Chapter 283: Chapter 283: He didn’t let go.

Thomas raised a brow. "Why are you two pointing out my height when Arion is taller than me?"

"I’m used to Arion."

Thomas looked from Dean to Arion, then back again, as if trying to decide whether the explanation had any logic in it or whether accepting it would preserve energy he did not have.

"That does not make him shorter," Thomas said.

"No," Dean replied, settling more firmly against the sofa with Boreas pressed against his knee, "but his size is already accounted for in my daily emotional budget. Yours is additional structure."

Arion’s mouth twitched. "Additional structure?"

Dean pointed at him without looking. "Do not repeat me like that. I’m under stress."

Thomas managed another faint smile, and for half a second the exhaustion in his face eased enough to show the man underneath the guilt.

Then he sat.

Carefully, because everything about Thomas was careful now. The way he lowered himself into the chair, the way he placed his hands on his knees, the way his eyes moved once toward Dean’s fingers buried in Boreas’s fur and then away again before the look could become pity. He was too well raised to offer pity in a room where anger had not yet finished doing its work.

Dean appreciated that.

Unfortunately, appreciation made him more irritated, because now he had to admit Thomas was decent even when radiating guilt like a malfunctioning weather system.

"You think this is your fault," Dean said.

Thomas did not try to dodge. "Partly."

Dean made a sound under his breath. "There it is."

Arion leaned back beside him, one arm along the sofa, his posture deceptively casual. Dean knew better now. Arion could look relaxed while arranging the destruction of a bloodline with three phone calls and a legal note.

Thomas looked at him first. "Andrea had those documents before last night. I know that."

"Good," Dean said.

"But I also know I made him angry enough to use them now." Thomas’s voice remained steady, which somehow made the remorse in it worse. "I ended the arrangement in front of Sylvia. I did not do it kindly."

Dean’s brow lifted. "Did you stab him?"

"No."

"Did you threaten to leak private documents to media outlets?"

"No."

"Did you conceal sealed proposal drafts from four governments and then try to turn them into a public humiliation campaign because someone finally stopped letting you use their patience as upholstered furniture?"

Thomas paused.

Arion closed his eyes briefly, but the edge of his mouth moved.

"No," Thomas said.

"Then we are already making progress."

Thomas’s soft brown eyes shifted to him. "That does not erase my part."

"No. And I’m not interested in erasing it." Dean’s voice sharpened, though not cruelly. "You should have reported Andrea when you first realized he wasn’t doing his job. You should have told Arion about the proposal comment the moment Andrea used my name like that. You should have understood that keeping everything quiet because Central held was a dangerous, stupid, emotionally compromised decision."

Thomas lowered his gaze for a moment. "Yes."

"Good. Then we agree."

Arion’s hand settled against the back of Dean’s neck, thumb moving once in a slow line.

Dean continued, "But Andrea choosing treason is not your fault. Andrea choosing to hurt me, you, and Arion because his pride got injured is not your fault. Andrea keeping those drafts was not your fault. His family having access to them was not your fault. He was always going to use them the moment he thought they would make him feel powerful again."

Thomas absorbed that in silence.

Dean watched the words land and disliked how familiar the expression on Thomas’s face was. The quiet attempt to take responsibility for the parts of a wound someone else had made because, somehow, guilt felt more manageable than helplessness.

"I think," Dean said, slower now, "he never wanted you. I think he still wants Arion."

The room went very quiet.

Thomas did not look at Arion. That, somehow, told Dean more than a direct reaction would have. The big man only lowered his gaze to his own hands, fingers resting neatly against his knees, and the silence around him settled into a shape that felt old rather than fresh.

Arion’s hand stilled at the back of Dean’s neck.

"That is not useful," Arion said.

Dean turned his head slightly. "No. It’s accurate."

"It can be both," Thomas said quietly.

Dean looked back at him.

Thomas’s mouth curved in a faint, humorless line. "I considered it. More than once. Andrea was careful never to say it plainly, of course. He rarely says anything plainly when implication can do more damage with less accountability. But yes. I knew he had not let go of whatever version of Arion he believed he had once been promised."

Arion’s expression did not move, but Dean felt the temperature of him shift into clear disgust.

"I was never promised to him," Arion said.

"I know," Thomas replied.

Dean’s eyes narrowed. "Andrea didn’t."

"No," Thomas said. "Or he did and decided reality lacked taste."

Despite everything, Dean smiled.

Thomas breathed out once, controlled. "He spoke of you often enough," he said to Arion. "Not romantically. Not even tenderly. More like a position he had lost access to. The way people speak about a house they intended to buy before someone else purchased it."

Dean’s face hardened. "That’s revolting."

"Yes."

Arion’s mouth curved without warmth. "Andrea mistook proximity for possibility."

Thomas looked at him then. "And I mistook patience for kindness."

"No," Dean said at once.

Thomas’s gaze shifted to him.

Dean leaned forward despite Arion’s hand at his nape, his irritation sharpening because Thomas had that same exhausted honesty that made it difficult to be angry at him for the correct amount of time.

"You were kind," Dean said. "That was the problem. You were kind to someone who decided kindness was weakness, and then you kept trying to prove it wasn’t by giving him more of it."

Thomas absorbed that without flinching, but his eyes went darker.

Dean continued, "That does not make you responsible for his ambition. Or for his resentment. Or for the fact that he looked at you, a dominant alpha from a powerful country with discipline, status, and enough self-control not to turn an entire city district into a casualty report, and decided you were beneath the fantasy he built around Arion."

Thomas gave a soft, bleak laugh. "That is a generous description of me."

"It is an accurate one," Arion said.

Thomas looked between them, and for a second the guilt in his face thinned enough for something rawer to show.

"He hated that I was grateful," he said.

Dean went still.

Thomas looked down again. "Not because I debased myself. I did not. But I was... relieved, at first. The match was politically sound. Andrea was beautiful, educated, powerful in the way dominant omegas are powerful, and Alamina trusted him enough to position him close to Central. I thought perhaps it would work. I thought perhaps affection could come later if I gave him enough room to choose it without pressure."

Dean’s voice softened despite himself. "And he hated that."

"Yes." Thomas’s jaw tightened. "Because gratitude made him feel like he had been lowered to something I could receive instead of something Arion had failed to keep."

Arion’s eyes went colder.

Dean looked at him. "Do you regret using him as a rut partner?"

"No."

The answer came calmly, too immediate to be guilt.

Dean raised an eyebrow.

Arion’s expression did not change. "I regret that he apparently built a throne out of an arrangement I never dressed as anything else. I do not regret needing a rut partner before I met you, and I will not pretend I owe Andrea a future because he misunderstood the past."

Dean stared at him for a long second.

Then nodded. "Good."

Thomas looked faintly startled by the exchange.

Dean noticed and gave him a dry look. "What? Did you expect me to turn jealous and irrational?"

"No," Thomas said carefully.

"That was too careful."

"I am learning self-preservation."

"Excellent. Continue."