Morning in the Fitzgeralt mansion arrived with sunlight filtered through expensive glass, the staff moving like clockwork, and the air smelling faintly of coffee and warm bread, as if the house itself had decided that last night's storm was not permitted to leave stains on the furniture.
Dean sat at the table with a mug in his hands and a tension in his shoulders he refused to name. He looked annoyingly normal for someone who had spent the night babysitting a Crown Prince through backlash recovery and then mentally rehearsing three separate ways this morning could explode… Maybe four.
Across from him, Arion looked equally normal in the way dangerous men always did. He was dressed casually in a crisp white shirt, with controlled posture, hair that hadn't dared misbehave, and eyes too bright for someone who had supposedly rested. He drank his coffee like it was a weapon.
Lucas sat at the head of the table, composed, unreadable, with the calm of a man who had made peace with chaos a long time ago.
Trevor, however, did not look calm.
Trevor looked like he had walked into his own kitchen and found a live bomb having breakfast with his family.
His displeasure was so strong that he didn't even bother pretending to be polite.
"Good morning," Dean offered, because someone had to pretend this was civil.
Trevor's eyes didn't leave Arion. "Is it?"
Lucas lifted his cup, unbothered. "Coffee?"
Trevor took it, still staring at Arion as if the cup might be used as a projectile.
Arion met the stare without blinking. He dared to not look apologetic. He looked like a man who had decided last night was a necessary inconvenience and was prepared to repeat it if the world required.
The silence held for exactly three seconds.
Then Trevor spoke.
"You," he said simply, voice calm in the way that meant it wasn't. "Explain."
Dean's stomach tightened. He glanced at Arion, a quiet warning in his eyes. 'Don't.'
Arion's jaw flexed once.
He could have refused. He had the power, the rank, the arrogance, and the temperament to do it.
Instead, he set his cup down with slow control.
"I will," Arion said. "But only because Dean is here."
He didn't look at Dean when he said it, and he certainly did not say it with affection.
But Dean felt it anyway, like a hand at his back.
Trevor's expression did not soften. "How generous."
Arion ignored the sarcasm like he had been trained to ignore gunfire.
"Palatine has a tradition," he began, voice even, "of keeping its dominants in the dark."
Lucas's gaze sharpened just a fraction. Dean's brows knit. Trevor's mouth tightened.
Arion continued, "You wrap your omegas in protection and your dominants in control. You call it stability, protocol, or love. But what it looks like from the outside is a country that manages its apex instincts by starving them of context until they break."
Trevor's fingers tapped once against the table. "That's a bold accusation from the man who used Lucas's history as leverage."
Arion's eyes flicked to Trevor, gold and hard. "I am not excusing my methods. I'm explaining the intention."
He took a slow breath, as if choosing how much to say without tearing something open in front of Dean.
"There are men like you," Arion said, looking at Trevor now, "who learned. Who adapted. Who had… exposure." His gaze held, and something pointed passed between them at the mention of that exposure, names not spoken, and influences that didn't belong in this room. "You learned to live with what you are without being lied to about it."
Trevor didn't respond, but the air changed slightly, as if a private door had been touched.
Arion's gaze moved to Lucas.
"And there are men like Lucas," he said. "Who were kept in the dark no matter the timeline."
Dean frowned, confused by the phrasing - timeline? - but no one paused to explain, and Dean didn't ask.
Lucas's expression didn't change, but Dean saw the minute tightening around his eyes, the way the words landed in a place that already ached.
"The Empire had information," Arion continued, voice low. "It always did. It had files, assessments, and classifications. It knew what Lucas was, what it meant, and what it would do to him if left unmanaged. And still it let him suffer through it blind. Again and again, across circumstances that should have taught you better."
Trevor's jaw set. "You're speaking like you were there."
Arion's gaze didn't waver. "In my world, we study patterns that don't leave clean traces. We deal with what the body remembers even when the mind doesn't. And your Empire - your beautiful, civilized Palatine - has always had a talent for hiding the harshest truths from the people who deserve them most."
Dean shifted uncomfortably, a heat under his skin that had nothing to do with pheromones. Something about this conversation felt like standing on a bridge and realizing, too late, that there was water under it.
Lucas set his cup down, very gently. "You're still justifying last night."
Arion's mouth tightened. "No. I am explaining why I have no patience for your delays."
Trevor's eyes narrowed. "And why you're bitter."
Arion's gaze cut sideways, as sharp as a blade. "Yes."
He leaned forward slightly, his voice losing some of its polish.
"My homeland bleeds to keep things contained," Arion said. "We sacrifice troops so the rest of the world can sleep. We hold the line when the beasts rise. We clean up what others call myths because it is easier for them to pretend it isn't real."
The table felt colder.
"And Palatine," Arion continued, each word measured, "sends condolences. Diplomatic statements. Carefully worded praise. And no help."
Trevor didn't look away. "We have our own borders."
"You have an empire," Arion snapped, the first crack in his control. He caught himself immediately, but the sound stayed in the room. "You have resources that could change outcomes. You choose not to deploy them because it is politically convenient to let Alamina burn quietly out of sight."
Dean's throat tightened. He looked at Trevor instinctively, then at Lucas, trying to read the adults in the room, trying to understand how much of this was truth and how much was Arion's anger weaponized.
Trevor's expression remained hard, but his eyes flared with something more complicated than simple fury.
Lucas's voice was calm when it came. "And your conclusion is that because your people suffer, you get to make my home your battlefield."
Arion's gaze flicked to Lucas. "My conclusion is that I do not have time for Palatine's games. Not when I am expected to go back and keep killing what no one else wants to acknowledge." His jaw tightened. "And not when the only person who stabilizes me is sitting at this table."
He still didn't say Dean's name when he admitted that.
Dean's pulse stuttered anyway.
Trevor's gaze dropped, briefly, to Dean, checking. Then back to Arion.
"You care," Trevor said flatly, as if the word itself were an accusation.
Arion's expression didn't change. "I am committed."
Dean's mouth twitched. Of course that was how Arion would phrase it. Like love was a contract and devotion was a strategic position.
Trevor's eyes narrowed. "Commitment doesn't excuse disrespect."
"It doesn't," Arion said, voice quiet now, the anger leashed again. "And I am not asking for absolution. I am asking for you to stop pretending that keeping people ignorant is the same as keeping them safe."
Lucas leaned back in his chair, gaze steady, dangerous in its calm. "And I am asking you," he replied, "to stop acting like your sacrifices give you the right to carve into my family and call it necessity."
A beat.
The room held its breath.
Dean set his cup down carefully, as if any sudden movement might shatter what little peace was left.
"Okay," Dean said, voice firm, cutting through the tension before it could sharpen into something worse. "We're not doing this like a war council."
Three heads turned toward him.
Dean held Arion's gaze first, warning him.
Then he looked at Trevor, softer but no less firm.
"If you want to argue," Dean said, "do it after I finish my coffee. Like normal people."
Lucas's lips twitched, despite everything.
Trevor's expression remained severe, but a fraction of the temperature in the room shifted.
"And for the love of God accept that both parties have problems."