Chapter 107: Chapter 107: Serious talk

Marianne straightened in her chair. Daniel’s hand remained at her shoulder, steady. Trevor’s posture went still in a way that meant violence was being filed neatly behind his ribs. Ethan’s fingers tightened once around Sirius’s hand, a quiet brace. Dax’s smile faded into something sharper. Chris leaned forward, elbows on his knees, suddenly too awake.

Lucas continued, voice calm and flat, like he was reading a report. “Caelan only contacted one of our heirs directly.”

Marianne’s brows lifted. “Only one?” Her gaze flicked to Lucas, then to Sirius. “So he contacted Thomas… That’s strange. Weren’t there any other dominant alphas he approached?”

Dax leaned back and shrugged, casual in a way that didn’t hide the edge underneath. “He didn’t try with Nero. Or the other five dominant alphas we have.”

Chris’s mouth twitched. “He would’ve had a death wish.”

Dax’s grin returned for half a second, more fond than cruel. “Yes.”

Sirius nodded once, expression mild. “And he didn’t contact anyone in Palatine either. Aside from Sebastian, there are two other dominant alphas of age.”

Marianne’s eyes narrowed. “So he avoided Saha and Palatine.”

Daniel’s voice was calm, but it carried weight. “Meaning he either had no access… or he didn’t want to risk it.”

Lucas’s gaze stayed cold. “He didn’t want to risk it.”

Trevor exhaled once through his nose, controlled. “He knew which families would cut his hands off first.”

Ethan’s thumb moved once over Sirius’s knuckles, grounding. “He also knew which heirs were watched.”

Chris tilted his head. “Nero is watched like a national monument.”

Dax’s brows lifted. “He’s watched because he’s Nero.”

Marianne’s mouth curved, sharp. “And because he’s loud enough to make secrets uncomfortable.”

Sirius’s expression didn’t change, but his tone sharpened slightly. “Palatine’s heirs are watched because the court would eat them alive if they weren’t.”

Lucas’s eyes flicked to Sirius. “And because Caelan knew he couldn’t approach anyone in your orbit without it becoming a public incident.”

Sirius didn’t deny it. “Yes.”

Daniel’s gaze shifted to Marianne. “So why Thomas?”

Marianne’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t answer immediately. Not because she didn’t have theories, but because saying her son’s name in the same breath as Caelan’s intentions felt like letting the man touch him again.

Ethan did it for her.

“Because Caelan was trying to gather dominant alphas who hadn’t been assigned yet,” Ethan said at last, voice calm but tinged with hidden rage.

Dax’s brows lifted. Chris went still. Trevor sighed, knowing exactly what Ethan was about to say and not wanting to hear it again. Even Sirius’s expression tightened by a fraction, attention narrowing into something colder.

“Unassigned,” Marianne repeated, quieter.

Ethan nodded once. “Not formally tied to a court function. Not already associated with a public role. Not tied to a network of handlers who would detect a single message and kill the sender.”

Lucas’s mouth curved, humorless. “Loose pieces.”

Trevor’s voice was low. “Pieces he thought he could claim.”

Ethan’s thumb stroked once over Sirius’s knuckles, a quiet brace before he continued.

“Trevor put the last part together,” Ethan said, and the way he said it carried respect, because Trevor had always been good at seeing patterns others preferred to ignore.

Trevor didn’t look pleased. He looked tired.

“There are two options,” Ethan went on. “Option one: Caelan was deteriorating. Old age, paranoia, desperation. He wanted Palatine to have the upper hand in every negotiation, every border argument, and every treaty. So he tried to manufacture it.”

Chris’s mouth tightened. “By collecting dominants.”

“By collecting dominants,” Ethan agreed. “By making sure Palatine had a private arsenal, no one could contest.”

Dax’s gaze went colder. “And he used Dean as the chain to bind them.”

Lucas didn’t speak, but the muscles in his jaw tightened hard enough to show what the thought did to him.

Ethan continued anyway, because pretending did not help. “Yes.”

Marianne’s eyes narrowed. “And option two?”

Ethan’s gaze lifted, steady. “Option two is worse.”

Sirius exhaled once, controlled. “Say it.”

Ethan didn’t hesitate. “Option two: Caelan wasn’t just trying to win politics. He was trying to intervene in Draxil too.”

The room fell silent as everyone calculated the disaster that would result from a power like Palatine intervening in an inner struggle for another’s throne.

Daniel’s voice stayed calm. “Draxil’s inner struggle.”

Ethan nodded once. “If Caelan believed Draxil was destabilizing, or if he believed someone else would seize control, he might have decided Palatine needed a private force it could deploy without anyone’s permission. Not the official army. Not something that required a vote. Something deniable.”

Dax’s mouth curved, sharp. “And dominants make good deniable forces.”

Chris’s eyes were bright with contempt. “Especially if they’re chemically and biologically dependent on their omega.”

Trevor’s posture went rigid. “He was building a leash.”

Lucas’s voice was quiet. “He was building slavery with symbolic language.”

Marianne’s hands clenched in her lap. “Using my son as a recruitment route.”

Daniel’s hand on her shoulder tightened, steady and fierce.

Sirius’s gaze went distant for a moment, as if running the timeline against everything else they’d seen. Then he looked back, his voice mild again – the mildness of someone who had already decided what to do about it.

“So Thomas,” Sirius said, “because he’s capable, unassigned, and far enough from Palatine’s immediate orbit that Caelan thought the contact wouldn’t trigger alarms.”

Ethan nodded. “And because Rohan has military and strategic reach. If you’re trying to quietly assemble power, you don’t start by calling the people who will report you out of principle.”

Dax’s gaze flicked to Chris. “Or out of spite.”

Chris smiled without humor. “Especially not Nero.”

Marianne exhaled slowly. “So he chose Thomas because he thought he could be subtle.”

Trevor’s mouth twitched. “Caelan was never subtle. He just thought the world was too tired to stop him.”

Sirius exhaled quietly, the sound controlled enough to pass for calm. “We’ll keep the thread under supervision,” he said, using the word like it was something delicate and dangerous at the same time. “If there are any other movements, any tug on it at all, we smother them immediately.”

Chris’s brows lifted. “You already have eyes on it.”

Sirius’s mouth curved faintly. “I have eyes on everything.”

Ethan’s thumb stroked once over Sirius’s knuckles, grounding him. “The moment Caelan’s name stopped being a shield, people started testing what they could pull out of the ashes.”

Lucas’s gaze sharpened. “And you’re letting them think they can.”

Sirius didn’t deny it. “For now.”

Dax’s voice was mild, almost approving. “Bait.”

Sirius nodded once. “Bait,” he agreed. “Because if there’s a network, if Caelan wasn’t truly alone, the fastest way to find it is to let it breathe just enough to reveal itself.”

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