By the time Frederik entered Gregoris’s office later that evening, his father had already finished measuring at least six different versions of how far Lord Ilyan could be allowed to live with his current mistake.

Gregoris’s office in the Shadow command wing did not resemble the prettier parts of the palace. It was modern, severe, and designed for function over comfort, with all dark walls threaded with low ether lines, reinforced glass, secure display surfaces, and the silence of controlled violence waiting for a reason. The desk was broad and black; the wall displays were alive with layered reports, route maps, comm logs, and a procurement trace currently suspended in pale blue over the main surface.

Gregoris stood near the central display, one hand in the pocket of his trousers, the other holding a stylus he had not used in the last thirty seconds because the conclusions had already been reached.

At his age, with silver eyes and a stillness sharpened by decades of command, he looked less like a man working late and more like the reason other men developed survival instincts around paperwork.

The report before him was clean in the way dangerous things often were.

Attempted code access. Eastern procurement chain. Failed authentication. Time stamp. User proximity. Override denial. Cross-reference pending.

No actual damage.

Yet.

If the attempt belonged to Ilyan alone, the omega would survive - socially cut open, politically trimmed, and privately terrified, but alive. If the attempt belonged to the house behind him, the matter escalated. If someone else had used Ilyan as a pretty access point into the heir’s private structure, then Gregoris would stop thinking in terms of one foolish consort and begin thinking in terms of containment, exemplary correction, and whether a family could be taught fear more efficiently through money, exile, or disappearance.

He was still somewhere between discreet ruin and public lesson when the door recognized Frederik’s clearance and opened.

Frederik stepped inside, shut it behind him, and took one look at his father’s face before saying, "That bad?"

Gregoris’s gaze lifted to him. "Not yet."

Which, translated from Gregoris, meant potentially catastrophic if stupidity continues.

Frederik crossed the room without hurry, his own suit coat still on, his hair slightly disordered from a long day.

He stopped near the desk and glanced at the live report. "Ilyan?"

"Yes."

Frederik exhaled through his nose. "Still alive, I assume."

"For now."

That made him look at his father again.

He leaned one hip lightly against the desk’s edge. "How much damage?"

"None that landed," Gregoris said. "Enough attempted to deserve attention."

Frederik looked back to the report. "He tried to use Arik’s private access."

"Yes."

"Personally?"

"That," Gregoris said, "is what remains to be determined."

The office hummed quietly around them, ether lines under the floor and within the walls feeding the secured systems, the command wing holding its own kind of nocturnal life beyond the sealed door - shifting patrols, guarded corridors, monitored channels, people moving carefully because Gregoris Frasner’s office was not a place anyone entered by accident.

Frederik read the data in silence for a few seconds.

Then he said, "If it was only him, he’d be stupid."

Gregoris’s expression did not change. "Yes."

"If it was his family, they’re worse."

"Yes."

"And if someone else is using him—"

"Then his beauty becomes the least relevant thing about him," Gregoris finished.

Frederik nodded once.

An ambitious consort was tiresome. A manipulated consort was dangerous. A consort serving as a test line into the heir’s private systems was no longer a private annoyance at all. He became a security problem in expensive jewelry.

Frederik folded his arms. "Do you think Arik will dispose of him?"

Gregoris was quiet for one beat.

Then, with the same calm he might have used to discuss weather or ammunition, "That depends whether Ilyan remains useful after the truth is separated from him."

Frederik’s mouth moved faintly. "That is a very elegant way to describe the next hour."

"It is an accurate one."

Frederik let that sit for a second.

Then said, "I’m glad you’re all so normal about these things."

Gregoris’s mouth moved at one corner.

"You say that as if you were raised elsewhere."

"That would have been a nice surprise."

"It would have been less educational."

"That is not the comfort you think it is."

Gregoris ignored that with paternal ease and reached forward to close one layer of the report, collapsing the display from full trace into summary view. The room darkened slightly with the shift in projection.

Frederik watched the movement, then asked, more lightly now, "Was Cecil already here?"

Gregoris looked at him.

There was no reason for the answer to be funny.

That did not stop it from being so.

"Yes," Gregoris said.

Frederik closed his eyes for one brief second and groaned, half fond, half exasperated. "Of course he was."

Gregoris’s expression remained perfectly composed. "He stormed into the heir’s office to ask why Arik had not married a crown princess yet."

Frederik looked back up at him slowly. "He said that sentence out loud."

"Yes."

Frederik stood very still for a beat, then let out a quiet breath that was one shade away from laughter and one shade away from despair. "I left him unsupervised for half a day."

"That," Gregoris said, "was your tactical error."

Frederik dragged a hand through his hair. The annoyance in him had edges softened by familiarity now, because really, what else had he expected? Cecil had been pissed off when Frederik refused the hidden mark. Not wounded in any serious sense. Not rejected. Just furious in that bright, princely, irrational way he gets when reality refuses to bend around feelings for at least one afternoon.

And yes - of course he would go to Arik for petty revenge.

Of course he would storm into the heir’s office, invent an argument involving crown princesses, succession optics, and his own emotional suffering, and somehow manage to sound sincere while doing it.

Frederik looked at his father. "Did Arik survive?"

Gregoris considered that. "Physically."

"That’s encouraging."

"Not especially."

Frederik’s mouth twitched.

Gregoris noticed, because Gregoris noticed everything, and said, "You’re not actually angry."

"No," Frederik said honestly. "Just tired."

Gregoris leaned back very slightly against the edge of the desk, the nearest thing to casual most men ever saw from him. In private, with family, that degree of looseness counted as luxury. "Why is he mad now?"

Frederik looked out toward the darkened command-wing glass for a moment before answering. "Cecil found out that alphas can be marked anywhere on their body, so he asked my consent for it. I said no."

Gregoris was silent for one beat.

Then, with the same calm he might have used to acknowledge a tactical shift on a border map, "Ah."

That single syllable contained entirely too much comprehension.

Frederik turned his head just enough to look at him. "You say that like this explains everything."

"It explains enough."

"That is not comforting."

"It is not intended to be."

Frederik exhaled quietly through his nose and folded his arms. The office lights caught in the silver of Gregoris’s eyes, making him look, for a moment, even less like a father and more like the commander everyone else saw first. Frederik had grown up with both versions and knew better than most that the difference was often only in the angle of the room.

Gregoris studied him for another second. "You refused because?"