Chapter 17: My Moon

Chapter 17: Chapter 17: My Moon

Nero learned Sebastian had left Palatine over breakfast.

The information arrived at eight thirteen in the morning, somewhere between Christopher complaining about the international press and Dax reading three reports at once as though Zion’s wedding had not kept half the palace awake until well past midnight.

The private Sahan dining room overlooked the eastern gardens, where palace staff were already dismantling portions of the previous night’s reception. White flowers remained tangled through the temporary structures, some beginning to bow beneath the morning sun, while workers moved tables beneath the colonnades and collected abandoned glasses from the lawns.

Nero sat near the windows in black trousers and a loose cream shirt, his long white-blond hair falling freely around his shoulders and down his back. He had slept less than four hours and looked irritatingly unaffected by it.

Hale entered carrying a tablet.

Nero glanced up.

Something in his expression made Christopher stop speaking.

"What?"

"Marquis Fitzgeralt left the capital shortly after midnight," Hale said.

Nero’s hand stopped around his coffee.

Dax looked up from his report.

Christopher’s eyes narrowed.

"Why?" Nero asked.

"His staff informed palace security that his rut began earlier than expected. He returned to Fitzgeralt by private aircraft."

For several seconds, Nero said nothing.

Then he placed his cup on the table very carefully.

Sebastian had used rut from all things.

A reason private enough that nobody would question him and ordinary enough that no physician outside Sebastian’s own household would immediately demand access.

Nero leaned back.

"That lying bastard."

Christopher sighed.

"Nero."

"He is not in rut."

"You know that?"

"Yes."

Dax studied him over the top of his tablet.

Nero did not elaborate. He did not need to.

His parents knew enough about the situation to understand what Sebastian was actually running from.

Or, more accurately, whom.

Nero’s jaw tightened. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ

He had expected anger after the bathroom or Sebastian to avoid him through breakfast, perhaps several days if pride became particularly energetic.

He had not expected him to leave the capital entirely.

That was irritating.

More irritating was the immediate, instinctive objection beneath it.

Sebastian should be here. Somewhere Nero could see him.

The thought arrived with enough possessiveness that Nero almost laughed at himself.

He had spent years controlling the instinct because there had been no other option. Sebastian had demanded distance, and Nero had given him more of it than anyone who knew him would have thought possible.

Seven years.

Then five days of Sebastian within reach had ruined all that careful starvation.

Breakfast across from him.

Sebastian’s dry laugh when Nero said something sufficiently offensive.

The dark hair falling around his shoulders when he was tired enough to stop caring how perfectly arranged he looked.

Green eyes narrowing across a room.

The brief moments when Sebastian’s body finally stopped fighting itself under Nero’s pheromones.

Five days had reminded Nero what being close felt like.

Now Sebastian had taken it away again.

Nero rose from the table.

Christopher watched him.

"Where are you going?"

"To refrain from committing a diplomatic incident."

"That answer does not inspire confidence."

"It wasn’t meant to."

Nero left before either parent could decide to make the conversation parental.

Hale followed him into the adjoining corridor.

Morning light spilled across pale stone floors and the portraits lining the private wing. Staff moved discreetly around them, clearing the remnants of the Sahan delegation’s extended stay, but nobody approached once they saw Nero’s expression.

He walked toward his office.

Hale waited until the door closed behind them.

"You knew he would leave?"

"No."

Nero crossed to the windows.

Beyond the gardens, the palace walls cut across the capital in pale stone and dark roofing, the city spreading around them beneath a clear sky.

Fitzgeralt lay north at eight hours of flight from Saha.

Too far north for Nero’s liking.

"He’s running."

Hale leaned one hip against the desk.

"Likely."

Nero looked over his shoulder.

"Very comforting."

"You did tell him you had been stabilizing him without permission."

"He asked me to stop."

"And you did?"

"Yes."

"Then showed him what happened without you."

Nero smiled faintly.

"You make it sound manipulative."

Hale’s expression did not change.

Nero laughed.

"Fine."

He turned back toward the windows.

The more honest version was considerably uglier.

He wanted Sebastian near because Sebastian was his mate.

Well... not yet, but Nero had never used that word for anyone else, even privately.

He had never considered anyone else.

There had been opportunities, obviously. Enough interested omegas, alphas, betas, nobles, civilians, foreign heirs, and carefully presented political candidates to fill several palaces.

Nero had never slept with any of them.

Not because he was innocent.

He knew exactly what sex was, what people wanted from him, what they imagined when they looked too long, and how easily he could have taken whatever temporary pleasure was offered.

He simply had not cared.

Why would he?

None of them were Sebastian.

The realization had settled into him so young that by adulthood it had ceased feeling like sacrifice.

Then Sebastian spent five days near him, and Nero remembered how hungry he actually was.

For a mate.

For his mate.

For the ordinary things that irritated him precisely because he wanted them too much: Sebastian sitting across from him at breakfast, Sebastian insulting him before coffee, Sebastian reaching for him without first calculating what the gesture meant.

Nero lowered his eyes.

"My moon."

The Sahan words carried a weight the Palatine translation never quite managed.

Dax used them for Christopher and nobody else.

Nero had thought the words about Sebastian for years without saying them aloud.

Hale heard them now and remained silent.

He was Sahan.

He understood.

That was one reason Nero trusted him.

Hale knew exactly what it meant when someone like Nero stopped seeing other possibilities.

Nero turned.

"The photographer."

"Still under surveillance."

"Has he contacted anyone?"

"Two editors. Neither received the photographs. Our team intercepted the metadata activity and confirmed he has followed your instructions."

"Good."

Hale straightened.

"You want the story released?"

"In two weeks."

A slight pause.

"Exactly two?"

"Yes."

Nero returned to the desk and picked up the tablet Hale had brought earlier.

"Keep Calder under surveillance until then. Every message, every upload, every person he meets. If he tries to sell the images early, stop him without damaging the files."

"And the article?"

Nero’s mouth curved.

"He’ll publish what we give him."

Hale already knew the outline of the story, and it was false enough to make Sebastian murderous.

Hale considered him for a moment.

"Two weeks gives Marquis Fitzgeralt time to establish his condition at home."

"Exactly."

"And if he improves?"

Nero’s smile thinned.

"He won’t."

There was no arrogance in the answer.

Nero had felt Sebastian’s instability directly. Distance would not cure it. Suppressants would not suddenly become more effective because Sebastian crossed into northern Palatine.

Eventually his family would know how bad it was.

And when the article appeared, the public would already have the most sympathetic explanation possible for why Sebastian had refused Nero.

Hale exhaled quietly.

"You intend to make refusing you politically difficult."

"I intend to make everyone ask why a dying dominant alpha is being permitted to refuse the only stable option available."

"That is not meaningfully different."

Nero smiled.

"No."

Hale did not judge him.

That was another reason Nero asked Hale to be under his command.

He understood obsession without confusing understanding with approval.

More importantly, he understood what mate meant to a Sahan.

"You’re giving him two weeks," Hale said.

"I’m giving him time to prove me right."

Nero looked north through the windows, although Fitzgeralt lay far beyond anything he could actually see.

Sebastian wanted distance, evidence, and maybe another explanation.

Nero would let him have all three, for now.

Then he would take the photograph of Sebastian looking at him like hatred and need had become indistinguishable, place it before the entire world, and give everyone a reason to push his moon exactly where Nero had wanted him for seven years.

Into his arms.