Chapter 237: Fertility Idol & Emotional Support Chickens

"One more thing," Asher said, turning from Ronan. He pulled a small vial from his pocket, dipped his finger in it, then rubbed it on his front teeth.

He turned to face Ronan and gave a wicked grin. "It’s convincing, right?"

Three of his front teeth were black. Completely, aggressively black, painted with what appeared to be ink, giving him the grin of a man who had lost a bar fight and most of his dental structure.

"That’s disgusting," Ronan said flatly.

"Exactly. She takes one look at this smile and she’s back on her ship before the first course."

"If this goes the way I think it will, I am going to tell this story for the rest of my life. At banquets. To your children. On your deathbed. I will never let you forget this day."

"That’s the spirit," Asher clapped him on the back, then straightened. "If all else fails, I paid a serving girl to burst in during the second course holding a baby. She’s going to slap me across the face."

Ronan closed his eyes. "Is there a baby?"

"I sourced one. Keep up, Ronan."

The doors opened.

Asher straightened, planting his most disinterested expression, the one he’d rehearsed in the mirror twice, which Ronan had witnessed and would never let him live down.

A woman with Serena’s hair and face entered. Dexmon watched the seventeen year old version of himself take her in. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Asher’s carefully constructed mask of indifference disintegrated. What replaced it was a sequence of expressions so rapid and so devastating that Ronan would later describe it as watching a man fall off a cliff, catch fire midair, and land in a river that was also on fire.

Everything Asher had prepared, every sabotage, every calculated insult, every escape route he’d mentally mapped, evaporated in the span of a single heartbeat. His lungs forgot their function. His cock hardened so fast it was physically disorienting. His nostrils flared and every nerve ending in his body detonated simultaneously.

Beside him, Ronan went rigid.

Asher’s head snapped sideways. Ronan’s pupils had blown wide, swallowing the color of his irises. His chest had stopped moving. Every muscle locked.

They looked at each other for exactly one second. Two teenagers who had spent their lives reading the other, who had survived wars and pranks and grief and every shade of chaos in between, and in that one second, they both understood.

They were fucked.

Above them, the chandelier dropped six inches with a metallic shriek and stopped, swaying on its loosened chain. The sound was enormous in the marble hall.

Natalia’s hand flew to her mouth, and she jumped back, her eyes going wide.

"What the, oh gods, oh no, no no no." Asher lunged for the rope he’d rigged, yanking it to re-secure the chandelier before it could drop further. A sabotaged chair chose that precise moment to buckle under the weight of a decorative vase he’d placed on it as a decoy.

The vase hit the marble floor and exploded.

That’s when the first chicken came out of nowhere.

It burst from behind a marble column at ankle height, wings half-spread, moving with the frantic energy of an animal that had been confined to a corridor for reasons it did not understand or support. It cut directly across Natalia’s path, close enough that she had to sidestep.

The second chicken followed immediately, louder and more agitated, weaving between the legs of her father’s entourage like a drunk at a parade.

The third chicken, the one Asher had specifically chosen for its calm temperament and had clearly misjudged entirely, launched itself off the floor with a sound that could only be described as violent. It hit the wall, bounced, scrambled across the stone floor in a blur of feathers, and disappeared behind a statue of Asher’s grandfather.

"Emotional support animals," Asher said, because apparently his survival instinct had left with his dignity.

King Ragnar entered at that moment and looked at Asher. "What," he clipped, his voice low enough that only Asher and Ronan could hear, "are you wearing."

"Clothes," Asher answered, for the second time that day.

"You are meeting your future wife in a tunic that smells like a horse sweated through it."

"That’s the stone. Very old building. Retains moisture."

Ragnar’s eyes closed for exactly one second. When they opened, they held the quiet, terrifying patience of a father deciding whether to murder his son now or after the guests left.

"We will discuss this later."

"Looking forward to it."

"You should not be."

He then looked past his son to the girl. He studied her the way a king studies assets and threats alike.

"Natalia Moonveil. Lethos’s adopted daughter. He tells me you’re the best thing in his kingdom and he is not a man who exaggerates."

Natalia dipped respectfully.

"Thank you, my King. I hope to prove my father right."

A man wearing a crown stepped forward and clasped Ragnar’s arm. "Ragnar, old friend. It’s been too long." His eyes moved between the two boys. "Which one of them is taking my daughter?"

His attention landed on Ronan again after asking the question. He smiled. Warm, genuine, the smile of a father who sees a future son-in-law and is pleased.

"You must be Asher." He nodded at Ronan with open approval and turned back to Ragnar. "You raised him well. He holds himself like a king already."

"That’s my other son, Ronan."

The silence that followed could have sunk a ship.

Asher stepped forward with his mouth sealed and offered the shallowest bow his rank would permit.

"I am Asher, son of Ragnar. Dragon Prince and heir of Valerion. You honor our halls, My King." He made sure to not show his teeth when he spoke, so the words came out like he was muttering.

Ronan, who knew exactly why, looked away so he would not laugh.

Lethos Moonveil studied Asher for a moment too long before reluctantly stepping forward to grip his forearm.

"Don’t worry, son. Natalia had a stutter once. She outgrew it and will be able to help you with yours."

Natalia and Ronan closed their eyes identically for entirely different reasons.

Ragnar studied his son, who was staring at Natalia with wide eyes, and arrived at exactly the right conclusion for entirely the wrong reasons. His mouth twitched. The closest he’d come to warmth.

"The boy doesn’t stutter, Lethos. It seems he is smitten with your daughter and trying not to embarrass himself. He’s failing, but the effort is there."

Asher should have been mortified. Instead, Ragnar’s voice had become furniture.

Lethos glanced at his daughter, who was staring at the floor ignoring the boy burning a hole through her with his eyes.

"He’s not the first to lose himself around my daughter. I’ll admit, I expected your son to last longer. But I don’t blame the boy."

"There were rumors of her beauty," Ragnar said. "For once, the rumors were understated. The welcome offering, Asher."

Four words. Delivered like a command on a battlefield. Asher’s stomach dropped.

Protocol required a welcome gift. Asher had, in fact, prepared for this.

Ronan rubbed his hand down his face knowing exactly what Asher was about to "gift."

Asher reached into one of his pockets, which were roughly the size of fishing nets because his trousers were ridiculous, and pulled out an item wrapped in stained cloth.

The smell that had been on his clothing went with the item.

"Thank you," she said graciously. She accepted it with both hands, her fingers trembling. It smelled but she didn’t react to it. Her father’s jaw tightened and his nostrils flared.

She pulled out the item wrapped in the stained cloth, and for a moment, her composure was gone. Her eyes widened in complete alarm. Her face turned scarlet.

Asher had gifted a fertility idol. A woman with an obscene number of breasts. Rows of them. Floor to chin. Mating with a man with a large phallus. Oversized. Veined. Aggressively detailed.

A gift that Asher could argue he meant well if his father was upset. Their ancestors used to gift those. He wasn’t sure if that was true but that was what he was going to say.

She looked at the statue, then at Asher, then at her father.

"What is it?" her father asked, taking the statue.

"It’s blessed by the temple. Very sacred," Asher answered, his face completely serious.

Lethos turned the statue over in his hands. His expression moved through several phases: confusion, recognition, disbelief, and finally a cold, settled calm.

"Ragnar." His voice was even. "Your son presented my daughter with an obscenity. There are chickens loose in your corridors. And unless my eyes deceive me, the boy has painted his teeth black."

Until now, she had been bewildered but polite, a woman trying to respect customs she didn’t recognize. But her father’s words rearranged everything, and Asher watched the moment her polite confusion turned into recognition that turned into devastation.

Lethos looked at his daughter and caught the hurt in her eyes. "I am not convinced this arrangement is a match. It is clear your heir does not want her. We have other suitors who do."

Ragnar stepped forward. "Lethos. I give you my word as a king and as a man who has known you for thirty years. This will be addressed. Severely. What you’ve seen today is not a reflection of this house. It is a reflection of a boy who will be answering for every decision he made this morning for a very long time."

"I didn’t sail three weeks because of a treaty, Ragnar. I sailed because he was your heir and you are the type of man I want for her. I expected your blood and backbone. What I got was a boy who decided to frighten a girl who came here with nothing but good faith. Good men don’t make little girls uncomfortable for sport."

Asher’s voice was raw and stripped of every layer of arrogance. "I have no excuse. Everything you saw was my doing, and your daughter deserves better than what I gave her today."

The words hung in the marble hall. Asher’s hands were shaking at his sides, but he didn’t hide them. "I am sorry, Natalia."

Lethos studied Asher for a long moment. "Words are just that. You had a change of view, boy. If she had been ugly, you’d still be laughing."

"I will not insult you with excuses," Ragnar said. "Stay the night. If my son is the same man tomorrow that he was today, then I’ll see you off myself."

Lethos looked down at his daughter, then exhaled.

"We will stay the night," he finally said. "Because my daughter is tired and has traveled too far to turn around in the same hour. We will stay as a courtesy extended to you, not your son."

"Understood."

He turned and summoned the nearest attendant with a single raised hand.

Lethos guided Natalia in between the stone pillars into the corridor. Her eyes were red now but she didn’t cry or react. She went without looking at Asher. Without looking at anyone. Except, for one half-second as she turned, her gaze caught Ronan’s.

Her brows knitted. Her lips parted.

But she turned and was gone.

Ronan’s hand was braced against the nearest pillar, his knuckles white, his face a war between the feral recognition still tearing through his body and the dawning, exquisite horror of watching his brother self-destruct in real time.

The memory collapsed.