By the time they reached Arik’s suite, dinner was already waiting.

The doors opened into a private residence that looked less like a guest suite and more like a modern imperial apartment temporarily pretending to be diplomatic accommodation. The outer sitting room was wide, quiet, and lit by recessed ether panels along the walls, their glow soft gold against black stone, glass, and polished metal. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling smart glass, Alexandria stretched out in stacked blue transit lines, white-lit towers, and the slow pulse of ether routes running under the streets like veins beneath expensive skin.

The table had been set near the windows.

Not too formal.

Not casual either.

Kamal had found the precise, terrifying middle point between intimacy and nutritional intervention.

Warm bread sat beneath a covered ceramic warmer. Clear soup steamed in low black bowls. Grilled fish rested on a narrow white platter with lemon, herbs, and vegetables cut so precisely that Liam suspected a ruler had been involved. A small tray of fruit had been placed beside a pot of tea, and a second pot of coffee sat near Liam’s side of the table in what he could only describe as targeted manipulation.

Kamal stood beside the service console, dressed neatly, tablet in one hand, expression composed enough to suggest he had prepared the meal, assessed both of them, and decided that the correct solution to newly bonded emotional avoidance was food, privacy, and no witnesses with poor survival instincts.

"Lord Liam," Kamal said with a slight bow. "Your Highness."

Liam looked at the table, then at Kamal, and smiled.

"Thank you, Kamal," Arik said.

Kamal’s eyes moved once to their joined hands before the contact broke.

Arik moved toward the table, placing his hand on Liam’s back. The red-and-gold owl brooch still sat at his collar, though the suppression field around it looked almost tired now, as if the little device had spent all day trying to restrain weather and was beginning to regret its employment.

"You are welcome, Your Highness." Kamal set the tablet down near the service panel and adjusted one spoon by half a centimeter. "I have kept the meal light for tonight. Let me know if you need anything else."

Liam raised a hand and, against his better judgment, spoke.

"Alcohol?"

"No," Arik said.

"No," Kamal said at almost the same time.

Liam lowered his hand slowly.

The betrayal was immediate.

He looked between them, first at Arik, who had not even needed half a second to consider the request, then at Kamal, who remained beside the service panel with the serene expression of a man denying a condemned prisoner a final luxury.

"I feel attacked," Liam said.

"You are not being attacked," Arik replied.

"That is what attackers say."

Kamal inclined his head. "In this case, Lord Liam, it is what men concerned with your recent heat, bond adjustment, irregular meals, and laboratory sleeping habits say."

Liam stared at him. "You had that sentence prepared."

"Yes."

Arik’s mouth moved faintly.

Liam turned on him. "Do not look pleased."

"I just approve of Kamal."

Liam gave a tsk, still feeling betrayed.

Kamal’s expression remained immaculate. "Alcohol would not be advisable tonight."

Liam looked at the table, at the soup, the fish, the neat vegetables, and the coffee that had been placed like bait, and then back at the two men who had apparently formed an alliance over his digestive stability.

"I was told this would be one conversation," he said. "Not a medical hearing."

"It is dinner," Arik said.

"It has witnesses."

"Kamal is leaving."

"Kamal just denied me alcohol with the confidence of a physician and a priest. That leaves emotional residue."

Kamal’s eyes lowered. "Would reinforcement help?"

Liam narrowed his eyes. "What kind of reinforcement?"

Kamal touched the service panel once. "Hot chocolate."

The room went quiet.

Outside the smart glass, Alexandria glowed beneath the summer night, blue transit lines moving through the city in clean luminous arcs. The suite’s climate system hummed softly, cool and perfectly adjusted, as if it had no respect for seasonal logic.

Liam kept his expression neutral with effort.

It was summer and warm outside.

It was absolutely not hot chocolate weather.

Unfortunately, hot chocolate was his favorite.

Arik looked at him with a glint in his golden eyes.

Liam looked away.

The bond warmed with slow, unforgivable amusement.

"I accept," Liam said stiffly.

Arik’s mouth curved.

"Do not," Liam warned.

"I said nothing."

Liam narrowed his eyes at Arik.

Kamal was already preparing the drink with the silence of a man who had known exactly how this would end before Liam had even asked for alcohol. Within a minute, a dark ceramic cup was placed near Liam’s hand, the scent rich with cocoa, cream, and a faint hint of cinnamon.

Liam took the cup with dignity.

Somehow.

Kamal bowed. "Reinforcement, Lord Liam."

Liam held the cup close. "You are manipulative."

"Yes," Kamal said mildly. "But in your favor."

Arik pulled out Liam’s chair. "Sit."

Liam looked at him over the rim of the cup.

The prince tone again.

Calm. Certain. Warm underneath the authority.

Liam sighed, sat down, and muttered, "This conversation is already rigged."

Arik sat beside him. "In your favor."

"That remains to be seen."

Kamal left them then, the door sealing quietly behind him.

Liam took one sip of hot chocolate.

It was perfect.

He hated everyone.

—

For a while, they ate in silence.

The suite hummed softly around them, the ether climate system adjusting with near-silent precision, the city beyond the smart glass moving in clean blue lines beneath the summer night. Far below, transit lights slid between towers, and the diplomatic district shone with the cold confidence of money, power, and people who claimed they could replace intelligence.

Inside, dinner settled into a quieter rhythm.

The spoon against ceramic.

The faint clink of Arik setting down his glass.

The low sound of Liam’s cup when he lifted the hot chocolate and took another sip.

It was still perfect.

Kamal was intolerable.

Arik, unfortunately, looked comfortable.

He had removed his coat and folded it over the back of the chair. His white shirt was open at the throat beneath the red-and-gold brooch, the sleeves rolled to his elbows with the carefree grace of a man who had been raised around ceremony and still knew how to make himself at home inside it.

Liam’s gaze fell before he could stop it.

Arik’s forearms were strong and elegant in the annoying way imperial bloodlines regarded personal obligation. The tendons moved beneath pale skin when he reached for his glass, controlled and easy. His right forearm caught the light differently.

The mark was there.

Liam’s mark.

Near the inner wrist, dark and bruised, still too new beneath the faint glow of the ether panels.

Beside it, almost hidden unless one looked too closely, was a thin scar, pale against the skin.

Liam stared at it for one second too long.

Arik noticed.

His hand stilled around the glass. "What?"

Liam nodded toward his arm. "That scar."

Arik looked down as if he had forgotten it existed. "An accident."

"When?"

"When I was young."

Liam waited.

Arik lifted the glass and took a sip.

That was apparently all.

Liam narrowed his eyes. "That was not an explanation."

"No."

"You do understand how conversations work."

"Yes."

"And yet?"

"And yet," Arik said calmly, setting the glass down, "not tonight."

Liam studied him.

There was no evasion in Arik’s face, not exactly. Something quieter. A closed door, not locked out of distrust, but because there were already too many doors open between them tonight.

Liam understood that.

He hated understanding it.

He looked back at the mark instead.

His mark.

Placed over pulse and scar both.

Something in his chest warmed, not from the hot chocolate.

"Fine," he said.

Arik’s gaze softened by one barely visible degree. "Thank you."

"For not interrogating you over dinner?"

"For letting one thing wait."

Liam looked into his cup. "I let a lot of things wait from you."

Arik only smiled.

The silence returned, but it was different now.

Liam traced his thumb over the curve of the cup, feeling the heat through ceramic.

Then he said, quietly, "Children."