Chapter 202: Hopeful [Win-Win]

"If you kiss me now, it can be."

Liam stared at him.

For one second, the room held very still.

Then Liam’s face did something complicated, betrayed first by the faintest warmth at the tips of his ears, then rescued immediately by irritation.

"You are impossible."

"I am hopeful."

"You are using your beauty and emotional timing against a recovering man."

"Yes."

"At least deny it."

"I respect you too much to lie poorly."

Liam’s eyes narrowed. "That was dangerously charming."

"I can try again."

"No."

Arik’s mouth curved in a dashing smile.

Liam hated that.

He hated that he had been furious for days, still was furious, and yet Arik could lie beneath him looking exhausted and beautiful and terrifyingly devoted, and some stupid part of Liam’s body would still consider the matter from a strictly technical perspective.

A kiss would not solve anything.

Liam leaned down anyway.

Arik did not move to meet him.

He only stayed still, one arm around Liam’s waist, gold eyes fixed on him with such restrained hunger that Liam nearly forgot every moral, political, and engineering objection he had prepared.

Liam stopped with barely an inch between them.

Arik’s breath changed.

Liam whispered, "No."

Arik’s eyes darkened.

"No?" His voice low, rambling in the small space between them.

"No." Liam pushed one finger against his chest, exactly over the place where his heart was beating far too steadily for someone causing this much damage to Liam’s sanity. "You do not get kissed because you made a romantic correction after hiding imperial soul fragments."

"That is an oddly specific policy."

"It was written recently."

"I object."

"Noted and rejected."

Liam pushed himself up before his own resolve could lose structural integrity. The movement pulled unpleasantly through his chest, and Marin’s ward immediately pulsed in stern blue warning.

Arik’s arm tightened.

Liam looked down at it.

Arik released him at once, though the effort was visible.

"I am going to the bathroom," Liam said.

Arik sat up immediately. "I will help you."

"No."

"Liam."

"I said bathroom, not battlefield."

"You sway when standing."

"I sway with dignity."

"You do not."

Liam glared.

Arik looked back.

For a moment, it was almost normal, except for the half-closed bond, the ancient emperor standing silently at Arik’s back, the missing traitors, the poisoned archives, and the possible soul-haunted piano waiting in George’s room.

So not normal at all.

Liam threw the blanket aside and slid toward the edge of the bed.

Arik moved with him, hands hovering, every instinct in his body visibly screaming to lift Liam and carry him. He did not. That restraint had become its own strange language between them.

Liam stood.

The floor tilted slightly, which was rude.

Arik’s hands came up.

Liam lifted one finger. "No."

Arik froze, expression darkening with the effort.

Liam took one breath, then another, until the room stopped making ambitious rotations. "See? Perfectly fine."

"You are pale."

"I was pale while lying down too. That argument lacks range."

Arik’s jaw stiffened, and Liam could tell he was fighting a smile and a panic attack in equal measure.

Good.

Let him multitask.

Liam crossed the short distance to the bathroom slowly enough that he could pretend it was a choice and not a necessity. Arik remained on the bed, one hand curled hard against the sheets, watching him like each step cut a thread from his nerves.

At the bathroom door, Liam paused and looked back.

"If you follow me, I will weaponize the toothbrush."

Arik’s eyes flickered. "I believe you."

"Good."

Liam slipped inside and closed the door.

Behind the door, Arik did not move for several seconds.

He listened to the sound of water running.

A cabinet opening.

Liam muttering something that sounded suspiciously like "useless reincarnation" under his breath.

Only when the rhythm steadied did Arik let himself look away.

His comm-band had gone nearly black with stacked notifications.

Warnings. Missed updates. Security reports. Palace calls. Mezos. Stanford. Noah. Rex. Damian. Gabriel. Damian again. Gabriel with the priority seal, which meant he was being polite before becoming dangerous. Three messages from Marin, each shorter than the last, which was never a good sign.

Arik lifted the comm and opened the queue.

Rex had sent fourteen updates, most of them related to George’s death, Ray’s restricted interrogation, Cain’s disappearance, and the treasury being "worse than insulting," which was not a legal category but sounded emotionally accurate.

Damian had sent one message.

Call me before your mother decides I should come myself.

Gabriel had sent six.

The first was deceptively simple.

Arik.

Your father is pretending not to be worried. He is bad at it.

Noah says Liam is awake. Do not make me ask why Noah knows before I do.

Is my future son-in-law conscious enough to be angry? This is important for the approach.

Damian says do not antagonize Wrohan more than necessary. I disagree if necessary becomes interesting.

The sixth had arrived five minutes ago.

If you are ignoring me because you are making something worse, I will know.

Arik closed his eyes briefly.

Behind his ribs, Goliath stirred with faint appreciation.

Arik ignored him and called Rex.

The answer came after one pulse, which meant Rex had either been waiting or had lost the ability to sleep.

"Tell me this is not about the treasury," Rex said.

"It is not."

"Thank the gods."

"It is about George’s piano."

Rex went silent.

Then, carefully, "I hate that sentence."

"You should."

"That isn’t comforting."

"George had a piano in one of his waiting rooms. Old Nurian manufacture. Felix brought it from the old collection. Liam saw it before George proposed the engagement."

Another silence.

This one was sharper.

"Why," Rex asked slowly, "am I only now hearing that my dead unworthy father kept a potentially cursed imperial piano in a waiting room?"

"Because George had too many crimes for one inventory."

"Fair, but unhelpful."

"Seal the room."

"It is in the restricted wing already."

"No. Close the room properly. Sovereign-level restriction. No archivists. No staff. No Wrohan court officials who feel nostalgic about touching theft. No one enters until I see it."

Rex exhaled through his nose. "Arik, I am currently trying to keep a government upright with string, threats, and Mezos’s increasingly disturbing suggestions."

"Then add one more threat."

"I am listening."

"If anything happens to that piano," Arik said softly, "if it is moved, touched, catalogued, played, damaged, dusted by someone with more enthusiasm than survival instinct, or stolen by Cain because the room was not sealed properly, I will not forgive you."

Rex went very still on the other end of the line.

Arik did not raise his voice.

"You owe me," Arik said.

Rex did not ask which part.

He knew.

"I am sorry," Rex said.

Arik’s eyes moved toward the bathroom door.

Water still ran.

Liam was still upright.

"Be useful instead."

Rex gave a humorless laugh. "I trust perhaps four people with my life, and two of them want to murder me politically."

"Then go yourself."

"Arik."

"Rex."

The name landed with enough old danger that Rex stopped.

Behind Arik’s ribs, Goliath was silent, but the room felt colder.

Arik’s voice lowered. "If that piano is an anchor, bait, or storage vessel, and Cain reaches it before us, Liam was right before eating while poisoned and half-dressed in my bed. I will never hear the end of it."

Rex paused.

Then said, with faint disbelief, "That is the part motivating you?"

"No. The part motivating me is that Felix kept fragments of my past scattered through your family’s rooms like trophies, and one of them may have hurt Liam before I even knew to look for it."

Rex said nothing.

Arik continued, quieter now, "But yes, I would also prefer not to be outperformed by my recovering mate in archive logic before he has eaten."

"That ship may have sailed."

"Rex."

"Going. I am going."

"Send confirmation when the room is sealed."

"I will. And Arik?"

"What?"

Rex’s voice softened, losing its new-king sharpness. "For what I said last night... I did not mean to make him feel like he was last."

Arik’s jaw tightened.

"No," he said. "That was my doing."

Rex did not argue.

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