Arik took one slow, visible step forward, then another, careful enough that every movement seemed chosen before it happened. Liam did not move, though his fingers tightened against the doorframe until the edge pressed hard into his skin.

Arik’s scent reached him before his body did.

Warm stone first, like sunlight held in old walls after rain. Beneath it was a faint undertone of caramel, soft but not sweet enough to overwhelm, only warm enough to soften the sharp edge of the panic tearing through Liam’s chest.

His body reacted before his pride could stop it, relaxing almost immediately with relief. His knees almost gave.

Arik saw it and slowed even more. One hand lifted, palm open, not reaching for Liam yet, only making the intention visible.

"May I?" he asked.

Liam hated that he asked.

He hated that the question did more harm than any command could have, because it gave him a choice when he was terrified of losing the ability to make one.

Liam’s mouth opened and nothing came out.

His body answered first. His knees buckled.

Arik moved before Liam could hit the floor, quick enough to catch him but careful enough not to feel like a loss of control. One arm wrapped around Liam’s back, firm and warm, while the other slid beneath his arm to keep him steady without pinning him in place.

Liam should have pushed him away.

He should have cursed. Threatened him. Found some remaining shard of dignity and used it as a blade.

Instead, his hands latched onto Arik’s shirt.

The fabric bunched under his fingers, expensive and soft, and became the only solid thing in a corridor that had begun to tilt out from beneath him. Liam held on with both hands, not elegantly or proudly, but with the desperate, shaking grip of someone who had spent years ensuring that no one saw him fall apart and had failed at the worst possible moment.

Arik’s arms closed around him gently enough to make Liam’s body understand, with terrible relief, that the floor was no longer waiting for him.

The pheromones deepened by the smallest degree.

Warm stone. Caramel. Steady, steady, steady.

Liam pressed his face against Arik’s chest before he could stop himself, his breath shuddering so hard it barely counted as breathing. Arik was too tall, too broad, and too warm; everything about him was too much, but it was the only thing keeping Liam together.

"Don’t," Liam whispered.

Arik went still. "I won’t."

Liam shook his head against him, fingers tightening until his knuckles hurt. "No. Don’t let him see me."

The words came out broken, humiliating, and bare.

Arik’s hand rested between his shoulder blades, heavy enough to anchor but light enough not to restrain.

"Felix?" he asked gently, his breath brushing Liam’s temple.

Liam’s breath hitched at the name.

That was answer enough.

"Never," Arik said.

The word was soft, but it still sounded like a verdict.

Liam’s eyes burned. He squeezed them shut because he refused to cry in a diplomatic corridor while holding onto the prince who had manipulated him into a suite, confessed to an annexation plan over dessert, and now smelled so much like safety that Liam wanted to scream.

"Not him," Liam forced out. "Not Cain. Not George. Not anyone. If they see me like this, if they know—"

"They won’t."

"You don’t understand."

"I understand enough."

"No." Liam’s voice cracked, and he hated it, hated the way the panic tore all elegance out of him. "If Felix finds out, I’m finished. He won’t need chains. He won’t need contracts. He’ll just wait for my heat and tell me what to do."

Arik’s arms did not tighten, but the air changed.

The warmth lingered around Liam, soft and controlled, but beneath it, something colder moved outward, as if the prince was keeping others away with the same pheromones that kept him safe.

Liam felt it and trembled harder.

Arik noticed immediately, and the coldness vanished from the space between them. Not gone, Liam suspected. Only turned away from him.

"Why do you think that?" Arik asked, sliding his arm gently under Liam’s legs, to carry him from the bathroom.

"Because I can’t say no."

The words were so small that for one second they did not seem to belong to Liam at all.

Arik’s face was calm, his arms steady as he lifted him fully from the bathroom doorway, one arm securely beneath Liam’s legs and the other across his back. He carried him into the sitting room with the same care he would have taken with something already cracked in places no one else could see.

Only the air changed.

Something dark and cold moved outward, silent and controlled, pressing against the walls, the doors, the unseen corridors beyond them. A warning, maybe. A boundary. The same pheromones that held Liam in warmth turned sharp at the edges, as if Arik’s body had decided the rest of the world was no longer allowed near him.

Then Liam shook harder.

Arik felt it at once.

The cold vanished from around him again, leashed so quickly it was almost as if it had never existed.

"Then you don’t answer anything right now," Arik said, voice low.

Liam’s fingers tightened in his shirt.

Arik reached the sofa and bent to set him down.

Liam panicked.

It was immediate, humiliating, and stronger than thought. His hands fisted in Arik’s shirt so hard the fabric pulled taut across the prince’s chest, and his body curled toward him as if gravity itself had become unsafe.

"No."

Arik stopped before Liam’s back touched the cushions.

His arms held.

The sofa waited beneath them, useless and expensive.

"All right," Arik said.

Liam hated the sound that left him. It was not a sob. He refused to call it that. It was only breath breaking on the way out.

"I can’t—" Liam swallowed, fingers still locked in white-knuckled desperation. "Don’t put me down."

"I won’t."

"You say that now."

"I say it now, and I will continue saying it until you believe it."

"That sounds like a plan."

"It is."

"Bastard."

"Yes."

The answer came so easily, so calmly, that Liam almost laughed. It came out wrong, cracked and thin, but Arik did not comment. He simply turned, lowered himself onto the sofa instead, and kept Liam in his arms.

The position should have been worse.

It should have been intolerable.

Arik was large beneath him, Liam ended up half-curled against his chest, one knee caught awkwardly against the cushion, both hands still tangled in his shirt as if someone might try to pry him away.

No one did.

Arik settled one hand at the center of Liam’s back. The other reached, slowly and visibly, for his own comm.

Liam’s fingers tightened.

"Physician," Arik said before Liam could speak. "He won’t touch or come unless you agree, but I need medical instructions."

Liam’s breath shuddered. "No Wrohan doctors."

"No."

"No Canmore doctors."

"No."

"No one from Felix."

Arik’s voice turned very soft. "Never."

Liam pressed his face against Arik’s shirt again, partly because looking at him was too much and partly because his body had decided the scent there was the only stable point left in existence.

Arik made the call.

The connection opened almost immediately.

"Your Highness?" a woman’s voice asked, alert at once.

"Dr. Selwyn," Arik said. "Medical privacy. Secure line."

There was a pause, then a soft click as if the channel had shifted layers. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

"Secure."

"I have a dominant omega approaching heat, currently distressed, with suppressants located off-site. No physical examination permitted at this time."

Liam went rigid at the word omega.

Arik’s hand stilled on his back. "No names recorded."

"Understood," Dr. Selwyn said at once, and something about the brisk professionalism in her voice made Liam breathe a little easier despite himself. "How close to onset?"

Arik looked down at Liam.

He did not ask in that voice again. He did not use his name like a handle.

He only said, "Can you show me the calendar?"

Liam’s mind was fogged with fear, scent, proximity, and the horrible relief of being held without being used. He knew what Arik was asking. He knew he should hesitate. His comm had too much on it. Schematics. Access warnings. Private records. The suppressant label.

He did not hesitate at all.

His hand moved immediately and pulled the comm from his pocket and placed it in Arik’s hand before Arik had even finished lifting his palm.

The moment froze.

Liam saw it.

Arik saw it too.

The horror hit Liam a heartbeat later.