Chapter 399: Chapter 399: Traces

Dax’s eyes flicked to Chris, briefly amused, then soft again, because it was Chris asking, and Chris was allowed to ask him things no one else survived asking.

“If they are alphas,” Dax said, calm, “they need a mate. It doesn’t matter what label you give them. A dominant alpha’s biology is still a dominant alpha’s biology.”

Chris’s mouth tightened. “So the word ’enigma’ doesn’t change the rules.”

“It changes what other people think the rules are,” Dax corrected, and there was quiet contempt in it. “It doesn’t change the body.”

He kissed the top of Nero’s head with startling gentleness, like the action was instinctive, like he couldn’t help marking his son with affection instead of teeth.

“I’m not fully,” Dax added, voice dropping a notch, “but I have traces. Enough to influence other dominants, but not enough to shift someone into the perfect mate.”

“What?!” Chris jolted.

The movement pulled at his stitches, and he hissed, instantly regretting every millimeter of that reaction.

Dax’s gaze snapped to him, sharp. “Don’t move.”

Chris glared through the pain. “Don’t…” He sucked in a breath, recalibrating. “Don’t dodge. What do you mean, ’shift someone into the perfect mate’?”

Rowan, near the door, went very still like a man hearing confidential information in a room he could not leave.

Dax looked down at Nero as if the baby’s sleepy little face were easier to confess to than Chris’s eyes.

“There are levels,” Dax said quietly. “Types of dominance expression.”

Chris blinked. “I know that.”

Dax’s mouth twitched faintly. “You know the modern version. The polite version that fits into training manuals.”

Chris’s brows lowered. “Dax.”

Dax exhaled once, slowly. His fingers adjusted around Nero’s blanket, a careful, secure grip.

“In Saha,” Dax said, “there are dominants who can calm. Some who can command. Some who can overwhelm.”

Chris held his gaze, face tight. “And some who can shift someone into the perfect mate?”

Dax’s eyes flickered up. “Yes.”

Chris stared at him like he’d just admitted to owning a secret weapon.

“Excuse me,” Chris said, voice dangerously even, “is that a thing you can do to people?”

Dax’s expression stayed calm, but his scent shifted, unhappy at the implication.

“No,” he said immediately. “Not like that. It isn’t some kind of trick. It’s biology. It requires proximity, time, and compatibility. It is not mind control like dominant omegas have over recessive alphas.”

Chris’s eyes narrowed further. “You can’t do it,” he said flatly. “You wouldn’t have kidnapped me and then kept me here until I accepted you if you could have just chosen someone else and ’shifted’ them.”

Dax didn’t flinch at the word kidnapped. He didn’t pretend it was romantic. He just held Chris’s gaze like a man who had made choices and would make them again.

“No,” Dax said. “I can’t.”

Then, quieter, as if the truth was a blade he only offered to people he trusted not to use it against him.

“But I would still choose you.”

Chris’s throat tightened. He hated how quickly that landed somewhere soft.

Dax looked down at Nero for a heartbeat, like the baby’s sleeping face gave him permission to be honest.

“I’ve tempted fate before meeting you,” Dax said, and the pride in his voice drained out completely, replaced by something older. “With the last regime of my two older brothers.”

Rowan, near the door, went still.

Chris’s expression shifted into something more wary. He’d heard pieces of this history in fragments. Never like this.

Dax’s fingers adjusted on Nero’s blanket, gently. His voice stayed controlled, but there was iron underneath it.

“I used my pheromones to control their troops,” he said. “To stop massacres. To hold lines when discipline failed. To keep men from turning hunger into slaughter.”

Chris swallowed. “And?”

Dax’s jaw tightened once. “And I used them on one dominant alpha. I controlled him long enough for him to be killed. That’s why I was at my limit when I met you.”

Chris hummed, already threading the timeline together with the same sharp mind he used on budgets and crimes and court rumors. “That was when you took Saha from your brothers.”

Dax laughed. It came out quiet, almost fond, like it was absurd that Chris could say something like that with the same tone people used to comment on weather.

“Yes,” Dax said.

“Understandable,” Chris replied with a huff, as if overthrowing a regime was an average Tuesday. He let himself fall back into the pillow fort behind him, careful this time, letting the softness catch him instead of pain.

Nero slept on against Dax’s chest, tiny and warm and utterly offended by existence.

Chris stared at the ceiling for half a second, then turned his head just enough to look at Dax with exhausted, insolent hope.

“Now that the depressing talk is over,” Chris said, voice rough but lighter, “can I have… something sweet?”

Dax’s gaze softened immediately, like the request hit some instinct in him that loved taking care of Chris more than ruling.

“Yes,” he said, without hesitation.

Chris’s brows lifted. “That was too fast. What do you have prepared?”

Dax’s mouth twitched. “Everything.”

Chris blinked. “That’s not an answer.”

“It is,” Dax said, calm. “You are my moon. You get what you ask for.”

Chris made a sound that was half scoff, half pleased. “Dangerous policy.”

Dax shifted Nero slightly, checking the baby’s position with surgical care. Nero grunted once, offended, then settled again as if he’d approved the adjustment.

Only when Nero was fully asleep did Dax move toward the side table.

There was a covered tray waiting there, because of course there was. The palace might be blocked from the room, but Dax’s obsession with being prepared had never been blocked from anything.

He lifted the cover.

Inside were small, elegant sweets arranged like offerings: honey pastries glazed so they shone, a bowl of thick cream with crushed pistachios, dates stuffed with something dark and rich, and a small cup of warm syrup that smelled like citrus and spice.

Chris’s eyes widened like he’d been presented with treasure.

“Oh,” he breathed. “You’re bribing me.”

Dax’s eyes flicked up, amused. “Yes.”

Chris’s mouth twitched. “With sugar.”

“With care,” Dax corrected, and it sounded unfairly intimate.

Chris rolled his eyes as if that would protect him. “Give me the honey thing.”

Dax reached for a pastry, then stopped, looking at Chris with an expression that suggested he’d just remembered an important rule.

“You can’t sit up,” he said.

“I can sit up,” Chris argued immediately.

“You cannot,” Dax repeated, calm as a decree. “You can glare from a lying position.”

Chris narrowed his eyes. “I hate you.”

“No,” Dax murmured, and there was a smile in it. “You don’t.”

He brought the pastry closer anyway, holding it like he was offering Chris something sacred rather than something sticky.

Chris stared at it for a beat, then at Dax. “Are you feeding me?”

“Yes.”

Chris’s voice went flat. “I’m an adult.”

Dax’s gaze didn’t waver. “You are my injured adult.”

Chris opened his mouth, prepared to argue on principle.

Then he took one bite.

The honey and warm dough hit his tongue, and his eyes closed involuntarily for half a second, betraying him completely.

Dax watched it happen like it was a victory.

Chris reopened his eyes and glared harder to compensate. “Don’t look smug.”

“I’m not smug,” Dax lied smoothly.

Chris chewed, swallowed, and then muttered, “Okay. Another bite.”

Dax’s smile deepened, small and lethal with affection. “As you command.”

From the doorway, Rowan’s voice drifted in – dry, long-suffering. “Do you want me to clear the room for the feeding ritual, or is this within security protocol?”

Chris didn’t even look at him. “If you comment again, Rowan, I’m putting you on night shift.”

Rowan paused. “Understood.”

Dax’s eyes flicked up toward the door, amusement bright for a second, then he looked back down at Chris – at the way the pillow fort made him look smaller than he was, at the way exhaustion softened his sharp edges without ever fully dulling them.

Nero sighed in his sleep.

Chris took another bite, slower this time.

And for a brief, ridiculous moment, the room held nothing but warm light, honey on Chris’s lips, a sleeping heir pressed to Dax’s chest, and the fragile, dangerous peace of a kingdom kept outside by a locked door and a nurse with a clipboard.

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