Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 448: Gold

Later, the palace directed them to the only place that mattered: the special section of the royal hospital, which had sealed floors, controlled access, guards in the corners with earpieces and hard eyes, and a sterile silence that felt enforced rather than peaceful.

Dax walked its corridor like he belonged to it and hated it.

The lights were too bright. The air smelled of disinfectant and filtered ventilation. Every surface reflected something back at him - his shoulders still carrying blood memory, his hands too steady for a man who wanted to shake, his face composed in that way kings learned to be composed when their insides were collapsing.

He had left Chris in their suite with Nero for the moment. Not because he wanted distance - he didn’t - but because Otto was here and Arion was here and the child mattered more than anyone’s grief.

If Dax stopped functioning now, it wouldn’t bring Killian back.

It would only risk the next loss.

His footsteps were quiet on the polished floor. The only sound was the soft buzz of a security door unlocking as he approached - a biometric scanner, a green light, a guard stepping aside without speaking.

Dax’s pheromones stayed leashed. They had to. Hospitals were full of people who didn’t need a dominant alpha’s presence pressing on their nervous systems. He kept it tight, compressed into himself until it was nothing but heat under skin.

It didn’t mean he was calm, but it meant he was controlling himself, and control, right now, was the only way to keep walking.

He kept seeing the garden anyway.

The bright, stupid ball. The dog. The wrong smile. The sudden wet bloom of claws. Killian’s body taking the hit like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Killian’s last clarity. ’Save him.’

’He died in my arms.’

Dax’s jaw flexed.

He kept moving.

To keep himself steady, he did what Chris had done - took the question that hurt and used it like a nail through his palm. Something sharp enough to keep him awake.

But Dax’s version wasn’t philosophical.

It was personal.

’What if it had been Nero?’

The thought arrived in him like a punch.

He saw it without permission: Nero’s soft cheeks, the way his hands gripped fabric like a claim, and the weight of him in Dax’s arms.

A corrupted soldier stepping out of a crowd.

A hand reaching. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Claws blooming.

Nero’s face turning toward danger because babies trusted smiles.

And Dax... Dax knew the answer before the question finished forming.

He would have done worse than Killian.

He would have destroyed everything in reach.

He would have torn the world apart until no infected body was left breathing within ten kilometers of his child.

He would have taken the hit.

He would have taken ten hits.

He would have died and still tried to stand.

"Dax." Otto’s voice snapped Dax from his own thoughts.

Dax turned.

Otto stood near the glass wall of Arion’s room, arms folded tight across his chest as if it were the only way to keep himself from shaking apart. His field equipment hadn’t come off. His hair was still tossed in the wind, and his jaw was clenched so hard that the muscles jumped. On paper, he looked like an emperor holding the line.

But Dax saw how bad it was.

Otto’s gaze kept returning to the bed, as if he couldn’t stop checking, and his breathing had become shallow - controlled but too quick. People breathed like this when they were trying to keep their fear hidden.

Dax walked closer and stopped beside him, facing the glass.

Arion lay under the white sheets, still sedated, his small body dwarfed by medical equipment. Monitors blinked. An IV line ran into his arm. A sterile patch covered the scratches on his cheek.

A child in a place children didn’t belong.

Outside the room, through the glass, two physicians spoke in clipped tones, eyes on the monitors, hands moving with the ruthless efficiency of people who didn’t get sentimental about ’probably.’

Minerva was already dismantling the palace.

Dax could picture her doing it. Security footage pulled. Access logs stripped. Returning teams isolated and re-screened. Anyone who had signed off on a clearance called in and was made to answer until their voice cracked.

But Minerva’s rage wouldn’t change the fact that Arion had been scratched.

And it wouldn’t change what Dax was seeing now.

Otto didn’t look away from the glass. "My wife is tearing the palace apart."

"I know," Dax said. "She’ll find the crack."

"She’ll burn the people who made it," Otto murmured, and the words weren’t satisfaction. They were distant. Like Otto needed vengeance to be something tangible because fear wasn’t.

Dax studied him for a beat longer, then asked quietly, "Are you alright?"

Otto’s laugh was short and ugly. "No."

He finally turned his head. His eyes were still icy blue, but there was something jagged under them - rawness pressed flat with discipline.

Dax held his gaze without blinking. "Tell me."

Otto’s throat worked. He swallowed once, hard.

"Most dominant ones don’t get infected," Otto said, voice low. "You know that. Dominant alphas, dominant omegas - manifested bodies fight it off. Their systems... they reject the infected blood."

Dax’s jaw tightened. He knew. It was one of the few consolations in a world full of teeth: dominance, once manifested, came with an immunity that felt like nature’s apology.

Otto’s voice scraped. "Arion hasn’t manifested."

Dax’s gaze snapped back to the bed.

The boy was eight; he was way too young to even consider the manifestation as a factor.

Otto’s arms tightened across his chest as if he could hold the truth in place.

"He’s a dominant alpha," Dax said carefully.

"Genetically," Otto snapped. Then he lowered his voice again, like he didn’t want the doctors to hear the shape of his fear. "But he hasn’t awakened, and that is the only way we knew it works."

Dax’s chest went cold.

Otto turned fully toward him now, and Dax saw what he’d been trying to hide.

His eyes were wet.

Not tears falling, not weeping - Otto would sooner bleed again than cry in front of anyone - but a thin, glassy sheen that made the blue look harsher and more desperate.

"And," Otto said, and the word broke slightly despite his control, "look at him."

Dax looked.

For a second, he didn’t see anything wrong.

Then Arion shifted in his sleep - just a small movement of his head, lashes fluttering, mouth parting slightly - and the overhead light caught his eyes.

Brown.

The soft brown he’d been born with, the color inherited from his biological mother.

And now... Not fully brown.

A ring at the edge of the iris, faint but unmistakable.

Gold.

Dirty, like smoke staining glass.

Dax’s stomach dropped.

Otto’s voice went raw. "They’re turning."