Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 361: A night to remember (1) [Win-Win]

Months had passed since Ethan’s discussion with Chris, and the funniest part, if Ethan had still been the kind of person who laughed at his own suffering, was that he’d started that conversation thinking it would stay between them.

Instead, because Ethan didn’t have Chris’s audacity or Chris’s talent for treating taboo like a scheduling problem, he’d made the mistake of asking Mia and Leon too.

Chris had been the reasonable one.

He should have never asked the other two.

Mia had immediately turned it into a project. Lists. Options. "What’s your type?" delivered like she was sourcing materials for a building permit. Leon, who was sweet and traumatized and apparently fueled by chaos now, had taken one look at Ethan’s discomfort and decided it was his civic duty to make it worse. Ethan had walked away from both conversations feeling like he needed a shower and a restraining order.

He’d also learned something important in the process: being an omega wasn’t just biology. It was politics, and vulnerability, and other people thinking they were entitled to an opinion about what you did with your body.

Which was, frankly, insane.

Now he was in a suit that could have paid for his apartment in the time it took to blink, standing in the middle of the Palatine Palace, trying not to look like a man who wanted to chew through a wall. The only reason he hadn’t set anything on fire - metaphorically, mostly - was that Mia was getting engaged to Prince Lucius.

Second prince. Blue blood. A man polite enough to keep a room calm and sharp enough to keep Mia interested, which Ethan still didn’t fully understand, but he wasn’t in the habit of questioning Mia’s taste out loud unless he wanted to die.

And after all the suffering and the medication he would be damned if he wanted to die so soon.

A lot had happened in those months.

He’d chosen a partner in the end.

Some alpha man - tall, broad, clearly aware of his own body in the way only men with a six-pack seemed to be. Ethan was still questioning his taste and his decision-making skills, but he also wasn’t going to lie to himself: the six-pack had done most of the convincing.

The arrangement had been exactly what Chris said it would be. Vetted, discreet and incredibly clean.

The alpha never gave his real name. Ethan didn’t ask, because a name turned ’this is a solution’ into ’this is a person,’ and Ethan hadn’t been ready to carry another person on top of everything else. They set boundaries like a contract. Consent checked, again and again, because heat didn’t cancel agency - it just made planning matter even more.

Ethan had told himself it would be one night.

It wasn’t.

The first heat hit him like a truck, and it didn’t politely end after a few hours. It dragged him through three days, nights and daylight in a blur, his body demanding, then demanding again, until ’rest’ became a concept and not a reality.

He’d hated the lack of control.

He’d hated how much relief felt like drowning and breathing at the same time.

He’d hated the way his brain could stay painfully aware of everything while his body was screaming louder than thought.

And he’d hated, afterward, how normal the world looked again. Like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t been wrecked and rebuilt in the span of seventy-two hours.

The alpha had handled it without drama. No romance. No possessive talk. No attempt to turn it into something bigger than it was. Just competence, calming presence, and a quiet exit when it was done.

Ethan remembered lying there on the third day, exhausted, sore, furious at his own biology, and thinking:

’So this is what they meant.’

Not destiny. Just survival... managed.

He’d been fine after. Functional. Even briefly smug, until Leon asked how it went with wide, innocent eyes and Mia demanded details like she was reviewing a project timeline. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

Ethan gave them nothing.

"I lived," he said, and watched Mia look personally offended by the lack of scandal.

And now, standing in the Palatine Palace with too many eyes and too much perfume in the air, Ethan could feel that same old irritation crawling up his spine - the one that always showed up when people tried to turn real pain into a story that served them.

Because the illegal experimentation labs hadn’t disappeared into shame and silence the way they should have. Palatine had done what Palatine always did: turned horror into politics.

Emperor Caelan had discarded Ethan’s opinions, Dax’s opinions, and everyone’s opinions that didn’t fit the version he wanted to sell. He’d taken Ethan’s rescue - Ethan dragging Leon out, Ethan getting bathed in the compound, Ethan’s body rewritten as payment - and repackaged it into something clean.

A heroic narrative.

There was no mention of the smell of chemicals, restraints, or how Ethan’s hands had shaken afterward.

Just ’bravery,’ ’sacrifice,’ and ’look at what our Empire produces,’ while carefully ignoring the fact that the people conducting the experiments had been from the Empire too.

Ethan stared across the ballroom at the gold and velvet and the carefully managed laughter and felt his jaw tighten.

If Caelan wanted a symbol, he should’ve chosen someone who didn’t have the Queen of Saha as a friend.

Or worse... someone who didn’t owe his continued ability to stand upright to Saha’s doctors, Dax’s resources, and Chris’s stubborn refusal to let the story be rewritten without a fight.

Ethan let out a slow breath and forced his shoulders to relax. He’d learned, the hard way, that looking angry in a palace didn’t make you righteous. It made you visible.

The engagement party was already a circus. Mia’s engagement to Lucius wasn’t just romance, if it even counted as romance in this world, it was politics, alliance, reassurance to nobles who liked their stability decorated with pretty ceremonies.

And he was there only because he promised Mia too. It had nothing to do with the fact that he had a grudge with the Emperor.

Sure.