Chapter 392: Wrong Question

Chapter 392: Chapter 392: Wrong Question

Liam’s laughter lasted longer than Arik considered appropriate.

"For a week," Liam repeated, one hand braced against the edge of Arik’s desk. "He was practically arranging himself in your line of sight."

Arik stared at him.

"I was busy."

"I noticed."

"There is an election being organized, I am rebuilding my direct office, parliament has discovered twelve different ways to object to regulations they have not even read properly, and every noble family in Deira appears convinced I desperately require one of their relatives on my staff."

Liam pressed his lips together.

Arik narrowed his eyes.

"Do not laugh again."

"I am trying."

Arik turned away from him and looked toward the door Silas had disappeared through.

The irritation that had filled him moments earlier shifted.

Something did not fit.

Liam noticed almost immediately.

His amusement faded as he straightened.

"What?"

Arik did not answer.

He crossed back toward his desk, stepping around the abandoned tablet Silas had left beside one of the chairs. The office had become strangely still without the other secretaries present, the evening lamps reflecting across black stone and polished wood while Deira glowed beyond the windows.

Silas had flirted with him for a week.

Arik had been too occupied to process it because the entire idea was ridiculous.

He stopped behind his chair.

"Everyone knows."

Liam frowned.

"Knows what?"

"That we are bonded."

Liam’s expression changed.

Their bonding had not been private information. Their marriage was public, their mate bond even more so, and Liam wore the stone created through that bond openly during imperial appearances. There was no political circle in Nuria where ignorance would be believable.

Arik looked toward him.

"He knew exactly what you are to me."

"Yes."

"He knew I have never shown interest in anyone else."

Liam nodded slowly.

"And if his goal was actually to seduce me, he chose to do it while competing for a position requiring judgment."

The last trace of amusement disappeared from Liam’s face.

"That would make him either extremely confident or extremely stupid."

"His evaluations say neither."

Silas had been one of the strongest candidates.

That was why Arik had chosen him.

He understood administration, parliamentary procedure, and political networks. His references were excellent. His interviews had been controlled enough that even Severin’s background investigators had found little worth questioning.

Arik reached for the internal communicator.

Liam moved closer.

"You think the flirting was deliberate for another reason."

"I think I have been asking the wrong question."

He contacted Severin.

The commander answered almost immediately.

"What happened?"

"Come to my office."

A pause.

"You sound irritated."

"Bring Mezos."

Arik disconnected.

Liam leaned one hip against the desk.

"What would Silas gain by provoking you?"

"That depends on who benefits from knowing how easily I can be provoked."

Liam looked toward the wall where Silas had been pinned minutes earlier.

"He got an answer."

"Yes."

Arik disliked that considerably.

He had not lost control.

Silas had crossed behind his desk after being dismissed, touched him inside his collar, and implied secrecy from Liam. Arik’s response had been restrained by his own standards.

But somebody watching the incident from the outside could learn several useful things.

How quickly he reacted to physical intrusion.

What happened when Liam was invoked.

Whether Arik relied on pheromonal dominance or force.

Whether Goliath’s old instincts emerged under provocation.

That final thought sat badly.

The doors opened less than five minutes later.

Severin entered first, Mezos behind him, both still dressed from the security briefing they had apparently interrupted. Severin’s dark uniform remained perfectly ordered. Mezos had loosened the collar of his own and carried a tablet beneath one arm.

His father, mercifully, was nowhere in sight.

Severin looked around.

"Where is Nereth?"

"Dismissed."

Mezos stopped.

"Already?"

"He touched Arik," Liam said.

Severin’s expression hardened immediately.

"How?"

"Not in a way requiring medical attention," Arik said. "Sit."

Neither sat.

Arik gave up.

"Pull everything on him again."

Mezos frowned.

"We cleared him twice."

"Clear him a third time."

"What are we looking for?"

Arik rested both palms on the desk.

"Someone who wanted access to me badly enough to place a competent person inside my direct office."

Severin understood first.

"This was not about attraction."

"I do not know."

Liam folded his arms.

"But it makes more sense than believing an intelligent man somehow thought flirting with a bonded emperor in front of his mate was a good career strategy."

Mezos looked between them.

"He was flirting?"

Arik gave him a flat look.

"Apparently everyone knew except me."

Mezos’s mouth moved.

Liam coughed suspiciously into his hand.

Severin ignored all of them and took Silas’s abandoned tablet.

"The original background showed no direct noble sponsor."

"Direct," Arik repeated.

"That word is doing work," Liam said.

Severin nodded.

"His parliamentary career involved several committees. Those committees interact with noble foundations, provincial councils, commercial houses. Anyone careful would avoid placing money or instructions directly in his name."

Mezos finally sat and began pulling up the original investigation.

"The timing matters."

Arik looked at him.

Mezos expanded a record across the desk projection.

"Nereth applied before the prime minister election announcement."

"But after we started discussing permanent appointments," Severin said.

"And when half the noble houses assumed those appointments would become their route into the new administration," Liam added.

Arik’s expression cooled.

The election had changed more than the method for choosing a prime minister.

For generations, power had flowed through familiar channels. Parliament, old houses, ministers, family alliances, private commitments.

Arik had just removed the most valuable civilian appointment from that arrangement and handed it to the population.

The response had been polite in public.

Privately, several families were furious.

"There is another possibility," Severin said.

Arik looked toward him.

"This may have nothing to do with the election."

Mezos stopped scrolling.

Severin’s gaze settled on Arik.

"You returned as more than Arik."

Liam’s expression sharpened.

Severin continued carefully.

"Nuria spent decades without its emperor. Some people waited for Goliath. Some built lives and influence around the certainty that he was gone."

"And then I appeared," Arik said.

"You appeared carrying his soul, claimed the Core, reopened the empire, and eventually reclaimed the last of his original ether."

Liam moved closer to Arik.

Severin did not soften the conclusion.

"Not everyone has to be happy about that."

Arik looked out over Deira.

He had known it intellectually.

An empire did not vanish for decades and emerge unchanged simply because its emperor returned in another life.

Cassian had loved Goliath.

Kamal had served him.

Others would have feared him.

Some might have preferred the absence.

"They may want to know how much Goliath is in control," Liam said quietly.

Arik glanced at him.

"Or whether there is anything to destabilize."

Mezos looked toward the wall where Silas had been pinned.

"Then provoking you physically while invoking Liam would be a fairly efficient test."

Arik’s jaw tightened.

A week of apparently harmless flirting suddenly looked much less harmless.

"Find out who he spoke to after every shift," Arik said. "Who recommended him before the official applications, who benefited from his parliamentary appointments, and whether anyone contacted him after the election announcement."

Mezos nodded.

Severin picked up the tablet.

"And Nereth?"

"Do not arrest him."

That surprised them.

Arik’s smile held no warmth.

"If someone sent him, I would rather they believe he simply failed."

Liam studied his husband.

"Until you know who is watching."

"Exactly."

Outside the windows, Deira continued glowing peacefully beneath the evening sky.

Arik looked at the abandoned secretary’s chair.

He had thought his greatest problem this week was choosing between three competent administrators.

Apparently, he was down to two.