The call ended in the quiet, tense silence that usually follows a conversation with Gabriel.
For a moment, Arik did not move.
The projection dissolved above the table, leaving only the fading Wrohanese evening pressed against the windows and the afterimage of Gabriel's face lingering in his vision like white-hot ether burned too cleanly to forget.
His fingers rested lightly on the armrest, but the amusement from Gabriel's final warning had already begun to fade in favor of an earlier memory.
Liam against him in Lab V, cold and shaking from the displacement, one hand clutching at Arik's coat with all the fury of a man whose body had betrayed his pride before his mind could catch up. Liam's face forced into the curve of his throat, breathing him in because the omega's senses had needed an anchor, and Arik had been the nearest stable thing in the room.
Arik had acted because Liam had been unstable.
That remained true.
It was not, however, the whole truth.
