Arion's gaze drifted over the city lights again, already calculating the timing with the same cold patience he used for military logistics. Dean's birthday. The ceremony. The flight. The moment Palatine's hands would lose their grip.
On the plane to Alamina.
In the air, between borders, where Palatine couldn't cling and accuse and posture. Where the only story left would be the one Arion allowed to exist.
A former Emperor - old, bitter, finally out of reach - collapsing from "stress."
Arion's smile sharpened slightly.
He didn't move from the window for a long moment.
Then he turned, picked up his glass again, and took a slow sip with the calm of a man with nothing left to negotiate.
"Zyon," he said, without raising his voice.
His secretary appeared as if he'd been waiting behind the door the entire time, which, knowing Zyon, he probably had.
"Yes, Your Highness."
Arion set the glass down with careful precision. "I want the plane ready the moment the engagement ends."
Zyon didn't blink. "Immediately after the ceremony?"
"Yes," Arion said. "No delays. No 'farewell dinners.' No extra hour for Palatine to invent another clause."
Zyon inclined his head. "Understood."
Arion's gaze drifted back to the window, to the city that still thought it could hold what it had already lost. "And make sure the flight plan clears as soon as we're in the air."
Zyon's pause was brief, just long enough to show he understood the subtext. "Between borders."
Arion's mouth curved faintly. "Exactly."
Zyon nodded once. "I'll handle it."
Arion's eyes remained on the lights. "Good."