The diplomatic wing of Palatine's imperial palace pretended it was neutral.
It wore neutrality like a well-tailored suit: glass walls that didn't quite reflect your face, pale stone that never held warmth, and art chosen because no one could accuse it of belonging to a single history. Even the air felt negotiated, filtered, and faintly floral, the type of scent intended to offend no one but still irritated him.
Arion sat behind a desk that was not his, in a chair built for long meetings and short souls. The city pressed flat under a colorless sky, and the palace itself hummed with the constant, quiet movement of power, with guards rotating, aides whispering, and doors opening like mouths that never said what they meant.
His tablet rested on a stand to his left, camera angled just enough to catch the line of his jaw and not the tension in his shoulders. The call had already connected.
Emperor Otto filled the screen like he filled rooms back home. His father was seated in his private office in Alamina, framed by dark wood, maps, and the kind of lived-in order that came from a man who didn't need to prove he belonged at the center of anything. He looked at Arion for a long moment, then exhaled as if he'd been waiting to see the state of him.
"You look like you've been chewing marble again," Otto said.
Arion's mouth twitched, a restrained reaction that still counted as amusement. "Palatine provides plenty."
Otto's eyes warmed. "I know. Sirius can wrap a delay in silk so neatly that people thank him for it."
Arion's fingers rested on the desk's edge, still controlled.
Otto leaned back slightly. This was a father calling his son because he could hear the exhaustion in the pauses between sentences, even across borders.
"How many times did they 'almost' finalize something this week?" Otto asked, dry.
Arion's gaze flicked to the window as if the city itself were guilty. "Enough that I've started to recognize which aide is sent to soften the disappointment."
Otto huffed a quiet laugh, brief and human. "Of course. What do you think about Dean Fitzgeralt?"
Arion didn't answer immediately, not because he didn't have one, but because the honest answer had too many layers, and most of them were dangerous.
"He's not what Palatine had let him out to be," Arion said at last.
Otto's brows lifted a fraction. "That can mean many things."
"It means he's calm without being soft," Arion replied, voice even. "He has boundaries. It means he smiles at the right people and still keeps his spine. It means he can be amused by a handsome face and still refuse the hand attached to it if it's attached to an idiot."
Otto's mouth twitched. "And you're not an idiot."
Arion let out a quiet breath that might have been a laugh if he was home. "Debatable."
Otto's eyes warmed again. "So you like him."
"Surprisingly, I do. I didn't expect it, though." Arion leaned back in his chair, the movement controlled but tired at the edges. "And I haven't… been on my best behavior lately."
Otto's gaze narrowed like he could already hear the next confession hiding behind Arion's choice of words. "Define 'best behavior.'"
Arion's mouth twitched, humorless. "Palatine is excellent at dragging the worst out of you and calling it diplomacy."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only polite one," Arion said, then exhaled and let the truth land. "I let my scent slip."
Otto didn't move. "On purpose."
"Yes."
A beat of silence. Otto's expression didn't harden, but the warmth thinned.
"So you weaponized it," Otto said, calm and dry. "Just enough to see whether the omega flinches or steps in."
Arion's eyes narrowed slightly. "Should I be surprised that you already know?"
Otto's mouth curved faintly. "No. I raised you."
Arion's fingers tapped once on the desk, an impatient habit he usually strangled before it showed. "It wasn't dangerous."
Otto's gaze stayed firm. "You don't get to decide that alone."
Arion held his father's eyes through the screen. "I controlled it."
"I know," Otto said, and somehow that was the most condemning part. "That's what makes it a choice."
Arion didn't argue, because he couldn't. Not with Otto. Not when Otto's entire life had been built around distinguishing accident from intent.
"What did Dean do?" Otto asked, quieter.
Arion's expression shifted, tightened in his jaw, then eased again as if the memory itself regulated him.
"He took action," Arion said. "I didn't expect for him to feel it, but he did."
Otto's brows lifted a fraction. "He intervened."
"He anchored it," Arion corrected. "He didn't make a scene. He didn't call guards like I was a bomb. He called for a physician and used his own pheromones to contain it."
Otto leaned back slightly, the chair shifting under him. For a moment, he looked more like a father than an emperor, because this wasn't a report about politics; it was a report about a bond forming under pressure.
"And afterward?" Otto asked.
"He was angry," Arion said, and there was a trace of something like satisfaction in it that he didn't bother hiding. "At me."
Otto's mouth twitched again. "Good."
Arion's eyes narrowed. "Good?"
"Good," Otto repeated, unbothered. "An omega who can be angry at you and still choose to stabilize you isn't doing it for fear. He's doing it because he cares. Or because he's as stubborn as you are."
Arion's gaze held, steady and unblinking. "He's stubborn."
Otto's eyes warmed. "So are you."
Arion let out a slow breath. "I was pleased."
Otto didn't ask why. He didn't need to.
"And you wanted to test that," Otto said, tone dry again. "Because you're incapable of simply wanting something like a normal man. You have to poke it until it shows you its teeth."
Arion's mouth twitched, almost real. "It did show teeth."
Otto nodded once. "So. You like him. You've confirmed he'll step toward you when it matters. Now tell me… Are you going to keep testing him, or are you going to start treating him like your mate?"
Arion went still.
The question wasn't about strategy. It was about what Arion was going to do with the truth now that he had it.
"He is my mate," Arion said quietly.
Otto's gaze softened, the faint edge of relief showing before he covered it again. "Then stop trying to win him like he's a province."
Arion's jaw tightened, then eased. "Palatine keeps pushing."
"I know," Otto said, gentle and firm all at once. "That's why I'm calling. I can hear the fatigue in you even when you're trying to sound untouchable."
Arion didn't look away this time. "I plan to finish everything in three weeks."
"Yes," Otto said. "Three weeks. Enough time to make this engagement real without turning it into a trap."
Arion's fingers stilled completely on the desk. "And if he calls me reckless again?"
Otto's eyes warmed. "Then you apologize like a man, not a prince."
Arion's mouth went thin. "That's offensive."
Otto huffed a quiet laugh. "You'll survive."