Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 385: Coordinates

Sirius had delivered the word like a blade sliding between ribs and then had the misfortune of still being in the room for what came after.

Dax didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t lunge. He didn’t even shift in his chair in any way that would count as visible anger.

He simply... changed.

It was subtle at first, like the air remembered it belonged to him. The room thinned, the warmth of the food turned irrelevant, and Sirius’s instincts - trained on court politics and assassination attempts and the quiet cruelty of imperial halls - registered something older than any of that.

A dominant alpha deciding that mercy was a luxury.

Dax’s gaze remained focused on him, bright and calm, and the calm was the problem. It felt like you were standing in front of a cliff edge and hadn’t noticed until your heel had found nothing.

Sirius found himself measuring the distance to the door without meaning to.

Not because he thought Dax would hurt him.

Because his body didn’t care about diplomatic nuances; it only knew that if someone breathed incorrectly, it would cause collateral damage to furniture and innocent men.

The wine glass in Dax’s hand didn’t tremble. His rings didn’t clink. Every aspect of him appeared composed, even theatrical, until you realized the theater had become a mask, concealing something that did not require performance.

"Where?" Dax repeated, still politely interested, like Sirius hadn’t just handed him a reason to burn down a country.

Sirius forced his fingers to move again. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small black stick, which could be mistaken for a normal storage drive if you didn’t know better.

He set it down carefully, between them, like placing an offering in front of a god and hoping it would be accepted instead of judged.

"Coordinates," Sirius said, and he hated that his voice stayed firm only because fear was an old companion. "A location marker. My men confirmed the perimeter, the routes, and the access points. It’s in the west part of Rohan where the king doesn’t have control."

"Varlen has no control in his own country. Not even his delusions." Dax smirked.

Sirius should’ve been relieved by the humor.

Instead, it landed like the last polite sound a room made before it remembered what violence was.

He nodded once, because agreeing was easier than correcting a man whose restraint currently felt like a locked door held shut by fingertips.

"It’s far enough that local law enforcement won’t touch it," Sirius said. "Far enough that even if someone calls it in, it gets routed through three different agencies that hate each other."

Dax’s gaze dropped to the stick again, and for a second Sirius thought he’d reach for it.

He didn’t.

"How much time do you need before Caelan catches on that you gave me the information?"

"None," Sirius said. "Even if he suspects it, there’s no trail back to me... or to you. For all he knows, you’ve been looking for Adonis for four years. It was bound to lead somewhere eventually."

Sirius hesitated, then added, quieter, "And he won’t catch on for the reason you think."

Dax’s gaze lifted, sharp again. "Meaning?"

"Because this isn’t a leak," Sirius said, his jaw flexed once. "The only reason I know Adonis won’t look like himself is because Caelan ordered him to do plastic surgery."

Dax hummed, head tilting; the pale sweep of his hair caught the light. "We already knew about the glands," he said lightly. "He had them removed so my people couldn’t track him by scent."

Sirius’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. "Yes. I remember that particular nightmare."

He paused, then added, softer, "This is... additional."

Dax’s eyes narrowed by a fraction. "How additional?"

Sirius lifted one shoulder in a restrained shrug. "Enough that you won’t recognize him the way you expect. That’s all I’m saying." He exhaled, like he was refusing to hand Dax the whole moment on a plate. "I’m not going to ruin the shock for you."

For a second, Dax just stared at him, expression unreadable in that way rulers perfected when they were trying not to become a headline.

Sirius checked his watch because it gave his hands something to do. "We’ve done our part," he said, his tone shifting back toward civilized. "Shall we go see what our consorts are plotting while we pretend to be normal men?"

—

The corridor outside the private suite still smelled faintly of spice and expensive soap.

Dax walked ahead, expression smooth, steps unhurried - like he hadn’t just been handed coordinates and the kind of truth that could turn a continent feral. Sirius followed, keeping pace, because it was easier than thinking about what happened after Dax moved.

The door opened on biometric recognition and quiet authority.

Dax stepped in first.

Sirius followed... and stopped.

The suite was dim and warm, lived-in in the small ways that mattered. One lamp was on and curtains drawn despite being barely past noon. A blanket had been pulled half off the sofa and abandoned later. A tablet played low-volume true crime on the coffee table, subtitles running across the screen in a font that screamed "we expect you to be eating snacks."

On the sofa, Chris was sprawled in the most indecent position a consort could take in a palace full of cameras - half lounged, head tipped back against the armrest, one hand loose at his side like he’d simply stopped negotiating with gravity.

Zion was asleep on his chest, cheek pressed to Chris’s shirt, small body heavy with trust in a way that made Sirius’s throat tighten before he could decide how he felt about it.

Ethan sat close at Chris’s side, knees drawn up, hair slightly mussed, face turned toward the screen with the kind of concentration that belonged in a courtroom. His finger was raised mid-point, hovering near the tablet like he was restraining himself from throwing objections at the narrator.

And between them...

Tania lay stretched along the seam of the sofa like a white wall with muscle and intent.

An albino tiger, enormous even when relaxed, coat pale as spilled milk under lamplight and eyes half-lidded and unimpressed. One massive paw rested near Chris’s thigh, another near Ethan’s knee, as if she’d decided both of them were hers to guard and the rest of the world could file a complaint.

Sirius stopped breathing for a second.

The absurd, immediate thought that this was the least "safe" room he’d ever seen and somehow the safest Zion had ever looked.

Ethan didn’t look up right away. He tapped the screen once - muted it further, like even the documentary was being too loud - then whispered with offended conviction, "That’s not how any of that works."

Chris made a sound that was mostly a hum and barely a word.

"Mmm. Nobody lets me have unrealistic expectations."

Ethan’s mouth twitched. "You? Unrealistic? You’re the only person I know who expects competence from criminals and then acts betrayed when they’re sloppy."

Chris didn’t open his eyes. His hand moved once, slowly, fingers brushing Zion’s back in a mindless, careful stroke that didn’t wake him.

"I just want them to respect the craft," Chris mumbled.

Ethan pointed again, more emphatic now. "Also, the timeline is impossible. He can’t be in two places at once, unless this show is about teleportation and they forgot to mention it."

Tania’s ear flicked.

One eye opened.

The tiger’s gaze slid to the doorway, found Dax, and narrowed in pure judgment, as if she’d been keeping watch for hours and the king had finally decided to remember he lived here.

Dax stopped moving.

Sirius watched him go very still, as if every instinct in him had paused to take inventory: mate, child, tiger, witness.

For a moment, Dax’s face did something almost imperceptible. The reconfiguration of a man who had been prepared to be a weapon and was now being reminded he belonged to a home.

Ethan finally looked up.

His expression rearranged into polite in a heartbeat, then eased into something faintly amused when he saw Sirius behind Dax.

"We’re busy," Ethan said, like this explained the entire picture.