Dean wondered if he was sane or not.
Why had he agreed to meet the Crown Prince in a restaurant of all places? Not a council chamber, not a negotiation room with ten lawyers and three security layers, but a public space with linen tablecloths, quiet music, and the discreet service that pretended not to see anything while seeing absolutely everything.
It was managed by the Imperial House of Palatine, of course. Neutral ground in the way only carefully curated neutrality could be. Still, it was outside the palace, and that alone felt like a small victory.
He arrived early. Intentionally.
The hostess recognized him immediately, bowed just enough to be respectful without turning it into a scene, and led him to a private corner table with a view of the city. A place chosen for people who needed privacy without wanting to look like they were hiding.
Dean sat down and immediately regretted having time to think.
What exactly was he planning to say?
That Arion had crossed a line? That the way he spoke had stripped choice out of something that was supposed to be built on consent? That being told "you are my omega" by a man who had never once considered hearing "no" had unsettled him more than any political pressure ever could?
And what if Arion didn't understand?
Worse… what if he did and simply didn't care?
Dean exhaled slowly and folded his hands in his lap, forcing his posture to relax. He wasn't that naive, he understood that Arion had as much choice in all of this as he did. But Arion could give Dean the courtesy of time and understanding. For fuck's sake, they had a 5-year difference between them.
Five years wasn't nothing. Not in politics, not in power, and definitely not in lived experience. It was the difference between someone who had grown up being trained for responsibility and someone who had already been shouldering it for a decade and had the emotional scars to prove it.
Dean didn't need Arion to be gentle. He wasn't made of glass. He could handle dominance, pressure, and the presence that bent rooms around it. What he could not, and would not, handle was being treated like a line item in a doctrine.
He wanted to be seen as a person. A very important person, yes. A politically inconvenient, biologically terrifying, internationally strategic person. But still a person.
He glanced at the window, watching traffic flow by like the world had not collectively decided his romantic life was a matter of continental security. Cars stopped at lights. People crossed streets. Someone was probably late to work and thinking their day was going badly, blissfully unaware that somewhere a dominant omega was preparing to negotiate with a crown prince over the concept of basic respect.
Perspective was humbling.
Anger would have been easier. Staying in the palace, letting Sebastian glare, letting Lucas and Trevor sharpen their polite smiles into weapons, letting the situation escalate into something that made historians salivate. Dean was fully aware he could start a diplomatic incident by blinking wrong.
But this was his mess. His engagement. His future. And if Arion had crossed a line, then Dean would be the one to redraw it.
Dean rolled his shoulders once, letting the last of the nervous energy burn off. He wasn't here to challenge dominance, start a war, or prove anything about power dynamics. He was here to do something far more dangerous.
To set boundaries with a Crown Prince. In public. Over coffee.
Truly unhinged behavior.
The door of the restaurant opened.
Dean did not look up immediately. He took one more slow breath, one that said, All right, universe. Let's do this the civilized way before I start reorganizing empires out of spite.
Let the Crown Prince of Alamina walk in.
Dean Fitzgeralt was ready to negotiate.
—
Dean wasn't ready to negotiate.
The face card was criminally strong with this one.
He felt Arion before he truly saw him, the way attention in the room shifted without anyone consciously deciding to give it. No dramatic silence, no scraping chairs or turning heads, just that subtle, instinctive awareness that something with weight had entered the space.
Then Arion was there.
Dark coat, dark hair, and that calm demeanor of someone who never needed to hurry because the world usually adjusted around him instead. He didn't look for his table so much as take in the room, like a man used to reading terrain before choosing where to stand. It was infuriatingly controlled. Unfairly attractive.
Dean, who had been mentally rehearsing calm boundaries and diplomatic maturity, had exactly one traitorous thought:
'Oh no. He's even worse in normal outing.'
Which was deeply inconvenient and not at all what Dean had planned to deal with over coffee.
Arion's gaze found him immediately, settling as if Dean had been the obvious centerpiece from the start.
Out of pure stubbornness, Dean kept his eyes on the table for a few seconds longer than necessary.
'Do not react.'
'Do not melt.'
'Do not let the dangerously handsome crown prince win in under a minute.'
When he finally looked up, his expression was composed, and he was doing a very poor job of hiding the way his pulse had picked up.
Arion had already paused beside the table, close enough that his presence was felt, the quiet pressure of another dominant in the space. He wasn't invading. He was simply… there, with all the confidence of someone who had never had to question whether he was allowed to be.
"Dean," Arion said softly.
No title, only his first name spoken like it belonged to him.
'Rude.'
Dean straightened on instinct. "Your Highness."
Arion's eyes flicked to the empty chair across from him in a silent question.
Dean gestured. "Sit. Before I start charging rent for the air you're taking up."
The faintest curve touched Arion's mouth, as if he found that far more amusing than he should have.
He took the seat.
Up close, it was worse - the scar, the chilly gold of his eyes, and the stillness that came from someone who had never needed to rush because time usually waited for him.
Dean folded his hands together like a man preparing for a reasonable conversation and not one who was about to negotiate with a walking geopolitical problem.
"So," he said lightly, "good morning. I see you managed to enter like a normal person today. No climbing involved. Personal growth. I'm proud."