"Leave before I give you permission," Arion said softly, "and Sylvia Croft will not make it home tonight."
Something in Dean snapped. His last thread of patience, diplomacy, and hope that something could be salvaged finally gave way.
"Did you lose your damn mind?" Dean shot back. His voice rang through the private room, raw and unfiltered. "An apology would have kept me here. A single acknowledgment that you crossed a line would have been enough. And instead you threaten the safety of my best friend?"
His hands were shaking with fury. He was so damn tempted to slap the man.
"You think this is dominance?" he continued, purple eyes blazing. "You think this is control? This is what? Leverage?" He laughed once, sharp and disbelieving. "Congratulations. You just turned a political engagement into a personal war."
Arion's pheromones still pressed against the room, heavy and territorial, but for the first time Dean did not retreat from them. He stood in them, breathing them in, and let his own presence rise in answer.
"We've met three times," Dean went on, voice controlled now in a way that was far more dangerous than shouting. "Twice I thought you were arrogant but… interesting. The third time, I realized the humor was just a veneer over something much darker."
He took a step closer, close enough that Arion could see the absolute clarity in his eyes.
"You don't get to call me yours and then use the people I love as pressure points. You don't get to test how far you can push before I break and expect me to fall in line."
Dean's voice dropped, quiet and lethal.
He straightened, every inch the son of a power that did not need threats to be real.
"You could have had my cooperation," Dean said. "Instead, you chose to show me exactly what kind of man you are."
Dean turned sharply, intent on leaving before his temper did something irreversible. He took two steps toward the door.
He didn't make it to the third.
A hand closed around his arm, iron-strong, and in the same motion Arion pulled him back against his chest. The height difference was brutal up close, Dean's shoulders hitting solid muscle, the alpha's presence folding around him like a wall.
"Don't put distance between us," Arion said low, close to his ear. Not quite a command or a plea, but something taut and dangerous in the middle.
Dean saw red.
His elbow came up hard, driven by fury and instinct, slamming into Arion's ribs.
The sound was dull and solid. It knocked the breath from him.
Arion grunted, a short, sharp sound, his grip loosening for a fraction of a second but not breaking. His forehead dipped briefly against Dean's hair as he inhaled through the pain.
"…Deserved," he admitted quietly.
Dean twisted in his hold, eyes blazing. "Let. Go."
Arion did not tighten his grip, but he didn't release him either. His voice, when it came, had lost its earlier silk and threat. It was rougher now, stripped of games.
"No," he said.
Dean wrenched against him again, fury burning through every line of his body. "You threaten my best friend, you asshole!" he snapped, the word raw, torn from his throat. "And you think you get to decide when I'm allowed to leave?"
Arion's jaw tightened. His grip finally loosened, not releasing, but shifting so Dean could turn and could face him.
"I said it because you were walking away," Arion said, low and flat. "Because you always do that. The moment things stop going the way you like, you reach for the door."
His eyes dragged over Dean's face, slow, assessing, and possessive.
"I'm done chasing you while you hide behind your name, your parents, and your comfort. You think you can afford to treat this like a game because you've never had to bleed for a choice in your life."
Dean's eyes flared. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me," Arion continued, unmoved. "You get to be offended, to be dramatic, to walk out and let other people clean up the consequences. I don't. When I decide something is mine, I don't get the luxury of retreat."
His hand tightened briefly around Dean's waist.
"So yes, I said what I said to make you stop. To make you face me instead of running back to the safety of your world the second you don't like the tone of mine."
Dean laughed sharply, all teeth and temper. "You threaten my friend and then lecture me about courage?"
"I threaten what you care about because that is the only thing that makes you stay," Arion replied without hesitation. "You don't move for yourself. You move when your comfort is shaken."
A beat.
For a second, Dean just stared at him, purple eyes blazing with rage.
Something raw and incandescent tore through the last thin layer of restraint. The spoiled heir, the diplomat, and the careful son of power vanished, burned away by fury and insult and the sheer audacity of being told that his love, his loyalty, and his fear were weaknesses to be exploited.
"You don't get to psychoanalyze me," Dean said, voice shaking with contained violence. "And you don't get to decide what makes me stay."
Arion opened his mouth, likely to answer, to press, to claim again…
Dean's hand moved first.
The slap cracked through the room, sharp and clear, skin against skin, echoing off the walls like a gunshot.
Arion's head snapped to the side with the force of it.
For a heartbeat, the world seemed to freeze.
Dean's chest heaved, fingers still tingling from the impact, his entire body trembling with rage. His eyes were bright, furious, wet from the emotion that came from being cornered and misjudged and pushed past the point of dignity.
"Don't you ever," he said hoarsely, "tell me I only care when I'm threatened. Don't you ever reduce the people I love to tools in your hands. And don't you ever call that possession."
Silence fell, thick with pheromones on the verge of igniting.