Chapter 136: Chapter 136: We need to talk.

"We need to talk," Arik said, one hand extended.

His attention remained on Liam, calm and fixed, the red-and-gold owl brooch still pinned at his collar, still biting down on his ether like Wrohan’s idea of control could do anything more than irritate him. The faint gold embroidery at his cuffs caught the white ether climbing behind him, and for a second he looked like a god.

"I have work," Liam said.

Arik’s expression did not change. "You always have work."

The tone was not loud, but it had the controlled authority of someone who had issued orders in rooms full of people smart enough to realize that refusing would only make the outcome worse.

Liam understood, with some private irritation, that he liked that voice, and even more so, the bond felt right.

It was not Arik he had been avoiding.

That, unfortunately, had become clear sometime around the third night spent on the lab cot, when he had woken to the distant pulse of the bond and known exactly where Arik was without opening his eyes.

It was everything around Arik.

Agaron.

An imperial household that did not look like it would politely remain theoretical.

Damian and Gabriel Lyon as future in-laws, which was enough to destabilize any rational man.

Public ceremonies. Ravenwood and Armstrong strategy meetings. The possibility of leaving Wrohan not as a temporary measure but as an eventual fact. The question of what happened to Lab V. To the Vanguard. To his work.

To his body.

Children. Heirs. Continuity.

Words people had not yet said directly but that already waited in the corners of rooms like well-dressed vultures.

Arik’s hand remained extended.

"You said fifteen minutes," Liam said.

"I changed my mind."

Stanford, stationed near the reinforced doors, became very interested in the upper frame. Mezos, behind Arik, did not react, though his expression suggested he had filed the sentence under consequences he had expected and would later pretend not to have witnessed.

Liam looked at the wrench in his hand.

Then back at Arik.

The prince’s golden eyes stayed on him, maybe angrier than his face allowed, but not at Liam.

At the week of empty nights, the cot and Liam had been close enough to feel and too far away to touch.

Liam placed the wrench down.

The sound of metal against the worktable was sharp enough to cut through the hum of the platform.

Then he put his hand in Arik’s.

Arik’s fingers closed around his at once.

The bond settled with immediate, shameless satisfaction.

Liam exhaled despite himself.

Arik saw it. Something shifted at the edge of his mouth, barely a smile, almost too restrained to be considered as one, but the relief in his face was genuine. It softened the severity of his face without weakening it.

That was the most dangerous thing about him, Liam thought.

Not the power. Not the possessiveness.

The fact that his control had warmth inside it.

"I was not running from you," Liam said.

It came out more quietly than he intended, nearly swallowed by the Vanguard’s deep rhythm.

Arik did not answer immediately. His thumb moved once across Liam’s knuckles, slow and careful, as if he were taking the words seriously enough to give them space.

"I know."

Liam looked up. "You know?"

"Yes."

"Then why do you look like you came here to collect a fugitive?"

"Because you made the collection necessary."

"That sounds very romantic."

Arik’s mouth curved faintly. "You were not running from me," he said. "You were running from the conversations that come after me."

Liam’s fingers tightened around his.

The gate pulsed again below them.

This time, neither of them looked down.

The silence stretched, filled by the enormous churn of ether, the faint hiss of pressure valves, and the distant click of some diagnostic relay resetting itself.

Liam disliked how much easier it was to stand there with Arik holding his hand.

"I don’t know how to talk about all of it yet," Liam said.

Arik’s gaze did not move. "Then we do not talk about all of it tonight."

"That sounds suspiciously reasonable."

"I can be reasonable."

Liam’s mouth twitched before he could stop it.

Arik’s eyes warmed at once, and the bond warmed with them.

Liam looked away, toward the white ether climbing the relay spine. "People are going to ask things."

"Yes."

"Not now. Not tonight, perhaps. But soon. They will ask where I will live, what I will be in Agaron, whether my work comes with me, and whether I will become a consort before I understand what that even means." His voice thinned for a second before he steadied it. "They will ask about children. Heirs. Continuity. They will turn private possibilities into policy before I have decided how to feel about breakfast in your suite."

Arik’s face changed.

The calm remained, but something behind his eyes went cold and bright, a contained violence turning away from Liam and toward a future room full of people foolish enough to ask too quickly.

"If anyone asks you before you are ready," Arik said, "send them to me."

Liam looked back at him.

"It sounds like a threat."

"It is."

Stanford looked down at his comm as if it had suddenly become fascinating.

Mezos closed his eyes for the briefest second.

Liam stared at Arik, then laughed softly under his breath.

The sound surprised him.

It surprised Arik too.

"You cannot threaten every person who asks about heirs," Liam said.

"I can prioritize."

"That is much worse."

Arik’s thumb brushed over his knuckles again. "I am not asking you for children tonight, Liam."

The sentence should have been absurd.

It was not.

It landed in the quiet between them with all the weight of the things they were not saying.

"I am not asking you to choose Agaron tonight," Arik continued. "I am not asking you to decide what happens to the Vanguard, or your work, or your mother’s house, or the name people use when they introduce you in rooms full of officials who deserve less oxygen than they consume."

Liam’s mouth twitched again.

Arik stepped closer, close enough that Liam could feel the warmth of him through the cool air of the platform.

"I am asking you to come back to the suite tonight," he said. "Eat. Sleep. Talk about at least some of your thoughts."

Liam studied him.

The lights from the Vanguard moved over Arik’s face in alternating bands of blue and white. His golden eyes seemed almost inhuman but his expression was steady, patient like a blade was patient when it had already decided where it would fall if it needed to.

"My thoughts," Liam repeated.

"Yes."

"And if I say the one thing is the gate?"

Arik glanced down at last.

Below them, the old lines glowed faintly, then dimmed as if embarrassed to have been noticed.

"No," he said.

Liam blinked. "No?"

"No ancient infrastructure tonight."

"That is the first sensible thing you’ve said."

"I am capable of growth."

"Debatable."

Arik looked back at him. "One personal thing."

Liam considered objecting.

He had several excellent objections. Some structural, some emotional, and at least two involving the technical emergency of the lower compression housing.

But Arik was holding his hand.

The bond was warm.

The suite, when he let himself think of it without panic, did not feel like a cage.

It felt like a room waiting for him to stop insulting it.

Liam let out a slow breath.

"One conversation."

Arik’s expression softened. "One."

"With dinner and if Kamal somehow produces a report about my emotional avoidance—"

"He will."

"Arik."

"I will ask him not to title it that."

Liam shook his head, but the motion lacked force.

The truth was simple now that he stood in front of it.

He wanted to go.

Because the thought of returning to the suite no longer felt like surrender. It felt like stepping into the place the bond had been quietly building under his skin for a week.

He looked toward the lower platform one last time.

"Mara," he called.

From somewhere beyond the half-open service hatch, Mara’s voice answered instantly, much too fast for someone who had allegedly gone to the lower archive.

"Yes?"

"I know you were listening."

"You can’t prove it."

"Send the diagnostics to my tablet. I’m leaving."

A beat.

Then, softer, "Good."

Liam looked at the hatch.

Mara did not appear because she was wise enough to give him privacy and foolish enough to still be audible through the internal channel.

Arik’s hand tightened faintly around his.

Liam turned back to him. "Do not look pleased."

"I am pleased."

"At least pretend."

"No."

The answer was so immediate that Liam sighed.