Taming the Wild Beast of Alamina

A week later, both of them were, according to the physicians, ’significantly improved,’ which Dean had learned was medical language for no longer actively falling apart in front of witnesses.

It was, in his opinion, a slanderously optimistic phrase.

Yes, nothing was broken now.

Yes, the experimental cloned healing pheromones had worked with a level of efficiency that made several departments behave as though they had personally discovered divinity in a sterile container. The fractured rib had knit. The shoulder no longer felt like an ideological disagreement held together by pain and resentment. The bruising at his throat had faded from violent to merely offensive. Arion’s collarbone had sealed cleanly. The cuts had closed. The deep bruising had thinned. Even the line under his jaw had faded into something subtle enough that lesser people might miss it.

Dean did not miss it.

Nor did he miss the fact that ’recovered’ did not mean ’released.’

They were still under supervision.

Still being scanned, monitored, and forced to endure Seven.

Seven, who had begun as Arion’s personal general practitioner and had now, through bad luck and imperial reach, become Dean’s as well, was not a happy man.

This unhappiness was not loud.

That would have been easier.

Seven’s unhappiness was elegant, controlled, and so clinically refined that Dean had started to suspect it counted as a subspecialty. He could make a blood pressure cuff feel accusatory. He could review healing scans like a magistrate reading out civil penalties. He never raised his voice. His disappointment was so concentrated that it did eventually become a weapon.

At present, he was standing near the main suite door with a tablet in hand and the expression of a man who had been betrayed by biology, royalty, and his own profession in equal measure.

"Let me be sure I understand," Seven said. "The cloned healing pheromones worked. Both of you responded above expectation. Neither of you is currently broken. Therefore, naturally, you have both decided this is the perfect time to become mobile, argumentative, and medically offensive again."

Dean, seated in one of the recovery chairs and wearing actual clothes instead of hospital misery, looked up from the tea he had not been allowed to make himself. "I don’t appreciate the accusatory tone."

Seven did not even glance at him. "That is because you are the accusation."

Across the room, Arion stood by the window, dressed simply and looking far too much like a man fully restored to function for Seven’s peace of mind. He was not fully restored. Dean knew that. Seven knew that. Arion was simply better at looking complete than most people were at being it.

Which was probably why Seven had taken to glaring at him like a personal betrayal.

Arion, with the audacity of someone who had been raised imperial and therefore had never been properly taught fear, said, "We are here."

"Yes," Seven said. "And unfortunately ambulatory."

Dean took a sip of tea. "You know, if you were less competent, that would be charming."

Seven looked at him then.

It was a very measured look.

"Drink your tea," he said.

Dean looked down at the cup in offense. "You say that as if I’m six."

"I say that," Seven replied, "as if you are a patient with a demonstrated tendency to make catastrophic decisions while under stress and then ask for research citations before the blood is dry."

Arion, to Dean’s intense irritation, did not contradict this.

Instead, he said, "You wanted to speak with us."

Seven’s mouth flattened. "Not I."

Dean lowered the cup slightly.

Arion’s posture changed by almost nothing.

Seven continued, "His Majesty and Her Majesty asked to see both of you the moment you were medically stable enough to survive conversation."

Dean blinked. "That is a terrible endorsement."

"It is not meant as one."

Arion’s expression did not move, but Dean knew him well enough now to feel the tiny hardening under it.

"Otto," Arion said.

"Yes," Seven replied. "And Minerva."

Dean looked between them. "That sounds ominous."

Seven gave him a long look. "It should."

Dean considered that. "Excellent. I do love being summoned by the imperial family for reasons that are almost certainly disciplinary."

"You," Seven said, "should love silence."

"That feels personal."

"It became personal the moment I had to explain to the Emperor why his son and his son’s mate nearly separated their bond expression in a training ring."

Dean stared at him.

Then at Arion.

Then back at Seven. "You had to phrase it like that."

"I had to phrase it accurately."

Arion’s voice was very level. "How much do they know?"

Seven’s brows rose a fraction. "Enough."

That was not enough detail for Dean, who despite everything remained interested in the boundaries of his own doom.

"Define enough," he said.

Seven turned to him with the expression of a man re-entering a familiar headache. "They know you both sustained injuries well beyond acceptable training parameters. They know there was a temporary collapse in bonded expression. They know Prince Arion lost control under a biological threat cascade." He paused. "They know the phrase ’not through another fight’ was said by multiple witnesses with unusual conviction."

Dean leaned back carefully in the chair. "That does, in retrospect, sound bad."

Arion looked at him.

Dean lifted one hand. "I said in retrospect."

Seven went on mercilessly. "They also know that both of you responded to an experimental cloned healing pheromone treatment well enough to avoid a longer recovery. Which means the audience with them is not delayed by broken bones and therefore cannot be evaded by looking tragic."

Dean looked at his tea. "I feel I was treated unnecessarily in that sentence."

"You were treated extensively," Seven said. "And still insufficiently."

Arion pushed away from the window then. "We’ll go."

Seven hummed once, the sound so dry it could have sterilized instruments. "They said they prefer for them to come here."

That stopped the room more effectively than if he had raised his voice.

Dean lowered the cup a fraction. "That," he said, "is never how good conversations begin."

Seven looked at him with the cold patience of a man who had seen too much healing wasted on people determined to remain troublesome. "No. It generally begins the kind where heads of state prefer witnesses, medical clearance, and immediate access to sedation."

Dean blinked. "That feels pointed."

"It was."

Arion’s posture changed by almost nothing, which in him usually meant a great deal. "Otto is coming here."

"Yes," Seven said. "With Minerva."

Dean looked from one of them to the other. "I am delighted that everyone is committed to making this as intimate and medically supervised as possible."

"No one asked you to be delighted," Seven replied.

"I know. I’m improvising."

That, apparently, was the last acceptable sentence before irritation became procedure. Seven tapped his tablet once, then turned toward the side console and said, "Sit somewhere that doesn’t make you both look like convalescent war criminals. If the emperor and empress are going to lecture you, they can at least do it with your spines properly aligned."

Dean looked down at himself. "I think I look respectable."

"You look recently reconstructed."

"That is rude."

"That is visual assessment."

Arion crossed the room without comment and stopped beside Dean’s chair. "Can you stand without dramatics?"

Dean looked up at him in fresh offense. "Why does concern from you always sound like a border inspection?"

"Because you answer border inspections honestly."

"That is slander."

"It’s pattern recognition," Seven said.

Dean muttered something impolite into his tea and set the cup aside before Arion could decide to solve the matter physically. He stood under his own power, which was an achievement medicine had been annoyingly proud of all morning, and immediately discovered that being technically healed did not mean his body had forgiven him for prior choices.

Arion noticed the fractional tightening in his jaw anyway.

Dean caught the glance and said, "Do not start."

"I didn’t say anything."

Dean sat back and ignored them both.