CHAPTER 469: CHAPTER 469: CHOICE

Trevor was the first to break the silence, his voice controlled but strained. "He is barely eighteen."

Dean flinched. Almost nineteen, but hearing it phrased like that made him feel painfully young and tragically unprepared. Trevor wasn’t trying to embarrass him; he was trying to buy time, to create space where none remained.

"It’s rushed," Trevor continued. "Unreasonably so. You’ve barely been here a month..."

Arion didn’t let him finish.

"With respect, Grand Duke Fitzgeralt," he said, tone still polite but edged with certainty, "Lucas was not much older when he married you."

Lucas stiffened in his seat, and Trevor’s jaw tightened. The entire table shifted subtly, like someone had pressed a fault line.

Dean felt his breath catch. Lucas met Arion’s eyes briefly, expression unreadable, then looked back down at his plate. They couldn’t say Lucas had been mentally older, reborn, experienced, and twice-lived.

Arion was using the history of Lucas and Trevor’s relationship in his favor.

"You accepted your alliance with Grand Duke Fitzgeralt at eighteen," Arion pressed, calm and relentless. "Your empire considered that decision reasonable, binding, and necessary."

Trevor inhaled slowly, fingers tapping once against the table before stilling. "Lucas was a unique case."

"Dean is no less unique," Arion replied, not missing a beat. "And his circumstances are no less urgent."

Sirius leaned forward, elbows resting lightly on the table, calm but radiating authority. "Prince Arion, pushing this line will not strengthen your position."

Arion didn’t look away from Dean. "My position is not what I’m trying to strengthen."

Dean’s heart thudded painfully.

Arion continued, gentler now but still firm. "Age is not the issue. Compliance markers, dominance levels, emotional resilience, and long-term stability were all assessed. All of those were evaluated. Dean passed every one."

Trevor’s voice tightened. "He is still young."

"And I am not asking him to marry me tonight," Arion countered. "But neither will I pretend that time will produce another viable candidate when such a person does not exist." He paused but no one dared to move a muscle. Arion was a dominant alpha and all the information Palatine had pointed out that he may be stronger than Trevor and Dax combined. "I do not have the time to wait for another supposed omega to appear and I’m not going to consider the Altera family viable. I’m second cousin with King Dax."

Trevor opened his mouth again, clearly ready to argue despite the tightening around his eyes. But Arion didn’t give him the chance.

Instead, he shifted his attention to Trevor with a calmness that was almost disarming. "Grand Duke," he said softly, "let me ask you a question."

The table stilled.

Trevor’s gaze sharpened. "What question?"

Arion nodded toward Sebastian, who tensed immediately, shoulders rising just enough to betray that he sensed where this was going.

"If Sebastian were sitting in my place," Arion said, "and another empire was gatekeeping him, delaying him, refusing him access to the one person he was compatible with, would you remain calm?"

Trevor froze at Arion’s question. The shift was so sudden the entire table reacted to it. His expression didn’t break, but something behind his eyes did, a flash of emotion too complicated to name.

Lucas’s fingers tightened around Trevor’s arm, sensing exactly what Arion had done. Sebastian sat rigid, color draining from his face as the implication sank in.

Trevor inhaled, slow and sharp. "That is not the same," he said quietly.

Arion didn’t raise his voice. "Why not?"

Dean took a long breath, put his cutlery down, and felt the room tilt toward him. Trevor, Lucas, Sirius, Sebastian, and the entire Alaminian envoy all looked at Dean, but for the first time since dinner, he did not shrink from the attention.

"That is enough, Your Highness." His own voice surprised him. It sounded older than eighteen.

Arion stopped immediately.

Trevor’s head snapped toward him, eyes widening in something halfway between dread and disbelief. Lucas straightened subtly, as if preparing to intervene if Dean faltered. Sirius sat very still, weighing the shift.

"I..." Dean swallowed, then exhaled once. "I understand why my family is doing this."

Trevor flinched. Lucas’s hand tightened on his sleeve.

"They’re not gatekeeping me because they want control," Dean continued. "They’re gatekeeping because I’m their child. Their second child. They wanted me to choose, not be cornered by two empires and a stack of compatibility reports."

A tense breath rolled through the room.

Trevor looked down, guilt flickering over his face. Lucas’s expression softened, protective and aching.

Dean pushed through it. "But choice doesn’t exist anymore. Not when the facts are what they are, not when every political analysis ends in the same place, not when avoiding the decision just makes everything worse."

He looked directly at Arion then. The prince met his gaze with unwavering focus, as if ready to accept whatever came.

"I don’t want Palatine and Alamina fighting over me," Dean said. "I don’t want my parents tearing themselves apart defending a freedom that no longer exists. And I don’t want Sebastian or Sirius dragged into more political fallout than they already handle daily."

Sebastian blinked, startled; Sirius’s brows rose a fraction.

Dean’s throat tightened, but he didn’t stop. "I love my family. They fought for me when they didn’t have to. They gave me choices I was never supposed to have." He paused, voice lowering. "And right now... the only choice I have left is to end this before it becomes something ugly."

Arion’s posture shifted, not triumphant as others would be, but softened. He was prepared to receive a decision he had waited a month for.

Dean inhaled again, steadying himself. "So I’m making the decision they fought to give me."

He glanced at Trevor and Lucas, a silent apology and thank you, then turned back to the man whose eyes had never left him.

"I accept the Alaminian proposal."

Trevor’s breath punched out of him. Lucas reached for his hand under the table, gripping tight, torn between heartbreak and pride. Sirius leaned back slowly, expression unreadable but undeniably resigned. Sebastian made a soft, helpless sound that might have been "Oh no," or "About time," or both.

Arion bowed his head slightly, not as a victor, but as someone receiving something precious.

"Thank you," he said quietly. "I will not take your choice for granted."

Dean looked away, cheeks warm, pulse thundering.

The table didn’t breathe.

For the first time all evening, the weight pressing on Dean’s shoulders eased. Because the decision was no longer being wrestled over by empires, diplomats, or families.

It was his.

And everyone at the table knew it.