Chapter 194: Keep him.

"For Ravenwood."

The words sat between them like a door closing.

Arik did not move.

For a moment, he looked as if he had not understood the sentence, not because the meaning was unclear, but because some part of him had rejected it before language could finish forming.

The bond pulled at him, sharp and terrified, and every instinct in him rose with brutal certainty. NO. He had just gotten Liam back. He had carried him through the corridors himself, dressed him with hands that shook only after the door closed, and slept with him in his arms while the world outside collapsed into treason, poison, and missing traitors. He had spent a day and a half listening to Liam breathe, because breathing had become the only acceptable proof that the universe had not taken everything from him again.

And now Liam wanted to leave.

Arik’s ether stirred.

The ward-light dimmed by a fraction.

Behind his ribs, Goliath went still in the old, dangerous way that meant the same instinct had woken in him too.

Keep him.

Arik hated that the thought belonged to both of them.

Then Liam swayed slightly where he sat, hand pressed to the blanket, pale with anger and recovery and a hurt Arik had put there with his own silence.

Arik turned toward the screen.

"Rex. Mezos. Out."

Rex looked ready to obey before the sentence finished.

Mezos, however, did not vanish immediately. His gaze moved from Arik to Liam and back again, his expression stripped of humor.

"Arik..."

"Out," Arik repeated, and this time there was nothing princely in his voice. Only command, low and absolute.

Rex disappeared so quickly the screen barely had time to flicker.

Mezos remained one second longer.

"Do not make this worse," he said quietly.

Arik’s eyes flashed gold.

Mezos did not look away.

Then the screen went dark.

The silence afterward felt immense.

Liam’s mouth twisted faintly. "That was dramatic."

"I am good at that."

"No argument here."

Arik came closer, stopping at the edge of the rug, because distance had suddenly become something he had to ask permission to cross.

"I do not want you to leave," he said.

Liam closed his eyes for a moment.

When he opened them, the anger was still there, but it was no longer the brightest thing. The hurt had come forward now, raw and terrible, and Arik would have preferred violence. Violence he understood. Violence could be met, broken, redirected, and survived.

This was Liam looking at him as if trust had become a damaged mechanism and he did not yet know whether it could be repaired.

"I know," Liam said.

"No," Arik replied, his voice rougher. "You do not."

Liam’s expression changed.

Arik took one breath.

"I do not want you away from me. I do not want you beyond my wards. I do not want you in a house Felix can target, with a route he can intercept, while Cain is missing and Ray’s people are being questioned and George’s dead hand is still wrapped around half the country."

Liam’s eyes flashed.

"Then maybe you should have told me the truth." Liam’s anger was hot like flame thundering inside his chest. "The only luck you get is that our bond is complete, that I marked you too; otherwise I would have broken it."

Arik’s fists clenched by his sides because even that was a lie. The bond wasn’t complete without his entire soul, and unfortunately, he knew that the part of Goliath he united from the portrait was only a small part of it.

"Liam..."

"I don’t want to hear it now. I want home." Liam said, looking away, closing the access to his emotions through the bond.

Arik felt like roaring with rage when the veil over their connection fell.

Not at Liam, but at himself. At Felix. At Cain being missing, Ray’s people being peeled out of Wrohan’s institutions one by one, George’s corpse still poisoning the kingdom through documents and loyalists, and every possible road to Ravenwood suddenly becoming a map of ways Liam could be taken from him again.

No.

The word was not thought but instinct taking over.

NO.

The ward-light dimmed.

The air thickened.

Behind Arik’s ribs, Goliath went brutally still, old and dangerous and in complete agreement for all the wrong reasons.

Keep him.

Arik hated that the thought belonged to both of them.

Liam looked away from him, one hand still pressed against the blanket, pale and shaking from anger, recovery, and the cost of closing the bond. He was still on the sofa, still wrapped in Arik’s robe, still too weak to cross the room without swaying, and yet he had managed to place a door between them that no army in the world could force open without becoming monstrous.

"I want to go home," Liam said, voice raw. "I want Ravenwood."

Arik moved.

He did not remember deciding to.

One moment he stood at the edge of the rug, fighting every instinct he had.

The next, he was in front of Liam, one knee pressing into the carpet, both hands reaching for him.

Liam’s eyes widened.

"Arik—"

"I cannot," Arik said.

The words came out wrong.

Liam’s expression sharpened at once, wounded pride rising even through exhaustion. "Cannot?"

Arik caught the mistake, but the fear was already through his teeth. "I cannot let you leave this palace while Felix is missing."

Liam went very still.

"Let me?"

The phrase struck the room like glass breaking.

Arik flinched, but he still reached for him.

His hands closed around Liam’s arms with careful desperation, as if Liam were something burning and sacred at once. When Liam stiffened, Arik stopped for half a second, every muscle in him trembling with the effort.

Then Liam’s breath hitched, and Arik broke.

He pulled him in.

Liam landed against his chest, and Arik wrapped his arms around him as if the shape of Liam beneath his hands were the only language his body still understood.

The bond shuddered.

The veil did not fall.

But it shook.

Liam’s hands pressed against Arik’s shoulders. "Do not do this."

"I will give you anything."

Liam froze.

Arik lowered his face into Liam’s hair, his voice breaking past control. "Anything. Your mother can come here. Henry can come. Mirelle can have the entire western wing and insult every guard I own. I will move Ravenwood’s household into the palace if that is what you want. I will empty this floor. I will leave my own rooms and give them to you. I will sleep in the corridor. I will put the medical office beside your door. I will give Stanford to you, Kamal to you, and every Shadow to you, or none of them if you hate the sight of them. I will call Damian and tell him to take the Wrohan crisis off my hands. I will give Rex the economy, Mezos the traitors, Noah the archives, and Marin my throat if he asks for it."

"Arik—"

"Anything," Arik said again, and the word tore raw from somewhere beneath pride. "But do not ask me to put you on a road Felix can touch."

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