"Nero?" Sebastian reached for his arm, confused by the way every trace of expression had vanished from Nero’s face.
Only—
His fingers tightened around the black sleeve.
Only if the rumor had touched something real.
Sebastian’s other hand closed hard enough for his nails to bite into his palm. "You promised me the truth."
The reception continued somewhere behind them.
Music filtered through the heavy doors at the end of the hall, muted by stone and distance until only the deeper notes remained. Warm wall lights illuminated the gold detailing along Nero’s coat and the dark green of Sebastian’s suit, but the narrow corridor suddenly felt overheated, the air thick enough that Sebastian became conscious of every breath.
Nero had gone unnaturally still.
He did that when emotion became dangerous.
Sebastian knew it now.
"Did you interfere with my compatibility?"
Nero’s gaze stayed on him. For several seconds, he said nothing.
Sebastian felt his pulse climb.
"Yes."
Sebastian slowly released his arm.
The anger came immediately, though it did not tear through him the way Nero’s reaction had made him expect. He took two steps away, pushed his hand through his hair, and tried to put the admission where it belonged among everything else he already knew.
Nero had manipulated his life.
That fact was hardly new.
He had arranged meetings, found excuses to appear at events, influenced invitations, used family connections, changed plans, sent gifts Sebastian had repeatedly told him not to send, and spent years turning coincidence into an art form.
Using pheromones to sabotage compatibility was worse.
Much worse.
But it was still Nero.
Sebastian turned back.
"How long?"
Nero’s shoulders remained square, but his fingers had curled slightly at his sides.
"After I manifested. I realized I could affect the way classifications responded around you. At first I didn’t understand the extent of it."
"And once you did?"
"I used it."
Sebastian let out a breath through his nose.
Three dominant omegas.
He remembered the reports now that someone had dragged them out of the past. None had been excellent matches, but there had been possibilities. Lucas and Trevor had never pressured him about them because Sebastian had been young and the percentages were mediocre anyway.
Eventually all three were gone.
"You pushed the numbers down."
"Yes."
Sebastian looked toward the windows.
Outside, the palace courtyard was black beyond the reflected lights, silver lamps tracing the paths between the gardens.
He wanted to be furious.
He was angry.
But beneath it was an almost exhausted recognition.
Of course Nero had done something like this.
It was appalling.
Possessive.
A violation Sebastian intended to make him answer for.
It did not feel impossible to survive.
He rubbed his wedding ring with his thumb, grounding himself in the cool metal.
"You should have told me before I married you."
"You are right."
The quiet answer made Sebastian look at him again. Nero did not defend himself. That helped, slightly.
Sebastian stepped closer, though he left space between them now.
"All right."
Nero’s eyes sharpened.
"I am not saying it is all right." Sebastian’s jaw tightened. "I am saying I asked, you answered, and I would rather deal with the entire thing tonight than discover pieces of it for the next five years."
Something shifted behind Nero’s expression.
Sebastian saw how wrong it looked. His stomach tightened.
"What else?"
Nero glanced away for the first time.
That movement frightened Sebastian more than the confession had.
"Nero."
The smell of smoke appeared faintly in the corridor.
Not enough to overwhelm him, only a thin trace of Nero’s pheromones escaping before he dragged them back under control.
Sebastian’s new glands reacted anyway, warmth spreading unpleasantly beneath his skin.
"What else did you do?"
Nero’s throat moved.
"I influenced your international assignments."
Sebastian stared at him, trying to process what he just heard; for several seconds, the words meant nothing.
"What?"
"When Palatine received requests for dominant-alpha representation, especially assignments involving unstable classifications, negotiations, military observers, infected beast fights, or pheromonal control, I made sure you were considered."
Sebastian’s face went blank.
Nero continued because stopping now would have been worse.
"I couldn’t dictate Sirius’s decisions or Dax and Otto’s. I could influence the requests before they reached him. Which nation asked for you. How strongly. Whether another suitable dominant appeared unavailable."
The hallway seemed to tilt.
Sebastian remembered airports.
Hotel rooms.
Three countries in nine days once.
Conference rooms filled with aggressive alphas while he suppressed his own dominance until his head throbbed.
Medical checks where physicians told him his glands were overworked.
The periods afterward, when even another alpha’s scent irritated him enough to make his teeth ache.
He had thought it was the job.
He had thought his body was failing faster because he was simply unlucky enough to be born too dominant for a world with no compatible counterpart.
His eyes returned to Nero.
"You knew the exposure was making me unstable."
Nero’s expression finally cracked, letting Sebastian see the answer before the man opened his mouth.
"Yes."
Sebastian’s lips parted. Nothing came out. His body went very still.
"You kept sending me into dominant-heavy environments."
"I increased the frequency."
Sebastian almost laughed.
The sound that escaped him was too empty for humor.
"Increased the frequency."
Nero took half a step forward.
Sebastian moved back.
Nero stopped immediately.
That tiny reaction hurt almost as much as everything else.
Sebastian looked down at his shaking hands. He curled them closed.
He remembered blood in the Palatine washroom.
The metallic taste in his mouth.
Enhancers.
Days when control had become something he physically fought for.
The terror in Trevor’s voice once when Sebastian admitted how close he had come to losing himself.
And Nero had known.
Worse.
Nero had helped build the road there.
Sebastian lifted his eyes.
"You forced me toward berserk."
"I pushed you toward a point where I knew you would need stabilization."
The precision of the wording made something inside Sebastian rip.
"You knew I could have lost control."
"I knew I could stop it."
"You weren’t always there!"
Nero flinched.
Sebastian voice dropped, which somehow made it worse.
"What if you had been wrong?"
Nero said nothing.
"What if I hurt someone before you got to play savior? What if I killed someone? What if my heart gave out from the enhancers before you decided I was broken enough?"
"I monitored you."
Sebastian stared at him.
Nero seemed to realize the mistake the instant the words left his mouth.
"You monitored me."
"Sebastian—"
"No."
He walked toward the windows because the space between them had become too small.
His chest felt tight. There was anger now. Real anger.
Hot enough to make his glands pulse beneath his skin and his jaw ache from how hard he was holding it.
He braced both palms against the stone ledge.
Nero did not approach.
For several seconds neither of them spoke.
Sebastian stared at their reflections in the glass.
Nero behind him in black and gold. Sebastian in Fitzgeralt green. Barely married and ugly truth already destroying something Sebastian had prayed in secret to work this time.
Sebastian shut his eyes.
He needed to know everything before deciding what this meant, until the last ugly piece.
A bitter thought surfaced.
He laughed once, quietly.
"Fine."
Nero’s head lifted.
Sebastian turned around. His eyes burned. His mouth pulled into something that was almost a smile and felt nothing like one.
"Don’t tell me you knew about the visions and the other timelines too."
Nero did not answer.
Sebastian watched the blood drain from his face. And the last trace of bitter amusement disappeared from Sebastian’s own.