The Reborn Sovereign of Ruin, Bound by His Star

The call ended nicely.

Liam had gone into the conversation expecting an imperial inspection; instead, he had spoken with people he liked.

Worse, people he suspected he would continue liking.

Gabriel was still a public safety hazard with a smile. Damian was still the type of man who could make silence seem like a law. But they were also Arik’s parents in a way Liam could not dismiss. They teased him. Watched him. Understood him. Worried about him without turning that worry into a cage, which Liam found deeply suspicious and unfortunately effective.

After the call, he had planned to sleep.

Arik had looked at him with that warm, devastating satisfaction of a man whose mate had survived his parents and accidentally charmed them, and Liam had made the mistake of saying something mildly insulting about imperial bloodlines being too attractive for public safety.

Things had gotten heated.

Sex happened.

Liam accepted no responsibility.

’We are young,’ he thought later, staring at the ceiling with the exhausted dignity of a man who had been very thoroughly reminded that Arik was an alpha with excellent stamina and absolutely no shame.

Arik, beside him, had been more than enthusiastic.

Far too enthusiastic for someone who had meetings the next morning.

Unfortunately, he also looked pleased in a way that made Liam unable to complain properly, because complaining while half-curled against the man’s chest would have weakened the argument.

Morning came anyway, rude and unavoidable.

Arik was dragged back into treaty work, murder-adjacent succession planning, and whatever else crown princes did when not emotionally harassing their mates. Liam returned to the Vanguard with the grim relief of a man entering a machine large enough to drown out family politics.

He abandoned everything related to the engagement reception to his mother and Mirelle.

That was not avoidance.

That was trust.

Possibly fear... mostly fear.

The reception was already planned. More accurately, it had already become an organized battlefield with flowers, seating charts, restricted access routes, and Mirelle’s terrifying insistence that Liam had to wear something "visually corrective," which was apparently not an insult but sounded close enough to one that Liam had decided not to ask.

No. He had better things to do.

Specifically, he was going to find out how much he could extract about the Shadows’ plan to infiltrate Canmore Manor from the perfect victim.

Mezos.

Who had, to Liam’s quiet delight and Stanford’s probable irritation, replaced Stanford as his assigned guard for the day.

Liam found this suspicious.

Useful, but suspicious.

Mezos stood on the upper observation platform of Lab V with his hands folded behind his back, looking as calm and polished as ever while the Vanguard roared beneath them.

Mezos looked perfectly comfortable.

That was also suspicious.

Liam leaned onto the service rail and narrowed his red eyes at Mezos. "What are you doing here?"

"I’m here to guard you." Mezos said, raising a dark red brow, daring Liam to ask something insensible.

"That I can see. Where is Stanford?"

"Reassigned," Mezos said.

Liam waited.

Mezos did not continue.

The Vanguard roared beneath them, red ether dragging through the lower intake rings while blue-white veins flashed through the secondary channels in disciplined bursts. The platform trembled faintly under their feet, but Mezos stood beside the rail as if he had spent his morning walking through illegal ether infrastructure all his life.

Liam found that mildly offensive.

"Reassigned where?" he asked.

"To another duty."

"That is a very polished way to say none of my business."

"It is none of your business," Mezos said calmly. "But polished."

Liam looked at him.

Mezos’s mouth curved by the smallest degree.

That was the problem with Mezos. He was not unpleasant. Liam could work with unpleasantness. Mezos was professionally pleasant in the way of a man who would help carry an injured person out of a burning building and still refuse to explain why the building had been burning in the first place.

"You are here because Stanford would answer me," Liam said.

Mezos sighed like a man tortured by gods and his crown prince. "Stanford cannot answer you more than he is allowed to say. First, he is a professional. Second, we have ether contracts governing what information can be shared with authorized persons."

"Am I authorized?"

"No."

"God damn, Mezos. Why?"

"Because you are the person we are trying to keep away from the mission."

Liam stared at him.

The Vanguard roared beneath them, vast and bright and alive, and for a moment the only thing between Liam and violence was the rail, the height, and the knowledge that Arik would probably be smug if Liam threw an imperial official into an ether chamber before lunch.

"That is circular logic," Liam said.

"It is security logic."

"It is insulting logic."

"It can be both."

Liam narrowed his red eyes. "I drew the west foundation level."

"Yes."

"I gave Arik the conservatory access, the maintenance corridor, the archive doors, and the sealed passage Felix had reinforced."

"Yes."

"I know Canmore Manor better than half the people who live there."

"Also yes."

"And I am not authorized?"

"No."

Liam leaned closer over the rail, his voice dropping into something dangerously calm. "Mezos."

Mezos looked at him with the kind of patience one developed either through age, service, or prolonged exposure to Lyons.

"You are Arik’s mate," Mezos said. "You are also emotionally involved, technically brilliant, familiar with the target location, likely to identify weaknesses in our plan faster than our own people, and almost certainly inclined to exploit those weaknesses if they allow you to insert yourself into the operation."

Liam opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Mara, from the lower diagnostic station, called up, "That sounded accurate."

"No one asked you," Liam snapped.

"You were thinking loudly."

"I was not."

"You were leaning aggressively."

"That is not a thought."

"It communicates."

Mezos’s expression remained perfectly composed, which meant he was enjoying himself in a deeply controlled and irritating way.

Liam pointed at him. "You brought Mara into this?"

"I did not."

"I am always here," Mara called. "Suffering."

Liam turned back to Mezos. "You could authorize me."

"No."

"Arik could authorize me."

"He will not."

"He might."

"He specifically will not."

Liam pouted.