adbindia Chapter 320: New Enough
Chapter 320: New Enough
"Pull over near the café on the right."
There was a brief pause in which the driver could reflect on his career, training, convoy formation, and possibly the entire concept of monarchy.
"Yes, Your Highness."
Dean leaned toward the speaker. "Tell them this is a pastry-related emergency."
Arion closed the line before the driver could suffer further.
"Coward," Dean said.
"I protected the command structure."
"You protected them from joy."
"I protected them from you."
Dean considered that. "Fair."
The convoy slowed.
That was the first ridiculous thing.
The second ridiculous thing was the way the entire security formation adjusted around a tiny café with green awnings and fogged windows as if the building had been identified as a hostile fortress. Two armored vehicles moved ahead. One stopped behind them. A security officer stepped out and scanned the street with the solemn focus of a man prepared to neutralize a threat or, apparently, approve a croissant.
Pedestrians slowed.
A woman under a red umbrella stared openly.
A man walking a dog stopped so abruptly the dog judged him.
Dean watched the scene unfold through the tinted glass and felt, very clearly, that this had become much more interesting than arriving at the residence like a polite royal hostage
Arion opened the car door.
Cold October air entered, damp and sharp, carrying the scent of rain, wet pavement, roasted coffee, and sugar.
Dean immediately approved of the district.
The security officer stepped closer. "Your Highness, we can send someone inside."
"No," Arion said, getting out. "We are going in."
Dean froze halfway through reaching for his coat. "We?"
"You wanted coffee from there."
"I wanted coffee from there in the same way normal people want coffee from somewhere. Without creating a minor military occupation."
Arion looked at him over his shoulder. "You pointed at a café while sitting in an imperial armored convoy."
"That was a test of flexibility."
"You passed it to everyone else."
Dean sighed, then stepped out of the car because Arion had already offered his hand and because refusing would have been childish.
Also, because the café smelled like butter.
The moment Dean’s shoes touched the wet pavement, the security cordon shifted with them.
The bell above the door rang when Arion opened it.
The cafe was small, warm, and painfully normal.
That was the first thing Dean liked.
Not fake normal. Not the polished "local experience" that nobles sought for private tours. Real normal. Mismatched wooden tables. A narrow counter. Shelves of coffee beans and tea tins. A handwritten menu on a chalkboard. A pastry display that made Dean instantly willing to forgive several political systems.
Behind the counter stood the elderly woman he had seen from the car.
Up close, she was smaller than he expected, round-faced, silver-haired, and wearing a dark green apron dusted with flour. She looked at Arion first, then Dean and then her gaze swept over the military dressed in suits behind them.
"Good afternoon," Arion said calmly.
The woman blinked.
Dean almost laughed.
The Crown Prince of Alamina, black coat still damp at the shoulders from October rain, stood in her tiny café like the most alarming customer she had ever had.
"Good afternoon, Your Highness," she said, recovering impressively fast. "Your... Highnesses."
Dean smiled. "Do you have pastry?"
The woman’s eyes sharpened with offended dignity.
Dean knew immediately that he had asked the right person.
"Of course," she said.
"Good," Dean replied. "I was worried the district had failed culturally."
Arion made a low sound beside him.
The woman stared at Dean for one second.
Then laughed.
It began small, startled her, and then grew warmer. The tension in the café cracked like sugar on hot custard.
Several people pretending not to stare immediately failed harder.
Dean liked them for it.
Arion guided him toward a table near the back, not the most hidden one, but protected enough that the security officer outside did not look like he was about to die. Dean sat with his back to the wall because Trevor had raised him correctly and because Arion would have moved him if he had not done it himself.
Arion noticed and didn’t bother to shut up about it.
"You are learning," Arion said as he sat across from him.
"I have always known how not to be assassinated in cafés."
"That is oddly specific."
"My childhood was rich."
The elderly woman came over with menus they did not need, because Dean had already chosen the entire pastry display in his heart.
"What would you like, Your Highness?"
Dean glanced toward the counter. "Do you serve long black coffee that has nothing ceremonial to it?"
Her mouth twitched. "We don’t serve ceremonial coffee."
"Excellent. Then two."
Arion lifted a brow. "You ordered for me?"
"You were taking too long."
"I had not spoken yet."
"That is your problem."
The woman looked between them with the expression of someone realizing that royal marriage, up close, contained more bickering than the broadcast had suggested.
"And pastry?" she asked.
Dean turned serious. "Yes."
"How many?"
Dean looked at Arion.
Arion looked back, amused.
Dean returned his attention to the woman. "Enough to reward ten minutes of political restraint and compensate for three days of wedding ceremonies."
The woman nodded as if this were a perfectly standard order. "I understand."
Dean liked her more.
When she left, Arion leaned back slightly in his chair. "You have charmed her."
"I asked for pastry."
"For you, that is charm."
Dean glanced out the window. The convoy waited outside, dark and excessive in the rain. Security personnel stood discreetly along the street, though one of them was now looking at the pastry display through the window with poorly hidden longing.
Dean pointed with his chin. "He wants something."
Arion followed his gaze. "He is on duty."
Dean looked at him.
Arion held his gaze for three seconds, then sighed and took out his phone.
Dean smiled.
A moment later, the security officer outside touched his earpiece, looked startled, then glanced inside.
Dean lifted his fingers in a tiny wave.
The officer’s expression remained professional by force alone.
"You bought the guards pastry," Dean said.
"I arranged for it."
Dean stared.
That was dangerous.
Arion’s ability to shift an entire convoy, stop in front of a random café, turn a royal security operation into a coffee date, and buy pastries for armed personnel because Dean made a face.
Dean knew Arion was powerful.
He had known that.
The problem was sometimes he forgot the scale of it because Arion spent so much time with his face in Dean’s neck acting like his most urgent priority was whether Dean had eaten, slept, or allowed himself to be kissed properly.
Then something like this happened, and Dean remembered that he had married a billionaire with royal blood, military authority, and enough political power to make almost anything he wanted appear between one breath and the next.
That was going to become a problem.
The coffee arrived first.
Dean took one sip and closed his eyes.
"Good?" Arion asked.
Dean opened one eye. "Don’t sound pleased. You didn’t make it."
"I brought you here."
"Fine. You participated."
Arion looked entirely too satisfied with that.
Then the pastry arrived.
Three plates.
Then two more.
Then a small paper bag "for later," which Dean accepted with the solemn respect due a national treasure.
For several minutes, they were almost normal.
The café had gone quiet in the same way that public places do around royalty, but regular customers gradually resumed talking once it became clear Dean was more interested in pastry than surveillance. Rain tapped the windows. The old radiator hissed near the wall. Somewhere behind the counter, a coffee grinder began to run.
Dean sat in a random café in Ylico, drinking strong coffee across from his husband, and felt something loosen in him, but Arion’s warm gaze made him stop.
"What?" Dean asked.
"I was thinking."
"That is often dangerous."
"I miss something."
Dean’s hand paused over a crescent pastry. "What?"
Arion’s gaze drifted to his neck.
Dean went still.
"The collars," Arion said, raising his scarred brow.
Dean leaned back. "I got bored."
Arion’s expression did not change, but something in his eyes sharpened.
Dean should have stopped there.
He truly should have.
But the coffee was good, the pastry was better, and he was far too relaxed for a man married to someone with resources.
"So," Dean continued, tearing a piece from the pastry, "I might wear one again if it were new enough."
Arion went very still.
Dean noticed half a second too late.
He looked up.
Arion was watching him with the calm intensity of a man who had just been handed a weapon, a map, and permission.
Dean lowered the pastry slowly.
"No."
Arion’s mouth curved. "You said new enough."
"I said might."
"Yes."
"That is not consent to become strange."
"I am not strange."
"You are already planning something."
"I am considering options."
Dean stared at him.
Then it hit him.
He had forgotten that Arion was not simply a possessive dominant alpha with excellent taste and alarming focus. Arion was the Crown Prince of Alamina. He had private designers, jewelers, military-grade material labs, historical collections, access to Omega ceremonial archives, exorbitant wealth, and the kind of political power that would make a master artisan wake up at midnight and feel honored. Also... he was heavily influenced by Dax’s tastes in colars.
Dean put the pastry down.
"Arion."
"Yes?"
"You are not allowed to commission a collar because of one café conversation."
Arion took a slow sip of coffee.
Dean narrowed his eyes. "You already thought of someone."
"There are several possibilities."
"Several?"
"One should never rush quality."
Dean stared at him in horror.
Arion looked peaceful. Very peaceful.
"I hate you," Dean said.
"No, you don’t."
"I hate myself for forgetting who I married."
Arion’s eyes warmed. "Your husband."
"A billionaire with royal blood and no normal impulse control."
"That too."
Dean picked up the pastry again because emotional stability required butter.
"It would need to be tasteful," he muttered.
Arion’s gaze sharpened further.
Dean closed his eyes.
He had done it again.
"Forget I said that."
"No."