Chapter 187

Chapter 187
Tiberius‘s pov.

“Pour it,” I grunted, dropping into the chair opposite Dorian’s desk like it owed me money.
He didn’t argue. The bottle of amber was already open—of course it was—and he splashed a generous shot into two thick-bottomed glasses. We clinked once, like men who had run out of things to toast, and I threw mine back hard enough to feel it burn.
“Again,” I said.
“Pace yourself,” he muttered, but he poured anyway. “We both need our livers functioning for at least another decade.”
“Bold of you to assume we’ll get a decade.”
That got a crooked half-smile. We drank. Silence stretched, cut only by the low pop of the fire and the distant rumble of the keep settling into night. My shoulders were still knotted from the ride, from the valley, from… all of it. I rolled them until something popped.
He set his glass down, knuckles white. “We should talk.”
“Fuck,” I said, because of course we should.
He huffed a laugh. “Yeah. Fuck.”
I stared into my glass, then up at him. “You want the first swing or do I?”
He spread his hands. “By all means.”
“All right.” I leaned in, elbows on my knees. “We’re a mess.”
“That’s your big opener?”
“It’s the truth.” I ticked it off with a finger. “You’re the newly crowned king trying to stitch a kingdom together with fishing line and prayer. I’m the hunter who told the tribunal to shove it—twice—because I keep choosing her. And Freya is… Freya. Brilliant. Reckless. Ours. And I don’t know whether to thank the gods for her or challenge them to a fistfight.”
Dorian’s mouth twitched. “You’d lose.”
“Maybe.” I swirled the whiskey. “But I’d make it bloody.”
He nodded like he could see it. Another beat of quiet.
“You’re still mad at me,” he said finally. Not a question.
I shrugged one shoulder. “I’m mad at… everything. You. Her. The valley. Myself. Pick a target.”
“Start with me,” he said. “I can take it.”
I snorted. “That’s debatable.”
His eyes flashed, but he let it go. “Go on.”
“You pushed her,” I said. “About the crown. About timing. You cornered her when she was fresh out of hell and still smelling like smoke. You know she runs when she feels caged. You slammed the door and then got pissed when she looked for a window.”
“And she kissed Arius,” he shot back, voice like a drawn blade. “I don’t care if it was ‘comfort,’ I don’t care if it was a ‘mistake.’ He’s not us.”
“No,” I said, calm as I could manage. “He’s not. He’s also the reason Reyna’s breath fogged the air tonight. The reason she and I ran together again without the valley ripping us to shreds. Doesn’t mean I like him. Means I understand a debt when I see one.”
Dorian’s jaw worked. “A debt doesn’t buy him the right to her mouth.”
“Agreed,” I said. “But you asked why I’m angry? Because you keep aiming at the symptom and not the disease.” I held his gaze. “Freya is terrified. Of failing. Of being owned by a crown. Of choosing wrong and losing us. She’ll do something stupid before she admits she’s scared.”
He swallowed that, eyes dropping to his glass. “So what—leave her alone? Let her run? Pretend I didn’t watch her press her lips to his like a vow?”
“You confront her,” I said, “without swinging a sword at the first shadow. You give her a path back that doesn’t require crawling on glass.”
“And you?” he asked. “What do you give her?”
“A place to land,” I said quietly. “It’s the only thing I’m good at.”
He stared at me for a long time, the kind of look that weighs and measures and doesn’t blink. “You love her cleaner than I do.”
“Bullshit.” I barked a laugh. “I love her dirtier than sin. I just don’t need to own the sun to feel its heat.”
That earned a grudging grin. “That was almost poetic.”
“Write it on my tombstone,” I said. “Under ‘died of Freya-related decisions.’”
We drank again. The edge softened, not gone, just… blunted enough to talk like men instead of knives.
He set the glass down with care. “You still have the tribunal.”
“Yeah.” I rubbed the scar at my wrist, a habit I couldn’t kill. “And no leverage left. I walked out when she ran. Again.”
“You walked because you were never going to let her go alone.” He tapped the desk. “I told the council you were with me—my second. It bought you time. It won’t buy you forgiveness.”
I snorted. “Forgiveness is overrated.
“Not when you’re trying to rebuild a city you burned by accident.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. He wasn’t wrong. “I’ll face them. Again. I’ll eat their righteous bullshit and pretend I enjoy the taste. But I’m not apologizing for choosing her.”
His mouth tilted. “You shouldn’t. If they can’t see the man behind the choice, they’re idiots.”
“Careful,” I said. “You’ll make me like you.”
“Perish the thought.”
A beat. “You meant that?” I asked, quieter. “Earlier. In the field. When you called me brother.”
He didn’t flinch. “I don’t toss that word around for sport.”
I let that sink in. Funny how a single damn word could cut and mend at the same time. “Then hear me like one,” I said. “Freya needs time. Give it to her. I’ll make sure she doesn’t use it to torch the world.”
“And what do you need?” he asked, too quick. “You always pivot back to her. What do you need, Tiberius?”
The question snagged. I opened my mouth, closed it, laughed without humor. “I don’t know. Haven’t known since I was eight.”
He studied me. “The valley showed you your mother.”
I went still. “Yeah.”
“Was it good?”
“It was fucking perfect,” I said, the words tearing. “Which is why I know it was a lie.”
He didn’t say I’m sorry. He didn’t reach across the desk like some priest. He just nodded once, like a man taking a punch and staying on his feet. “That hurts.”
“Like a blade you keep twisting yourself,” I said. “And I’d still go back if it meant pulling Freya out.”
Silence again, the kind you share with someone who understands where your bones ache.
He broke it first. “All right. Strategy.”
“Finally,” I said. “I was running low on feelings.”
He dragged a map across the desk—our shattered territories, our stitched borders, the ink still fresh in places. “You’re right about not crowning her yet. I hate that you’re right, but you are. So we give her what she asked for—time among the packs, time with the hunters, time to build bridges instead of burning them.”
“Bridges and boltholes,” I said. “She’ll need exits in every hall and allies in every den. People who answer to her, not to you or me.”
His mouth quirked. “You volunteering to vet those people?”
“I’ll do the hunters,” I said. “Dante and I can stomach each other long enough to run drills, re-train the ones worth saving, and chase off the ones who think ‘honor’ is a word on a banner. I’ll also write the tribunal a report so clean they’ll use it as toilet paper. I’ll sign it with your crown if I have to.”
He lifted a brow. “You forging my seal now?”
“If it keeps her safe? I’ll forge your soul.”
He snorted. “That’s not how souls work.”
“Tell that to the valley.”
We bent over the map. It felt… good, I hated to admit. Useful. Like the anger had somewhere to go besides my teeth.
“Marcus will dig in if she shows up unannounced,” Dorian said, tapping Ironclaw. “You go first. He respects you even when he wants to throw you off a cliff.”
“That’s mutual,” I said. “I’ll soften him. Or at least dull him.”
“Regulus?” Dorian’s mouth flattened.
“I’ll talk to him,” I said. “He loves power almost as much as he loves pretending he doesn’t. If making nice with you keeps his line close to the throne, he’ll purr.”
“He doesn’t purr,” Dorian said, offended on principle.
“He purrs on the inside.”
That dragged a laugh out of him, an unguarded one that made the room feel less like a war tent. It faded, but some of it stayed.
“And Arius?” he asked, too casual.
I stared at the map. “Arius is… gone.”
“For now,” Dorian said.
I met his eyes. “If he crawls back out of that cursed place and tries to lay a hand on her—”
“You’ll have to get in line behind me,” he said, and for once it wasn’t a threat, just… the truth between us. “But if he crawls back out different… we deal with that when it comes.”
"Agreed.”
We drank again. The bottle dropped by a third. We didn’t care.
“Do you forgive her?” he asked suddenly.
I didn’t answer right away. I thought of Freya’s face when Reyna howled in her throat again, the wild joy of it, the way it smashed against the grief for Arius like waves against black rock. I thought of her small, stubborn I’m sorry, and how I’d wanted to say me too and stop doing this to me in the same breath.
“I don’t know if forgive is the word,” I said finally. “I know I’m not leaving.”
He nodded slowly, like that was an answer he could live with.
“And you?” I asked. “Do you forgive her?”
He stared into his glass. “I don’t know if I forgive her kissing him. I do know I forgive her being herself. The rest…” He made a helpless little motion. “I’m learning in real time.”
“That’s all we can do,” I said. “Learn. Try not to make the same stupid choices. Make brand-new ones.”
“Preferably fewer fatal ones,” he said dryly.
“No promises.”
We fell quiet again, the good kind this time. Tired, wired, but… aligned. I hated that word. It sounded like strategy and compromise and swallowing pride. Maybe we needed all three.
He drummed his fingers once, then gave me a sideways look. “You ever going to stop scowling at me?”
“Probably not.”
“You ever going to stop telling me how to treat my queen?”
“Definitely not.
He grinned. “Good. It would be boring otherwise.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re impossible.”
“Takes one to know one.”
I stood, stretched until my spine cracked, and grabbed the bottle to top us off one last time. “We should get some sleep. Tomorrow we start selling this plan to a woman who thinks plans are suggestions.”
“Tomorrow,” he agreed, lifting his glass. “To the queen who won’t be crowned.”
“To the king who’ll live anyway,” I said, and we drank to the contradiction.
I set the glass down, hand on the door, then paused and looked back. “One more thing.”
He arched a brow. “Mm?”
“If the tribunal keeps playing sanctimonious gatekeeper,” I said, “I’m taking a squad and rebuilding Ravenhold with or without their blessing. It was ours before it was theirs. I’ll make it a refuge for hunters who don’t fit their mold. A place we answer to us.”
He considered, then nodded once. “Do it. I’ll sign the charter.”
I blinked. “That easy?”
“You already said you’d forge my soul. Figured I’d save you the trouble.”
We stared at each other, a breath away from laughing, from fighting, from something in between. Finally, he shook his head, smiling. “Get out of here before I say something sentimental.”
“Please don’t,” I said. “I can handle demons, not your feelings.”
I stepped into the hall. It was quieter now. Cooler. The keep breathed around me, stone and torchlight and the old bones of a kingdom trying to become something better.
Halfway down the corridor, I stopped, leaned against the wall, and let my head thump back.
“Still here,” I muttered to the ceiling. “Still choosing her.”
My chest hurt in the same old place. The valley hadn’t taken that from me—not the ache, not the love, not the stubborn idiot hope that we could make a life out of the wreckage.
Footsteps approached. I straightened.
Dorian appeared at the end of the hall, paused when he saw me, lifted two fingers in a silent salute. I returned it. No words. Didn’t need them.