"Do you want a collar?" Arion asked.
Dean was taken aback by the bluntness of it. Arion had, so far, behaved like a man who simply did what he wanted and a collar had sounded like the kind of tool used to make things easier for everyone else, not for Dean. Clearly, he'd been wrong. Or maybe he'd been stubborn on purpose because admitting a collar could be useful felt dangerously close to admitting he needed something.
"I don't mind one," Dean said in the end, and it came out sincere enough to surprise even him. "It would be… a boundary. A clear signal. And maybe I won't have to fight social pressure every time someone decides my body is a public discussion. People stay away from collared omegas in general."
Arion's eyes narrowed slightly. "So you want one," he said, "or you're willing to accept one because it's necessary?"
Dean's mouth twitched. "That was the same sentence twice."
"It wasn't," Arion replied, unbothered. "Answer."
Dean exhaled slowly, then looked at him properly - at the calm control, at the quiet possessiveness threaded beneath it, at the way Arion's attention didn't drift even when the conversation turned political and ugly.
"I want one," Dean said. "But only from you."
Arion's golden eyes widened, just a fraction, as if the answer had hit somewhere it wasn't supposed to reach. Pleasure flickered through his expression before he smoothed it away, but it had been already there.
Lucas, watching, looked like he'd just found one small reason not to set the restaurant on fire.
"Then," Arion said softly, "I should give it to you now."
Dean blinked. "Now?"
"You can still choose," Arion added, voice steady. "You can wear it, or we commission something else, or you wear nothing and let the palace choke on its own assumptions. But if you want a collar from me, then you should have it from me."
He looked to Zyon.
"Send for the gift I prepared for Dean," Arion said.
Zyon didn't ask questions. He only inclined his head once, already moving, visibly relieved to be given a task that didn't involve watching three powerful men negotiate a chain.
When Zyon slipped away, the table fell into a quieter tension.
Dean's hands rested on his knees under the linen, fingers curled once, then released. He could feel Lucas's gaze on him waiting for Dean to panic or harden or retreat.
He didn't. He just… breathed.
Arion watched him with a focus that didn't pretend to be casual anymore. The earlier ease was gone. This was a line being drawn where Caelan had tried to draw one for them.
"You don't have to do this to appease anyone," Arion said quietly, as if he'd read the hesitation Dean hadn't spoken.
Dean's mouth twitched. "I know."
Arion's gaze held. "Do you?"
Dean looked at the velvet case on the table, the obscene heirloom, the "mercy" collar, both of them smelling like Palatine's idea of control, and felt the anger return, colder now.
"I do," Dean said. "That's why I don't want theirs."
Arion's expression softened by a hair. Approval again. Possessive satisfaction. Then he masked it, because Arion didn't make emotions easy for anyone.
Footsteps returned.
Zyon reappeared with a case that looked nothing like Caelan's. It wasn't velvet-heavy like a trap. It was sleek, polished, built to protect something valuable without needing to scream about its importance.
He set it down in front of Arion and stepped back.
Arion didn't open it immediately. He looked at Dean first, as if asking without words: 'Still yes?'
Dean met his eyes and gave a single nod.
Arion opened the case.
Inside lay a collar that didn't try to look harmless.
It was beautiful, wide and finely worked, like soft metallic mesh that would sit flush against skin, flexible enough to move with breath rather than fight it. At the center rested an oval amber stone, warm as captured sunlight, framed by a delicate halo of smaller clear gems. Beneath it hung a single drop of amber, cut to catch the light when the wearer moved.
Dean stared.
For a second, he forgot to be irritated. Forgot to be principled. Forgot to be sarcastic.
Sylvia's voice would have had a field day with this.
Lucas's expression tightened in that protective way it always did when something too intimate became visible.
And Arion… Arion looked at the collar like it was both a gift and a claim and a promise he intended to keep.
"This is mine," Arion said quietly, the tone reserved only to Dean.
Dean swallowed. "It's… a lot."
"It's meant to be seen," Arion replied simply. "So you don't have to keep explaining yourself to people who don't deserve explanations."
Dean's eyes flicked to the amber stone again. Warm. Alive. Almost like it had a pulse.
"And the lock?" Dean asked, forcing his voice back into something steady.
Arion's mouth twitched faintly. "Keyed to you," he said. "Your pheromones. Your choice. I can't open it."
Lucas made a quiet sound of approval, almost too subtle to notice.
Dean looked up at Arion. "So if I put it on…"
"It stays until you decide otherwise," Arion finished. His gaze sharpened. "Not until I decide. Not until the palace decides. You."
Dean's throat tightened, because that was the part that mattered to him. That Arion, against anything that happened until now between them, was giving him more choice than his grandfather did.
He reached out slowly, fingertips hovering over the metal mesh, then touching it. Cool. Smooth. Shockingly soft for something so heavy with meaning.
Arion watched his hand like he was watching a vow being written.
Dean lifted his eyes again. "If I wear this, everyone will assume I'm yours."
Arion's gaze didn't flinch. "You already are," he said, and then, as if he realized how that sounded, he added with deliberate care, "in the way you choose to be."
Dean's mouth twitched, half a smile and half a threat. "Careful."
Arion's eyes warmed. "I'm trying."
Lucas cleared his throat loudly, like a man reminding the room that this was still a world with witnesses and consequences. "Dean."
Dean blinked once, grounding himself. Then he nodded slowly.
"I want it," Dean said.
Arion's expression shifted again, pleasure, sharp and controlled, like a blade catching light.
"Then," Arion murmured, "I'll put it on you. If you allow it."
Dean held his gaze. "I allow it."
For a second, the restaurant felt very far away, the world outside the booth muted, like even Palatine's hunger had paused to watch.
Arion reached for the collar with careful hands, and Dean realized, with a quiet shock, that this was the first time since the clause arrived that he didn't feel like prey.
He felt like a person making a choice.
And that, more than any gemstone, was the real gift.