Chapter 592: Two changes.

More than a month after Sebastian and Nero’s wedding, Dean had begun to suspect that being busy had become the permanent condition of their household.

The move into the main palace continued one room at a time. Minerva’s responsibilities arrived on Dean’s desk faster than he could transfer his own work out of the Crown Prince residence, while Arion spent most days moving between imperial transition meetings, military briefings, the research institute, and whatever new question Otto had decided his future emperor should begin answering without him.

They still ate together.

Theo still had his lessons.

Boreas and Ducky still treated every open packing crate as a personal invitation.

Beyond that, the days had blurred into schedules.

Which was why Dean had gone to bed the previous evening expecting nothing more dramatic than six hours of sleep and perhaps a child appearing at dawn to ask where somebody had packed his favorite book.

Instead, Theo’s pheromones had erupted shortly after midnight.

One moment Dean had been asleep beside Arion, and the next a strange pressure had swept through the adjoining rooms strongly enough to wake both of them.

They found Theo sitting upright in bed, frightened more by the adults suddenly surrounding him than by whatever his own body was doing.

His eyes were completely black.

The air around him felt wrong.

Dean had experienced Arion’s presence often enough to recognize the shape beneath it even before Victor arrived.

Sigma.

At four years old.

Nobody had known whether that was possible.

Nobody had enough cases to establish what normal even looked like.

There were no medical textbooks built around a population of three.

Dax had manifested differently. Arion’s own biology had been complicated by infection, corruption, early rut, and everything else his body survived at eight. Theo had been born with an inherited structure nobody had properly documented before him.

So Victor had checked everything twice.

Seven had joined by secure call.

It was a sudden pheromonal flare powerful enough that three members of palace security outside the family wing had felt it.

By three in the morning, Victor had finally said what everyone already suspected.

Theo had manifested as a sigma.

Like his father.

Dean had sat beside his son while Victor explained it in language suitable for a four-year-old, although Theo’s primary concern had been whether this meant something was wrong with him.

It did not.

After that, Theo had become stubborn.

He refused to sleep alone despite insisting repeatedly that he was not afraid.

Dean had recognized the contradiction and climbed into the child’s bed without discussing it.

Theo curled against him with the wooden dragon trapped between their stomachs and one hand wrapped tightly into Dean’s shirt.

"Dada too?"

"There isn’t enough room."

Theo looked toward Arion.

There was absolutely enough room if Arion wanted to fold himself into a bed designed for a child.

Arion looked at Dean.

Dean looked back.

Theo inherited his father’s secondary gender.

Apparently he had inherited Dean’s stubbornness as compensation.

Arion bent, kissed Theo’s forehead, and promised to remain nearby.

That had satisfied him.

Dean woke after sunrise with Theo’s foot pressed against his thigh, the dragon’s wooden wing digging into his ribs, and Boreas occupying nearly the entire floor beside the bed.

Arion was gone.

Dean found him in the private office.

He stood beside the long desk in brown trousers and a pale blue shirt with the sleeves pushed above his elbows, reading through a set of council documents while morning light spread across the scattered pages.

"You did not sleep."

Arion looked up.

"I rested."

Dean stared at him.

"That means no."

Arion’s body required less sleep than Dean’s, something Dax apparently shared, and Nero had inherited to an irritating degree. Most of the time, Arion behaved responsibly about it.

Occasionally he discovered an empty night and treated it like additional office hours.

Dean crossed the room and took the report from his hand.

"You spent the night monitoring Theo and working."

"The link was quiet. Theo stabilized. I had reports."

"You also have a bed."

Arion’s attention shifted toward Dean.

His nostrils flared slightly.

Dean frowned.

"What?"

Arion did not answer immediately.

He stepped closer instead, one hand settling around Dean’s wrist while his gaze moved across his face.

Dean stared at him.

"Theo is fine."

"I know."

"Victor said the flare was over."

Dean pulled his wrist free.

"Stop doing that."

Arion followed him when he turned toward the sitting room.

Dean noticed after six steps.

He stopped.

Arion stopped too.

"Why are you following me?"

Arion’s expression had become intensely focused.

Dean narrowed his eyes.

"If this is because I slept with Theo, I promise your son has not stolen your mate."

"That is not what I smell."

Dean’s irritation disappeared.

Arion moved closer again and lowered his face toward Dean’s neck, breathing carefully against the gland beneath his jaw.

Dean went still.

Vetiver deepened around them.

Arion’s hand came to Dean’s waist.

"Your pheromones changed."

Dean blinked.

"My heat ended weeks ago."

"I know what your heat smells like."

The words settled between them.

Dean stared at him.

Arion smelled him again, slower this time, and whatever uncertainty remained in his face began disappearing.

Dean’s pulse accelerated.

"You cannot possibly know from scent alone."

"No."

Arion’s thumb pressed gently into his side.

"But I know this isn’t Theo."

Dean looked toward the corridor leading back to their rooms.

A month.

His mind began counting without permission.

Their first attempt had been before Saha, but there were more from then until now.

Arion reached for his phone.

Dean caught his hand.

"Do not summon half the medical institute."

"I was calling Seven."

"One physician."

Arion looked almost offended.

"Obviously."

Seven arrived forty minutes later.

He brought a test.

Then another because Dean accused the first of looking too simple for the amount of medical planning they had endured.

Seven waited by the window while Dean stood beside the bathroom counter staring at two identical results.

Arion remained behind him.

Dean looked at the tests, at Seven and finally at Arion.

"Well."

Seven folded his arms.

"That is generally what happens when planned conception succeeds."

Dean ignored him.

Arion had gone very still.

The same stillness he carried when emotion became too large for immediate movement.

Dean smiled first.

Arion crossed the small space between them, caught Dean carefully around the waist, and pressed his forehead against his.

Outside the bedroom, Theo’s voice carried faintly through the corridor as he explained to someone that being a sigma did not mean he needed a different breakfast.

Dean laughed softly.