Chapter 191: Medically fragile

"Oh, good. I would hate for it to be simple."

"Liam."

"No. I am still horizontal and medically pathetic, so you have to let me be angry."

Arik looked pained. "You should not strain yourself."

"I am going to strain myself emotionally, then physically if needed."

"That is not how recovery works."

"It is how my recovery works."

Arik’s eyes flickered with fondness, but he managed to hide it almost immediately. Liam saw it anyway.

He softened despite himself, which was deeply inconvenient.

Then he remembered Felix’s voice under the portrait and hardened again.

"Who is he to you?" Liam asked.

The question entered the room and stayed there.

Arik’s gaze dropped briefly to Liam’s hand on his chest.

When he answered, his voice was lower.

"Me."

Liam went still.

Arik’s hand tightened slightly at his back.

"And not me," Arik continued. "Same soul. Different mind. Different life. Different memories. He was not conscious the way he is now. I kept him buried. I thought that was safer."

"Was it?"

"No."

The honesty landed too cleanly to argue with.

Liam swallowed.

"Is he conscious now?"

Arik was silent for too long.

Liam’s expression changed. "Arik."

"Yes."

The room seemed to narrow around them.

Liam looked at Arik’s face, searching for signs he did not understand. Possession. Distance. Strangeness. A second person staring out from behind the eyes of the man holding him.

But it was Arik.

Still Arik.

Tired, angry, and terrified in a way only people who looked calm could manage.

Liam’s voice became quieter. "Is he listening?"

Arik closed his eyes briefly.

"Yes."

Liam absorbed that.

Then, because his life had become ridiculous beyond engineering tolerance, he looked at Arik’s chest and said, "This is not a normal secret."

Arik opened his eyes.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then a faint, helpless sound escaped him.

"I know."

"No, I need you to understand that when someone says they have secrets before a bond, I expect family politics. Maybe a hidden assassination. Possibly treason. I do not expect, ’By the way, part of my soul was Emperor Goliath of Nuria and he is now awake enough to have opinions.’"

"Tell him to keep them to himself."

Arik’s mouth curved despite himself. "I have tried."

"That sounds like a skill issue."

For one second, Arik only stared at him.

Then his chest moved beneath Liam’s cheek with a quiet, reluctant laugh, and Liam decided that if he died from medical complications immediately after making Arik Lyon laugh while half-conscious, it would at least be a respectable death.

Unfortunately, laughing made his throat hurt.

He winced.

Arik’s expression changed at once, all humor gone as if someone had cut the light from his face. "Enough."

"I barely said anything."

"You have been awake for less than ten minutes and have already insulted an emperor, me, and your own recovery."

"The emperor started it by existing in your soul."

Arik closed his eyes.

Behind his ribs, Goliath was having the time of his life.

The old sovereign’s amusement spread through him like dark wine and old fire, rich with the deeply inappropriate delight of a man who had just discovered that the mate fate had denied him for a hundred and forty years was bitey.

Arik wanted to strangle him.

That, unfortunately, would have required strangling himself, and Liam was lying on his chest with medical seals under his collarbone, so it would have been inconvenient.

"The emperor," Arik said, with the patience of a man walking barefoot across broken glass, "is me from another life. It comes with the soul. I will explain everything to you. Just give me some time to think it through before explaining."

Liam stared at him.

Arik could feel the exact moment Liam decided that sentence had not helped him as much as Arik had hoped.

"Think it through?" Liam repeated.

"Yes."

"You need time to think through how to explain that you are partly the reborn Emperor of Nuria."

"I need time to explain it without making it worse."

"Oh, excellent. So there is a worse."

"There is always a worse."

Liam narrowed his eyes. "You are doing the prince thing."

Arik looked down at him. "What prince thing?"

"The thing where you speak calmly and make your face unbearable so people forget you avoided answering."

"I answered."

"You categorized the disaster. You did not explain it."

"That is why I asked for time."

Liam opened his mouth.

Arik’s hand moved up his back, warm and steady, and Liam hated that his body responded to it before his pride could object. His channels ached under the skin, not sharply, but with the deep bruised soreness of something that had been almost damaged and knew it. The monitoring seal beneath his collarbone pulsed once, blue light spreading in a soft ring.

Arik saw it.

"Liam," he said, quieter now.

Liam looked away first, because if Arik kept speaking like that, with all the fury stripped out until only fear remained, he would forgive something before he understood what it was.

"I am not saying no," Arik said. "I am saying not while you can barely keep your eyes open."

"I can keep my eyes open."

"You blinked for seven seconds."

"I was judging you internally."

"You were falling asleep."

"I can do both."

Arik’s mouth moved, almost a smile, but he contained it as if smiling now might be an offense.

Liam did not like that either.

The older presence in the bond shifted again, amused at the edges. It was like feeling someone powerful standing beyond a half-open door, listening to an argument he had no right to enjoy.

Liam’s gaze sharpened. "He is still laughing."

Arik went still.

Then, after a long and deeply unwilling pause, he said, "Not laughing."

"What, then?"

"Enjoying himself."

"That is worse."

"Yes."

Liam lifted his head slightly, enough that his chin dug into Arik’s chest. "Tell him to stop."

Arik’s eyes unfocused for a fraction.

The bond quieted.

Then Arik’s mouth tightened. "He says no."

Liam stared.

Arik looked as if the words had physically pained him.

Liam should not have found that funny.

A weak, hoarse laugh escaped him, and immediately his throat protested.

Arik’s hand came up to the back of his neck. "Stop."

"Tell your previous life to stop being entertained by my suffering."

"He says your suffering is dramatic and therefore familiar."

Liam froze.

Arik’s expression darkened. "I did not want to translate that."

"Did he just insult me through you?"

"Yes."

"While I am medically fragile?"

"Yes."

Liam let his forehead fall against Arik’s chest with a groan. "I hate this."

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