No... he wanted revenge.

By the time Arion reached Conference Room Two, the violence in him had become orderly.

That was worse for the Vale family.

Anger, the crude kind, would have given them room to perform. They could have looked frightened, insulted, or victimized by a prince too invested in his mate to behave with imperial restraint. They could have hidden behind Andrea’s bruises, behind the language of emotional disturbance, and behind the old reliable argument that a rare dominant omega in distress must be protected before he is judged.

Arion entered the conference room without knocking.

Otto looked up from the head of the table.

The Vale family looked up with him.

Lord Vale had the pale dignity of a man who had spent the last hour discovering that money could be frozen, titles could be made irrelevant, and old friendships became very quiet when treason entered the room wearing one’s family name. Lady Vale sat beside him in cream silk and pearls, her red hair darker than Andrea’s but styled by a very expensive private stylist. Her hands were folded on the table. Her face was composed.

Their legal counsel sat to the side with a tablet in front of him and the expression of a man who had already regretted accepting his retainer fee.

Otto did not ask about Andrea.

His eyes moved once to Arion’s right hand, then back to his face, and whatever he saw there made his expression sharpen by one degree.

That was all.

Arion took the empty seat to Otto’s right.

Lady Vale’s mouth tightened. "Your Highness."

Arion looked at her.

She held his gaze, which meant she was either braver than her son or more foolish. Time would decide.

Otto folded his hands on the table. "We were discussing your family’s claim that Andrea acted out of jealousy and emotional distress."

"Jealousy is not a legal defense," Arion said, his tone mocking.

Lord Vale inhaled carefully. "No one suggested it should be."

"You implied it should reduce the severity of his actions."

"We implied," Lady Vale said smoothly, "that context matters."

Arion’s eyes moved to her. "Then provide it."

She looked almost pleased by that.

"Andrea was humiliated," she said. "Publicly. Repeatedly. He was expected to endure being displaced from a future he had been raised to believe possible."

"A future no one promised him."

"No one corrected the assumption strongly enough either."

Arion’s expression did not move.

Otto’s eyes cooled.

Lady Vale continued, her voice polished into something almost reasonable. "Your Highness, with all due respect, you allowed Andrea to remain near you for years. He was suitable, rare, educated, and Alaminian. He served a role in your life, and then Dean arrived."

Arion leaned back slightly. "There is no respect in those words."

The room went still.

Lady Vale’s face hardened by a fraction. "I am speaking plainly."

"No. You’re dressing up insult in simple terms because you think courtesy makes venom more palatable. Or maybe you think me stupid, at this point it could be either.

Lord Vale shifted. "Your Highness—"

Arion did not look away from Lady Vale. "Continue."

She did.

"Andrea acted rashly. Wrongly, perhaps. But Dean Fitzgeralt is not blameless in the instability surrounding him. He is, with all due respect, a sheltered boy who never once learned what it means to be a prince or to stand beside one. He does not know the discipline, the tradition, and the restraint required of a crown marriage. He came into this court with Palatine arrogance, family scandal, and enough public sympathy to turn every correction into cruelty."

Arion smiled, his dark, scarred brow raising.

The counsel went very still.

Otto’s gaze moved toward his son with the slow attention of a man watching a loaded weapon decide whether the room required firing.

Arion’s voice remained quiet. "Say sheltered boy again."

Lady Vale’s lips pressed together.

For the first time, she seemed to realize that the softness of his tone was not restraint meant for her benefit.

"I meant," she said, adjusting smoothly, "that he is young."

"He is nineteen," Lord Vale added, perhaps thinking numbers were safer than descriptions. "You are twenty-six. The age gap, the power gap, the political dependency... these are not insignificant factors."

Arion turned his head slowly toward him. "Careful."

Lord Vale paled, but Lady Vale did not stop.

No, she leaned forward slightly, and the disgust in Arion settled into something almost calm.

"People will ask," she said. "If this goes public, people will ask why a man of twenty-six, the Crown Prince of Alamina, became so consumed by a nineteen-year-old from Palatine. They will ask whether Andrea was truly the unstable one or whether you became interested in something newer. Less trained. Less complicated." Her smile was thin. "Fresh meat, some might say."

Silence.

Complete.

Even the ventilation seemed too loud.

Otto’s expression became unreadable in a way that usually preceded careers ending. The counsel shut his eyes for a fraction of a second. Lord Vale looked as though he had just heard his wife step willingly into traffic and could not decide whether reaching for her would save anything.

Arion did not move, but his pheromones vanished.

Withdrawn so completely that the room felt suddenly hollow, like all the air had been pulled away from the instinctive parts of everyone present.

Arion looked at Lady Vale.

He did not blink.

"Fresh meat," Arion repeated softly.

Lady Vale’s chin lifted, though a faint, uncontrollable tremor finally betrayed the tight clasp of her hands. "I am merely pointing out how the public might—"

"The public," Arion interrupted, his voice dropping into a register so devoid of warmth it made the air feel brittle, "already knows. The engagement was public and ceremonial in two empires. Dean’s age is not hidden. My age is not hidden. Our relationship was announced before nobles, civilians, foreign dignitaries, live cameras, and enough press outlets to drown this palace in commentary for a month."

Lady Vale’s lips parted.

Arion’s eyes remained fixed on her.

"But nobles like you never bother to see what civilians know, do you? You assume the public waits for your permission to understand what is in front of them. You assume the world is still arranged in salons, private messages, and mothers whispering poison into the ears of sons who were raised too beautifully to recognize their own rot."

The room had gone so still that even Lord Vale stopped breathing loudly.

Arion leaned forward by a fraction.

"Did you think my engagement and marriage were only for the nobles? Did you think Dean stood beside me publicly so people like you could later discover his age and pretend concern? The public won’t say a word. Do you know why, Lady Vale?"

She swallowed.

"Because dead families do not command press cycles."