Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 447: Moments.

The suite smelled like home, faint traces of Chris’s perfume clinging to the curtains, and underneath it all the familiar pulse of Dax’s presence now that he wasn’t being forced to keep it locked down for cameras and soldiers and runways.

Nero lay in Dax’s arms, sleepy and innocent, warm in the way only a nine-month-old could be: heavy enough to acknowledge his too fast growth, soft enough to make the world feel briefly survivable. Dax held him against his chest like he was relearning how to breathe with something precious pressed to his heart.

Nero’s small fingers were tangled in the front of Dax’s shirt, gripping fabric like a claim.

He’d been a ’mama’ child.

Mama when he wanted food. Mama when he wanted comfort. Mama when he wanted to protest being placed in a crib, as if cribs were a personal insult.

Dax had always gotten smiles, quiet gurgles, and the kind of contentment that lived in warm skin and muscular arms, but the word had belonged to Chris.

Chris lowered himself onto the bed beside them, close enough that his knee pressed Dax’s thigh. He didn’t try to soften the moment with jokes. He didn’t pretend that the day hadn’t left splinters in their skin.

"So Killian died as a hero," Chris said quietly.

"Yes..." Dax answered.

His eyes went blank for a beat, then refocused, as if grief kept snatching him by the collar and letting go only when it got bored. His hand continued to rub Nero’s back in slow, unconscious circles, the movement steadier than the rest of him.

Chris watched that hand for a second too long.

Rowan had been forced to rest - ordered out of the corridor and into a bed with a guard at the door because he’d been functioning on will alone. Otto and Arion were safe behind sealed doors and sterile protocols. The palace was locked down. The nation was held at arm’s length by Sahir and the staff who knew how to keep panic from overtaking the palace.

And now, in the quiet of their suite, Dax had told Chris everything - how the garden had looked, how fast it had happened, and the exact second his body had moved and still hadn’t been fast enough to save the man he’d reached for.

Chris leaned in slightly, his shoulder brushing Dax’s arm. "Dax."

Dax’s gaze shifted to him slowly.

"There wasn’t anything you or Otto did wrong," Chris said, voice firm in the way it became when he was holding someone else together. "Someone returned infected. That’s a breach of protocol, or it’s the infection getting better at hiding, or it’s the beasts mutating into something that doesn’t care about our rules. But it isn’t you failing."

Dax’s jaw flexed once. His eyes flicked down to Nero, then back up, as if he couldn’t bear to hold Chris’s gaze too long.

"I should’ve been there," Dax murmured.

Chris didn’t soften. He didn’t allow that sentence to take root. "You were there. You came home the moment you could. And Killian... Killian knew."

Dax’s throat worked.

Chris continued, gentler now, but no less absolute. "He knew exactly what it would cost if he stepped in front of Arion. He did it anyway."

Dax’s fingers tightened against Nero’s back for a brief moment, making Nero to make a small complaining noise and shift his cheek against Dax’s chest.

Dax immediately loosened, the thumb resuming its slow circle. "He didn’t hesitate," he said, his voice rough. "He moved like it wasn’t even a decision."

Chris nodded once. "Because it wasn’t."

Silence stretched between them, thick but not empty. Nero breathed warmly, the only creature in the room whose body didn’t understand that the world had changed.

Then Nero lifted his head.

His eyes blinked open, unfocused with sleep. He stared at Dax’s face as if trying to map it, to assign it something permanent. His mouth opened.

Closed.

He made a small, frustrated sound.

Chris held his breath without meaning to.

Nero tried again, the effort visible in his little jaw and then - soft, rough around the edges, but clear enough.

"Papa."

The word landed like a small explosion.

Dax went completely still.

For one heartbeat he didn’t breathe. He just stared at Nero, as if the sound had reached somewhere grief couldn’t touch without permission.

Chris’s throat tightened so hard it hurt.

Nero blinked at them both, pleased with himself, and repeated it with more confidence.

"Papa."

Dax smiled at the baby and kissed the top of his head. "You are like your father," he murmured, "playing with my heart."

A sliver of amusement seeped into his tone.

Nero made a pleased sound, as if he approved of being praised for emotional sabotage, and immediately tried to grab Dax’s lower lip with the serious intention of exploring it with his gums.

Chris huffed softly, the closest he came to laughter without breaking. He reached over and gently intercepted Nero’s hand before the baby could commit another tiny act of violence.

"Be polite," Chris whispered to him, as if manners mattered to a nine-month-old. "Your papa is having a hard day."

Nero blinked, solemn, then yawned so wide his whole face scrunched, and sagged back into Dax’s chest as if the world had asked too much of him.

Dax’s hand resumed its slow circles over Nero’s back.

Chris leaned his shoulder into Dax’s, quiet for a few seconds, letting the warmth of their son’s weight and the rhythm of Dax’s breathing settle the room.

Outside, the palace still existed. Doctors, comms, screening lines, and all the machinery of power trying to outrun a virus with teeth.

Inside, the noise was smaller.

Chris let it stay that way for a moment longer.

Then he lifted his head, eyes on Dax’s profile, the set of his jaw, the faint hollows beneath his eyes, and the way grief still pulled at him when he thought no one could see.

"Dax," Chris said softly.

Dax’s gaze shifted to him. "My moon."

Chris swallowed once, carefully. "If it had been you?"

Dax didn’t blink. "What?"

"If you had been there," Chris continued, voice quiet and steady, "in that garden. If it had been you instead of Killian between Arion and the infected... what would you have done?"

Dax’s eyes dropped to Nero again.

Nero was half asleep now, cheek pressed to Dax’s chest, one fist still tangled in the fabric as he’d claimed his father and refused to let go.

Dax stared at that small fist for a beat, as if he could see time inside it.

Then he said, simply, "The same."