"I am always charming."

"You are Damian’s son," Gabriel said. "You are compelling. That is not the same thing."

Arik laughed again, lower this time.

Gabriel did not smile, but his eyes warmed in a way that made the distance between Wrohan and Agaron feel briefly irrelevant.

Then his expression returned to focus. "Shadow surveillance is wise, but not enough. If Felix realizes what you saw, Liam becomes a liability to everyone around him."

"Then get rid of the consorts you have to keep the nobles under control," Gabriel said.

Arik’s fingers stilled on the armrest.

Gabriel continued, as if he had merely suggested changing the order of a state dinner. "Take Liam. He is a dominant omega of high standing, brilliant enough to terrify half the continent if properly supported, and politically positioned in Wrohan’s rot. More importantly, you like him."

Arik looked at the projection. "That was a very swift progression from protection to marriage policy."

Gabriel looked pained by the fact that he had to explain. "Arik, the consorts’ contract renewal date is near, isn’t it?"

"In eleven days," Arik said, raising a brow in question.

"Then it is not marriage policy. It is not even scandalous. It is administrative timing."

Arik’s mouth curved. "You make dismantling a consort arrangement sound like revising a procurement clause."

"It is a consort arrangement renewed every three months for political containment," Gabriel said. "Not a love story. Not even a particularly imaginative compromise. Let the contracts expire, pay what must be paid, keep whatever noble houses remain useful, and stop allowing temporary furniture to occupy a permanent corner of your life."

"Temporary furniture," Arik repeated.

Gabriel’s expression remained serene. "I was being polite."

"You really don’t like them."

"I don’t like the arrangement," Gabriel corrected. "The individuals are irrelevant."

"That is harsher."

"That is accurate." Gabriel leaned back slightly, his gaze sharpening with that familiar, elegant impatience that had made ministers forget how to breathe. "You keep them because a portion of the nobility finds your private life easier to tolerate when it is filed into categories they understand. Three consorts. Three contracts. Three houses placated for another quarter."

"They serve political stability."

"They serve noble vanity."

Arik’s mouth curved faintly. "Sometimes those are cousins."

"And sometimes one executes the cousin before it breeds."

Arik laughed softly. "You sound like Father."

"No. Your father would have already made the problem disappear and then asked why anyone thought his son’s bed was a matter for parliamentary weather reports."

"That does sound like him."

"Damian would kill very quickly anyone foolish enough to comment on the private lives of his children," Gabriel said, his voice mild enough to be lethal. "I, however, am trying to be civilized."

"By calling my consorts furniture."

"Temporary furniture."

"Civilized."

"Restrained," Gabriel said. "There is a difference."

Arik glanced toward the Vanguard file, then back to Gabriel’s projection. "The houses behind them will complain if I let the contracts expire."

"Let them."

"You dislike complaints."

"I dislike unnecessary sacrifice more."

That made Arik close his eyes in silent surrender.

"You have a habit," Gabriel continued, "of making your own life inconvenient so the nobles can feel managed. It is efficient in the short term. It is also tedious, unimaginative, and beneath you."

"You are lecturing me on tolerating political inconvenience?" He asked, opening his eyes with a pointed look.

"I married Damian," Gabriel said. "I am an expert in choosing which inconveniences deserve permanent housing."

Arik’s smile returned, but quieter.

Gabriel’s expression softened only enough to become more dangerous. "If you want Liam, or even if you only want the possibility of Liam, then stop arranging your personal life as a pressure valve for aristocratic boredom. He will see it. Worse, he will understand it. And then he will assume you intend to make him another part of that mechanism."

"I barely know the man," Arik said with a wide grin that told Gabriel, his son and whatever warlord was lurking beneath him, was testing his patience on purpose.

Gabriel stared at him with the look he used when Arik was problematic as a child.

Arik’s grin widened by a fraction.

"Do not," Gabriel said.

"I said nothing inaccurate."

"You said something useless."

"That is different."

"It is worse." Gabriel’s voice remained mild. "You barely knew the man and still sent me his project before showering. You barely knew the man and placed him under shadow surveillance. You barely knew the man and are sitting there with his proposal on your table and that expression on your face."

"What expression?"

"The one Damian had the first time we met," Gabriel said, "and I took it for imperial arrogance. I know that look. And if your little shadow surveillance report comes back with a note that Liam has a lover, the lover in question will be dead in twelve hours."

Arik stared at him for half a second.

Then he laughed.

Not the low, polite laugh he used in council chambers when someone had said something foolish and expensive. Not the quiet, controlled amusement he gave nobles when they offered him problems wrapped in velvet.

This laugh was warmer and far more dangerous.

"Father," he said, "that is a dramatic accusation."

"It is a conservative estimate."

"I would not kill a man in twelve hours over a rumor."

Gabriel’s expression did not change.

Arik’s smile remained.

Then, after a moment, he amended, "I will have him dead in less than two. I’m efficient like you."

Gabriel closed his eyes.

There it was. The family sickness. Not even hidden.

"I am surrounded by alphas with legal immunity and no shame," Gabriel said, with the weariness of a man who had once survived a rebellion only to spend the rest of his life managing hereditary possessiveness in expensive coats.

Arik leaned back, still smiling. "You married one."

"I was young."

"You were brilliant."

Gabriel opened his eyes again, and the warmth in them had thinned into something sharp enough to cut glass. "You will not kill a hypothetical lover."

Arik leaned back, still smiling faintly. "Not even if he is unsuitable?"

"Especially not because he is unsuitable."

"Unsuitable men have caused historic problems."

"So have possessive princes."

Arik’s gaze cooled by a degree, but the amusement did not vanish. "You wound me."

"I am preventing you from becoming your father before the second meeting."

"My father is happily mated."

"Your father mated me in less than a week from our first meeting in person."

Arik paused.

For once, visibly.

Gabriel watched that pause with the grim satisfaction of a man finally using history as a blunt object.

"That is not the same," Arik said at last.

"No?" Gabriel’s brows lifted. "Please explain. I would love to hear the legal distinction."

"You chose him."

"Eventually."

Arik’s mouth twitched.

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. "Do not smile. I am making a point."

"You usually do."

"Your father had years of surveillance, intelligence, fascination, and increasingly poor self-control before I ever stood properly in front of him. Once I did, his restraint lasted six days."

Arik leaned back slightly. "Impressive."

"Concerning," Gabriel corrected. "It was concerning."

"And yet."

"And yet I am still telling you not to treat Damian’s romantic timeline as a family achievement to surpass."

"I had no intention of surpassing it."

"You threatened hypothetical murder before your second conversation with Liam."

"I said less than two hours. That was efficiency, not romance."

Gabriel stared at him.

Arik’s smile returned, slow and impossible. "A joke."

"A joke wearing your father’s jawline."

For a moment, Gabriel looked less like the Empire’s most dangerous strategist and more like a man who had survived being loved by Damian and had accepted that all five of their children inherited some variant of catastrophe.

"Listen carefully," Gabriel said. "Damian’s possessiveness worked because I chose him while knowing exactly what he was. Not because he cornered me with fate, power, or pheromones. If you want Liam, you will need to survive him choosing slowly."

Arik’s amusement softened.

"He may not choose me."

"Then you survive that too.

"That sounds unpleasant."

"It is called civilization."

"Father would disagree."

"Your father disagrees with many things that prevent him from immediately getting what he wants." Gabriel’s mouth curved faintly. "Fortunately, I trained him."

Arik laughed under his breath. "You make him sound obedient."

"No. I make him sound married."

That, finally, made Arik look away with a small smile.

Gabriel’s voice gentled, though the edge remained. "Do not become Damian on the sixth day when Liam is still deciding whether you are danger, an inconvenience, or both."

Arik looked back at him.

"And if he decides I am both?"

Gabriel’s smile turned sharp.

"Then at least he is paying attention."