Taming the Wild Beast of Alamina

Dean pressed closer, burying his face against Arion’s chest. ”I love you too, but if I get pregnant from this, I’m going to exile you on a desert island never to be seen again.”

Arion’s large hand paused on his back.

Only for a second.

Then it resumed, slow and soothing over Dean’s spine, as if Dean had not just threatened international abandonment during aftercare.

”That seems excessive,” Arion said, tone mild, but his golden eyes filled with amusement.

Dean lifted his head just enough to glare at him.

The glare was weak.

His hair was a mess, his cheeks still warm, the collar at his throat slightly shifted to one side, and the rest of him had the boneless heaviness of someone who had lost several arguments to biology, marriage, and Arion’s unacceptable stamina.

”It is not excessive,” Dean said. ”It is proportionate.”

”To pregnancy?”

”To your smugness.”

Arion’s mouth curved.

Dean pointed at him with one tired finger. ”See? Desert island.”

”I would follow you back.”

”I said exile.”

”I heard.”

”That means you stay there.”

”No.”

Dean stared.

Arion looked entirely unrepentant.

”You cannot refuse exile.”

”I can if my husband is the one sentencing me while lying on my chest and refusing to move.”

Dean opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Then dropped his forehead back against Arion’s skin. ”I hate when you use facts.”

”I know.”

The room was still warm with them.

Vetiver lingered in the air, darker now, softened by exhaustion, wrapped around the bright traces of mint and lemon that Dean had never fully managed to control once Arion touched him. The balcony curtains moved lazily in the late afternoon breeze, and the sea beyond the glass kept glittering as if it had not witnessed anything, which Dean considered very polite of it.

The bed was a disaster.

Dean was not looking at it.

If he did, he might begin assigning blame.

Arion would accept too much of it and somehow look pleased.

Dean felt Arion’s fingers rise to the back of his neck. They touched the collar first, checking the clasp with ridiculous care, then slid beneath the edge to make sure it had not rubbed his skin wrong.

Dean’s eyes softened before he could stop them.

”You are inspecting it again,” he murmured.

”It touches your skin.”

”You already used that excuse.”

”It remains true.”

Dean did not have a good answer to that.

Arion adjusted the collar gently, bringing it back into place until the pale blue stones rested properly against Dean’s throat. The movement was careful enough to ache.

Dean swallowed.

Arion noticed.

”Too tight?”

”No.”

”Uncomfortable?”

”No.”

”Dean.”

Dean sighed dramatically, though it lacked force. ”It is not uncomfortable. You are just being unfairly gentle after being very much not gentle.”

Arion’s eyes grew warm, and a faint blush touched his ears. Dean had noticed that Arion blushed when he let his guard down, and God, he loved it.

”You liked both,” Arion said, smiling brightly.

Dean covered his face with one hand. ”I am too tired to fight you.”

”That is convenient.”

”That is not permission to become worse.”

”It sounded like permission.”

Dean peeked at him through his fingers because the sight was doing things to his heart, and he was convinced that it would never actually stop. ”Everything sounds like permission to you when you are smug.”

”Only from you.”

Dean lowered his hand slowly.

Arion’s gaze was steady, gold softened almost to amber in the warm room, his hair no longer neat, and his expression stripped of the crown prince’s edge. He looked like Dean’s husband now. Only that. Broad and warm and almost offensively satisfied, with a quiet devotion beneath the satisfaction that made Dean’s chest hurt more than any prophecy had managed.

Dean touched his face, his long pale fingers trembling slightly against Arion’s golden skin.

Arion went still immediately.

That always did something to Dean. The way Arion, who could command guards and silence rooms and make old temple matrons remember state authority, became so terribly attentive under Dean’s hand.

Dean traced the line of his cheekbone with his thumb. ”You’re still angry about what happened at the temple, and you blame Ilara for ruining your honeymoon.”

Arion did not pretend not to understand.

”Yes.”

Dean’s fingers moved to the edge of Arion’s jaw, tracing the long scar on his right cheek. ”At yourself?”

Arion’s silence answered first.

Dean’s expression changed.

”Arion.”

”I brought you there.”

Dean frowned. ”No.”

”I asked you to trust them enough to enter.”

”No.”

”I knew you disliked temples. I knew why. I still...”

Dean pressed two fingers against Arion’s mouth.

Arion stopped.

Dean’s eyes narrowed. ”You did not cause Ilara to make a terrible decision.”

Arion looked at him.

Dean continued, ”You did not hide the prophecy. You did not place Sebastian in the middle of it. You did not make Nero terrifying, though your family does have suspiciously dramatic genetics.”

Arion’s mouth moved slightly under Dean’s fingers.

Dean removed them. ”Do not smile. I am being emotionally generous.”

”You are.”

”And correct.”

”Yes.”

Dean studied him. ”You asked me if I wanted to leave. You got me out. You took me to lunch. You brought me back here. You made me forget the end of the world for at least...” He glanced toward the clock and winced. ”A medically concerning amount of time.”

Arion’s mouth curved again.

Dean pointed at him. ”Do not look proud.”

”I failed.”

”You failed very loudly.”

Arion caught his hand and kissed his palm.

Dean’s annoyance softened into something useless and warm.

”I am still sending you to the island if necessary,” he muttered.

”I will build us a house.”

”You are not invited.”

”I will build it well.”

Dean stared at him.

Arion looked serious.

Dean dropped his forehead against Arion’s chest again and groaned. ”That is exactly why you are impossible. I threaten exile, and you turn it into architecture.”

”I want you comfortable.”

”On your punishment island?”

”Yes.”

Dean laughed.

It came out tired and real, muffled against Arion’s skin.

Arion’s arms tightened around him.

For a while, they said nothing.

Dean listened to Arion’s heartbeat, slower now, steady beneath his ear. The sound helped. The warmth helped. The faint pressure of the collar helped too, though he would never admit it without a diplomatic concession in return.

Eventually, Arion shifted.

Dean immediately made a protesting sound.

”We need water,” Arion said.

”No.”

”Dean.”

”I live here now.”

”On my chest?”

”Yes.”

”That is acceptable, but hydration remains necessary.”

”You are using medical words again.”

”I am trying to keep my husband alive.”

”After trying to kill him?”

Arion’s hand slid to Dean’s nape, thumb stroking lightly under the collar. ”You looked very alive.”

Dean’s face heated.

”Desert island,” he whispered.

Arion laughed softly and reached for the water bottle on the bedside table without letting Dean go. He opened it one-handed, which Dean found irritatingly attractive, then held it for him.

Dean drank because refusing would be childish.

He considered being childish anyway.

But Arion was watching him with that quiet care again, and Dean lost.

After the water came a warm towel from the heated drawer near the bed, because apparently Arion had prepared not only seduction, medicine, lunch, and collars, but also post-rut logistics with the efficiency of a man who believed love required infrastructure.

Dean looked at the towel.

Then at him.

”You planned the towel.”

”I planned several towels.”

”That is obscene.”

”It is practical.”

”You are obscene and practical.”

”Yes.”

Dean laughed again, too tired to hide how fond it sounded.

Arion cleaned him with slow care, never rushing, never making him feel fragile, only cherished. Dean let himself be moved because it was Arion. Because his body was heavy. Because the anger had finally gone quiet enough that he could feel the tenderness beneath it.

When Arion settled back against the pillows, Dean returned immediately to his place against him.

Arion kissed his blonde, messy hair.

Dean closed his eyes.

Outside, the future still waited.

Sebastian would still have to be warned.

Nero would still have to keep waiting.

Ilara’s archive would still crawl through secure channels toward the people strong enough to carry it.

But Dean was not in the temple anymore.

He was in bed, wearing Arion’s collar, held by his husband, surrounded by vetiver and mint-lemon and the soft, exhausted silence after too much feeling.

”Arion,” he murmured.

”Yes?”

”If your phone rings, I am throwing it into the sea.”

”I know.”

”And if prophecy calls, I am not home.”

”I will inform prophecy.”

Dean smiled against his chest.

Arion’s hand moved slowly over his back.

”Sleep,” Arion said.

Dean wanted to argue.

He did not.

For once, he let the world stay outside the door.

And because Arion held him like he would personally enforce that boundary against gods, temples, princes, and every impossible future waiting beyond Ylico’s bright sea, Dean believed it.

Just long enough to rest.