Ithyris doesn't descend the steps. He steps off the dais, dropping the full height to the main floor, and the impact of his landing sends a tremor through the stone that Bryn feels in his bare feet. He walks through the court and they part before him, not in courtesy but in fear, because the being moving through them is no longer a prince performing restraint. The scales at his throat and temples have spread, violet and iridescent, crawling down his neck and across his forearms. His eyes are blazing, not the dark blown hunger of before but something brighter and more dangerous, amethyst burning with an inner fire. His claws are fully extended, dark and curved, and the air around him shimmers with heat.
He walks to Syreth.
She sees him coming and something shifts in her face, something ancient and self-assured cracking open to reveal the fear underneath, and she opens her mouth to speak.
He takes her by the throat.
Not squeezing. Not lifting. Just his hand around her throat, his fingers resting against the pale scales at her jaw, and the touch is almost gentle except for the look in his eyes, which is not gentle at all. His eyes are dark and burning and the violet in them has gone nearly black and the claws at the tips of his fingers are out, pressing faintly against the thin skin of her neck without breaking it. The elder council, arrayed behind Syreth, goes rigid. No one intervenes. No one breathes.
His voice is low. Calm. It carries through the silent hall with the unmistakable weight of a command that will not be questioned, not now and not ever.
"How dare you touch him."
He releases her. She stumbles back, hand flying to her throat, and her composure is in ruins around her, centuries of authority shattered in three seconds by a prince who hadn't even raised his voice. The bronze-scaled elder, Vashra, takes a step back from Bryn without being told, releasing his grip and retreating with the careful, measured movements of someone who has just watched the consequences of not doing so.
Ithyris turns to Bryn.
Bryn forgets how to breathe.
Up close, Ithyris is overwhelming. The scale patterns at his throat are finer than Bryn realized, intricate and iridescent, shifting from violet to indigo to something darker as he moves. His amethyst eyes have cleared slightly from the blazing intensity of moments before, but they are still dark and focused and fixed on Bryn with a tenderness so completely at odds with what he just did to Syreth that Bryn's brain stutters trying to reconcile the two. This is the same creature who just took an elder by the throat in front of the entire court and silenced a man with nothing but a look. This is the same creature who is now looking at Bryn as though he's something fragile that needs protecting, and Bryn has never been looked at that way before, and his eyes are stinging in a way that has nothing to do with the sulfur in the air.
Ithyris bends and picks up his cloak from where Vashra threw it on the floor. The dark violet fabric, heavy and lined with something soft, the one that still smells of cedar and smoke. He straightens and drapes it over Bryn's shoulders, and this time his hands linger. They settle the fabric around him with a care that borders on reverence, adjusting the collar so it covers the bruisesSyreth left on his arm, pulling it closed over his bare chest, his fingers working the clasp at Bryn's throat with a gentleness that makes no sense on hands tipped with claws.
The weight of it settles around him. Warm and heavy and smelling of the prince, cedar and smoke and something deeper underneath, something rich and alive that Bryn breathes in without meaning to and that goes straight to some part of his brain he didn't know existed. The cloak swallows him, far too large for his frame, and he should look ridiculous in it. He probably does. He can't bring himself to care because the prince's thumb brushes the hollow of his throat as he finishes with the clasp and the touch is so light it could be accidental except that Ithyris's eyes drop to the point of contact and his lashes lower and his breath catches, barely, a hitch so small no one else would notice.
Bryn notices.
Ithyris lifts his gaze back to Bryn's. Those amethyst eyes, close enough now that Bryn can see the fractures of color in the iris, gold threads and darker purple and a ring of near-black at the outer edge. The prince looks at him and Bryn feels it everywhere. In his chest. In his hands. In the base of his spine and the backs of his knees and the places behind his eyes where he stores the things he's too tired to cry about.
His hand moves to the back of Bryn's neck. Warm and large and settling against his nape with a possessiveness that should frighten him. It doesn't. It is gentle and firm and unmistakable and it says, to every creature in this hall: this one is mine.
Bryn's pulse hammers against the prince's palm. He knows Ithyris can feel it. He knows the prince can feel every frantic beat of his terrified, bewildered heart through the thin skin at his nape and he can't do anything about it because his body has decided to betray him in the most fundamental way possible. He has spent eighteen years keeping himself under control, keepinghis reactions hidden, keeping his fear and his wants and his weaknesses locked away behind a face that gives nothing away, and now a dragon prince is touching the back of his neck and all of it is unraveling.
Ithyris turns, keeping Bryn at his side, shielded by his body, and faces the court.
"This man is my mate."
The court erupts.
Bryn doesn't hear what they're saying. He doesn't hear anything over the roaring in his own ears and the hammering of his pulse and the low, constant hum of heat where the prince's hand rests against his skin. Mate. He doesn't know what that means. He doesn't know what it means to a dragon, whether it's a title or a bond or a biological imperative or something else entirely, and he doesn't know what it means for him and he doesn't know why this prince, this impossibly powerful, breathtakingly beautiful creature, is standing in front of his entire court with his hand on the back of Bryn's neck claiming a boy who came here fully expecting to die before dinner.
Ithyris doesn't flinch. The court rages around him, voices rising in protest and shock and outright fury, and the prince stands there with his hand on Bryn and his jaw set and his eyes daring anyone in this hall to challenge him.
"I will say it as many times as this court requires." His voice is low and rough and vibrating with something that makes the crystals in the ceiling hum. "He is my mate. The bond is absolute. It is not negotiable, it is not conditional, and it is not subject to the approval of the elder council."
He looks at Syreth. She flinches.
"No one touches him again. No one strips him. No one drags him or throws him or lays a hand on him without his explicit consent. If this is unclear to anyone in this hall, I invite them to test me."
Silence. Complete. The kind of silence that follows a natural disaster, when the dust is settling and no one is sure if it's over.
Ithyris looks at his father. The king looks back. Something passes between them, some communication Bryn isn't privy to, and after a long moment, King Thalryn inclines his head. Just barely. A fraction of a degree.
Permission. Or at least, the absence of refusal.
Ithyris's hand tightens fractionally on Bryn's neck. Then he turns and guides him down the steps of the dais, through the silent, parting crowd, and out of the great hall. His hand stays on Bryn's neck the entire way. Warm. Steady. The only thing keeping him upright.
Bryn doesn't look back. He doesn't look at the ruined dress on the floor or the scattered flowers or the elder who stripped him or the man who wanted to use him. He looks straight ahead and he walks beside the dragon prince who has just claimed him in front of his entire kingdom and he focuses on the weight of the cloak on his shoulders and the warmth of the prince's palm on his skin and the fact that he is alive.
