Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 375: Decent dominant omegas

Chris had discovered, somewhere in the first five years of power sitting in his hands like a loaded weapon, that patience didn’t regenerate.

It wore down. It left traces. It turned into a thin skin over teeth.

Which meant he had no damn patience left for arrogant assholes... and Claudia was nothing more than another entitled asshole dressed in jewels and self-importance.

She asked for privacy the moment they entered the palace properly, voice smooth, posture perfect, eyes fixed on Chris like she’d already decided the conversation belonged to her.

"A moment," Claudia said, sweetly. "Dominant omega to dominant omega."

Dax’s gaze sharpened immediately.

Chris felt the silent, predatory refusal through the bond. Dax didn’t like being separated from his mate in unfamiliar territory, not when the place was something he couldn’t secure with at least three layers of his people. Not when this palace had been built around a woman sold like an asset.

Chris placed a hand on Dax’s forearm as a quiet signal. ’I’m fine. I can handle it.’

Dax’s jaw tightened, but he let it happen.

Rowan, lingering near the doorway like a shadow that had learned sarcasm, looked like he wanted to object on principle. Chris gave him one glance that said, ’Do not.’ Rowan subsided with the long-suffering expression of a man forced to let his protected person walk into a conversational ambush.

Claudia led Chris into a sitting room and dismissed the staff with a flick of her fingers as if servants were thoughts she could shoo away.

Then she began to talk.

And talk.

And talk.

For half an hour, Chris stood there like a statue with a pulse, listening to Claudia praise dominant omegas the way zealots praised gods. Listening to her describe them as the natural rulers of everything worth ruling, as if it was biology’s personal decree.

Dominant alphas, Claudia explained, were animals. Beasts without minds. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

Useful for two things: fighting and fucking.

She said it with the serene confidence of someone who had never been contradicted in her life, or worse, someone who had been contradicted and had learned to punish people for it until they stopped.

Chris endured it at first because he wanted information.

Because beneath the entitlement and the superiority complex, Claudia was still Elara’s daughter. Still a living thread connected to the omega the Maleks had sold into this palace.

So Chris waited for the point.

He waited for Elara’s story.

He waited for something human.

But Claudia never got there. She was so full of herself that Chris barely had room to inhale, let alone speak. Every sentence looped back to Claudia’s own significance, her own ’duty,’ and her own righteousness.

And slowly, quietly, Chris realized something that made his stomach turn.

Elara hadn’t suffered the way Chris had imagined.

Not because she’d been spared by kindness.

Because she’d chosen it.

She’d liked it.

She’d enjoyed the power of stabilizing dominant alphas who depended on her. She’d enjoyed the luxury built around her function. She’d enjoyed the influence that came from being the center of a household’s sanity and, by extension, the center of political decisions that made nations shift.

And Claudia... Claudia had inherited that like it was a crown.

Then Claudia said the thing that snapped the last thread of Chris’s restraint.

"You know," she murmured, eyes sliding in the direction of the corridor where Dax was, as if she could see him through walls by sheer entitlement, "you got yourself the strongest alpha alive."

Chris kept his face neutral. Only his spine tightened.

Claudia smiled.

It was a disgusting smile. The kind you gave when you looked at someone and saw nothing but ownership.

"Too bad I didn’t get to have him," Claudia continued, her voice almost dreamy, like she was describing jewelry she’d wanted at an auction. "I’m sure he would never have needed you after."

Chris’s vision narrowed as a clean, cold rage overtook him.

Because Claudia didn’t know Dax. She didn’t understand what Dax was. She didn’t understand that the man she was talking about like a toy would rather die than be ’stabilized’ by someone like her.

Chris’s voice came out calm.

"Well," he said, and he finally spoke after half an hour of being treated like furniture, "you wouldn’t have him either way."

Claudia blinked, surprised to hear a sound that wasn’t her own.

Chris continued, his tone polite in the way knives are polite. "He’s pretentious about his tastes. And believe me, he would rather die than have you as his savior."

Claudia’s smile stiffened.

Chris didn’t wait for her to respond. He turned, walked out, and muttered under his breath with the kind of venom only exhausted people could manage.

"Dominant omegas can be such assholes," he hissed to himself. "There is a desperate need for decent ones in this world."

The corridor outside felt cooler, quieter... saner.

He saw Dax immediately, waiting like he’d been carved there. Feeling Chris through the bond, searching for the source of that sudden spike of fury like a predator catching scent.

Rowan stood a few steps behind Dax, arms crossed, expression grimly resigned, as if he’d already guessed exactly what kind of conversation Chris had survived.

Dax’s eyes locked on Chris’s face. "Chris," he said softly, trying to check if he was alright without pressing him.

Gods, he loved that man.

Chris walked straight up to Dax, reached up, grabbed him by the collar like he owned the right to do it, and pulled him down just enough to make Dax focus only on him.

"We need to have children," Chris said.

Dax froze in pure, stunned confusion.

His brows drew together. His mouth opened slightly as his brain tried to catch up with the sentence and failed. The bond flared with startled emotion like a wave hitting shore.

"...What?" Dax managed.

Chris didn’t give him time to recover.

He kissed him.

Hard.

Like it was an argument or proof that the alpha he was bonded to was still his. Like it was Chris reclaiming his own future from every entitled voice that thought people were tools.

Dax made a low sound into the kiss - half surprise, half instinctive hunger - and then his hands came up automatically, gripping Chris as if the world had tilted and Chris was the only stable thing left.

When Chris broke the kiss, Dax was still visibly trying to reboot.

"Chris," Dax started, breath rough, "why..."

"Later," Chris said, already dragging him by the collar down the corridor like Dax was the one being escorted. "Ask me later."

Dax, astonishingly, didn’t resist.

He was confused, cooperative, and - because he was Dax - already adapting like a predator presented with a new reality: ’Mate wants children; mate is furious; mate is kissing me like he’s going to start a war.’

Rowan followed them with the heavy tread of a man witnessing history and regretting it.

Rowan groaned, loud enough to be heard by the walls themselves.

"Of course," he muttered. "Of course this is how we make life decisions now."