Chapter 218: Back to life.
Dean looked between them and muttered, "And this is why I never stood a chance."
That, in hindsight, had been the gentlest part of the week.
Two days later, standing at the main university entrance in a coat tailored sharply enough to imply he had his life under control, Dean reflected that peace was a temporary illusion and family, unfortunately, had a habit of remaining involved long after departure.
Lucas and Trevor had left for Palatine the afternoon before yesterday, dignified and composed as ever, which in practice meant Lucas had kissed Dean’s cheek, adjusted his collar, informed him to sleep like a sane person, and then handed Trevor a list of concerns that looked suspiciously like a threat formatted as care. Trevor, for his part, had embraced Dean once, brief and tight, and then calmly reminded him to send updates after any activity involving beasts, pheromonal exposure, training injuries, or ’other catastrophes disguised as character development.’
Dean had not asked how many categories Trevor believed his life currently possessed.
He did not want the answer.
Dax and Nero had departed for Saha not long after, though not before Dax, draped in enough luxury to destabilize lesser monarchies, had seen the new ring on Dean’s hand and come to a complete and immediate conclusion.
"Cheap," Dax had said, with the contempt of a king who considered restraint a moral failure. "A private engagement ring and no matching collar? Arion, my dear, where is your imagination?"
Dean, who had still been drinking tea at the time, had nearly died.
Nero had closed his eyes the way a man did when he had accepted that his father would never again be permitted near normal social thresholds.
Arion, standing beside Dean with one hand in his coat pocket and the other warm at Dean’s back, had not looked remotely ashamed.
"I was told to pace myself," he had replied.
Dax had looked him up and down as though personally offended by the concept. "By cowards."
Dean had wanted the floor to open.
Nero had muttered, "Please never say that near Lucas. I’d like to survive the departure."
The departure had, against all odds, remained survivable.
Barely.
Now, however, Dean had returned to the less glamorous battlefield of duty, administration, public appearances, and academic obligations, which was how he found himself at the university with Sylvia at his side and an expression on his face that several students immediately interpreted as a warning from the gods.
Sylvia adjusted the strap of her bag and glanced at him with the look of a woman who had chosen amusement over mercy hours ago.
"You know," she said, "if you glared any harder at the building, it might develop structural anxiety."
Dean kept his eyes on the steps ahead. "I am not glaring at the building. I am objecting to its existence on principle."
"You object to most things on principle."
"Only the poorly designed and the mandatory."
Sylvia hummed. "So. The university."
Dean shot her a flat look.
She smiled with the satisfaction of someone deeply secure in her own continued survival, which was unfortunate because Dean had done nothing to deserve that kind of confidence this early in the morning.
Sylvia had attached herself to his schedule with alarming smoothness over the past two days, citing friendship, practical overlap, and an interest in preventing him from doing anything heroic and medically idiotic. Dean knew very well that the arrangement had also been encouraged by Arion, who had somehow managed to bribe Sylvia’s cooperation not with money, but with access, influence, and the kind of princely logistical power that turned bureaucracy from an institution into a personal toy.
Dean himself had helped.
He had, in a moment of weakness and post-engagement optimism, admitted that having Sylvia nearby on university days would be useful.
Arion had then looked at him for one long second in the silence that usually meant he was about to become intolerably efficient.
By the next morning, Sylvia’s access credentials had expanded, her transport route had been adjusted, her entry permissions had become smoother than state secrets, and someone from the crown prince’s office had delivered a file to her with such terrifying politeness that she had immediately called Dean just to laugh at him.
So yes. Bribed. By power.
With Dean’s enthusiastic complicity.
"Just so we’re clear," Dean said as they started up the steps, "if you use your new and deeply suspicious administrative privileges to betray me, I will deny all association."
Sylvia looked delighted. "That’s rich coming from the man who handed me directly to the crown prince’s office like a diplomatic resource."
"I did not hand you over."
"You absolutely did."
"I facilitated interdepartmental cooperation."
Sylvia laughed. "You weaponized princely infrastructure."
Dean considered this. "That is a less offensive phrasing than I expected."
"You’re welcome."
Students moved around them in clusters, conversation ebbing and reforming in their wake. The university was still settling into the day, all polished stone, glass facades, controlled greenery, and that specific institutional rhythm of wealth trying very hard to look like scholarship. Here, dominant alphas and omegas were managed through systems so layered they felt half administrative, half military, and Dean, as usual, occupied the uncomfortable intersection of exception, authority, and spectacle.
The ring did not help.
He had known that in theory.
In practice, he had underestimated how quickly a visible change on his hand would become a matter of silent attention.
Not open staring. Their peers were too trained for that, but looks lingered.
A handful of people who would normally greet him with composed neutrality now seemed to hesitate for half a beat, as though recalculating him with the new information in place.
Dean hated that he noticed.
He hated more that part of him still thrilled at the private weight of the ring even under public scrutiny.
Sylvia, naturally, noticed everything.
"They know," she said lightly.
Dean did not look at her. "That sentence offers me nothing useful."
"No, but it is accurate."
"It is also annoying."
She adjusted her pace to match his exactly: not coddling, not slowing, simply present. That was part of why Dean tolerated her this well. Sylvia had an instinct for proximity without pity, which was rare enough to qualify as a sacred talent.
"Do you want advice," she asked, "or do you want to continue radiating injured regality until the entire economics faculty starts drafting theories?"
Dean exhaled through his nose. "Advice."
"Wear it like you meant to."
He glanced at her then.
Sylvia lifted one shoulder. "You do, obviously. But right now you’re half-defensive and half-tempted to hide your hand in your pocket every time someone blinks in your direction. That only makes them more interested."
Dean stared ahead again. "I hate when you’re correct."
"I know. It keeps me young."
He let that settle.
It was infuriatingly good advice.
The ring was not a mistake. Not an accident. Not some political ornament fastened to him by external necessity. It belonged to him in the most dangerous way possible: privately and with feeling.
So Dean adjusted the line of his shoulders, loosened the instinctive tension from his hand, and kept walking.
Sylvia watched him for a second, then nodded once. "There. Better."