Dex carried her down the corridor like a man transporting contraband, one arm locked across the back of her thighs, the other braced against her lower back.

Serena had stopped protesting somewhere around the second hallway. Two guards stepped aside as they passed. Neither commented.

Halfway to their quarters, Dex adjusted. He shifted her weight without slowing, catching her under the knees and pulling her against his chest in one smooth motion. She went from slung over his shoulder to cradled in his arms so fast that her hand instinctively found the back of his neck.

His jaw was tight. His pulse was hammering against her palm.

He kicked their door open with his boot, carried her through, and set her on her feet.

The second her boots hit the floor, her spine straightened. Shoulders squared. Chin level.

Determined. Resolute. A woman with a plan.

Yes, they kissed on the lips before that war room meeting. That was an accident. A hiccup. A momentary lapse and she was not going to let one kiss dismantle the entire framework.

"Dex," she began.

He didn’t give her the chance.

His arms pulled her into the kind of hug that swallowed a person whole.

"Baby, I was so worried about you." His voice cracked on the last word, splintering the easy confidence he’d worn in the war room like armor. The sound of it hit somewhere behind her ribs and stayed there.

Aegon: So much for keeping things light.

Dex: Shut up.

Her plan stalled. Her arms went around him, and she breathed him in. Everything she’d been holding at arm’s length flooded back in a single, devastating wave.

He picked her up again, carrying her to their bed with the urgency of a man who did not trust the universe to leave her in one place for more than thirty seconds. He laid her down, settling his weight over her, forearms braced on either side of her head.

Not crushing her. Covering her. Like he was afraid she’d disappear if he let go, and given her recent track record of unauthorized international travel, that fear was not entirely irrational.

"Serena, I need you to mindlink me when you get here."

He started kissing her. Her lips first, soft, then her cheekbone, her jaw, the corner of her mouth. Each one placed with the deliberate attention of a man mapping territory he refused to lose.

"I need you next to me at all times, actually," he said against her skin. "New rule. Non-negotiable. Effective immediately."

Serena swallowed. "Dex, we need to talk."

He stiffened above her.

She took a steadying breath. "I think we would be better off as friends."

The words hit the air like a glass hitting stone. They sounded worse spoken aloud than they had in her head, and they had sounded catastrophic in her head. She and Elara had rehearsed this for forty minutes. Elara had given her bullet points and a contingency script for three different emotional responses.

None of those scripts accounted for the fact that she was pinned underneath the man she was trying to friendzone, with his scent in her lungs and his heartbeat against her chest.

Dex didn’t move for a long second.

Then he burst out laughing. A genuine, full-chested laugh that shook his shoulders and vibrated against her body.

"You do realize I feel you through our matebond, right?" He pulled back just enough to look at her, and his eyes were bright with a warmth that had no business being there while she was actively trying to end things. "I can feel every single thing you’re feeling right now, Serena. And none of it says friends."

"Dex, I’m serious. But we could do brunch sometime."

She didn’t know why she said that. Of all the things she had practiced, of all the carefully worded, Elara-approved lines designed to convey emotional clarity, brunch was what came out of her mouth.

Brunch.

She wanted to dissolve into the mattress.

Dex laughed harder. The kind of laugh that said he had heard the funniest thing spoken in the history of the common tongue, and he wanted her to know it.

"Yeah, no." He was grinning now, the devastating, lopsided grin that made her brain short-circuit on a good day. "You don’t want that either." 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

His lips were on hers before she could build another sentence.

And gods help her, she kissed him back. Instantly. Automatically. Like her body had received a memo her brain never approved. Her fingers tightened in his hair, pulling him closer when she should have been pushing him away, and the sound he made against her mouth undid something fundamental in her resolve.

She broke the kiss, gasping.

"Dex, I value your friendship, platonically," Serena tried again, the words coming out between breaths, mangled beyond recognition from what Elara had told her to say. The original line had been I value what we have, and I think protecting it means redefining it. What came out was the verbal equivalent of tripping down a staircase while holding a tray of fine china.

Dex pulled back. Then looked at her like she was trying to put out a fire with a napkin.

"Platonically," he repeated.

"Yes."

"You want to be platonic."

"Yes."

"With me."

"That is what I said."

"While lying underneath me."

She closed her eyes. "The positioning is not ideal for this conversation."

"The positioning is perfect for this conversation." His thumb traced the line of her jaw, and she shivered. He felt it. She knew he felt it, because the corner of his mouth twitched. "Because your mouth is saying platonic, and your body is calling you a liar."

"My body doesn’t get a vote."

"Your body has been outvoting you since the day we met."

Her face flushed scarlet. "That is not true."

Aegon: It is absolutely true.

Dex: Not helping.

Aegon: I am helping. She is underneath us, in our bed, and used the word platonic. She does not know what that word means.

Dex shifted his weight, settling onto his side so he wasn’t pinning her anymore, but keeping one arm draped across her waist. Casual. The arm of a man who had no intention of letting her stand up, walk to the door, or continue this particular train of thought without supervision.

"Okay," he said. "Let’s hear it."

She turned her head to look at him. "Hear what?"

"The rest. Elara clearly coached you. I can tell because you said I value your friendship and you would never say that on your own. You’d say something shorter. Definitely funnier." He propped his head on his hand. "So give me the whole speech. I want to hear what she told you to say."

Serena’s mouth opened. Closed. Her cheeks were burning.

"Elara didn’t tell me to say this."

Dex bit his lower lip, fighting a smile. "Clearly."

She exhaled through her nose and looked at the ceiling. Her throat was tightening, the humor draining out of the moment faster than she wanted it to, because underneath the stumbling and the panic and the catastrophically botched delivery, there was something real.

Something that hurt.

"I can’t keep doing this to you," she said quietly. "To either of you."

Dex’s smile faded.