Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 405: Mirrorwork

A few weeks didn’t just change the private wing.

They changed the headlines.

Altera’s ’national future’ had been rebranded into Altera’s ’miracle,’ then into Altera’s ’routine,’ because that was what Saha did better than anyone else on the planet: it ate panic, processed it, and spat out stability with a seal stamped in gold.

The palace had stopped hovering like Nero might detonate.

Not because the danger had vanished, but because Saha’s system had clicked into place. Layers. Protocols. The quiet, unwavering competence of a kingdom that had no business being so efficient and yet was.

Chris was the queen of that kingdom.

The kind with ministers, satellites, and markets that flexed when Saha moved its weight. Other nations politely referred to it as a ’kingdom’ because it sounded less threatening than it actually was.

An empire, if Dax ever cared about the vocabulary.

He didn’t.

He cared about control.

And about Chris.

Chris was healed now. In every clinical sense that mattered in Saha, tissue stabilized, pain minimized, mobility restored, and internal healing confirmed by imaging and lab work repeated until even paranoia got bored.

Saha’s doctors were monsters with licenses: brilliant, unsentimental, and so skilled at their jobs that people flew across oceans to beg for their services. The obstetrics team had been exceptional. The surgical team had been exceptional. The plastic surgeons were called in not because Chris needed vanity, but because Saha treated its royalty as if it were state infrastructure: you didn’t ’hope’ it would recover well. You ensured it did.

Chris’s C-section scar was clean, neat, and already fading at the edges because the best in the world had decided it would.

And because Dax would have torn the world apart if it hadn’t.

Nero had become routine too, in the way anything could become routine when an entire palace adjusted around it.

He was cared for by his parents and an army of staff; Chris called them nannies because it made the situation feel less absurd. It didn’t matter that half of them were pediatric nurses, neonatal specialists, security liaisons, and rotating medical oversight. If they were hovering near his son, they were nannies. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

Chris said it with affection disguised as contempt.

That afternoon, Nero was down the hall in the nursery suite, asleep in a crib that had more safety features than a diplomatic convoy. Nadia was supervising, because Nadia supervised everything now, and Rowan was in the corridor because Rowan’s paranoia had become part of the architecture.

Chris took advantage of the rare quiet to shower.

The bathroom was modern glass and pale stone, designed to look like luxury and function like defense. Heated floors. Mirrors that didn’t fog. A shower that could flatten tension by force.

Chris stepped out, water still dripping from his hair. Steam clung to his skin and robe. He moved to the sink, barefoot on warm stone, and glanced up... and caught himself in the mirror.

He stopped.

He looked... fine.

Color back in his face. Eyes no longer shadowed with constant discomfort. Shoulders relaxed enough to be his again. The type of recovery that other countries would call miraculous, Saha would call expected.

But his body had changed.

The robe sat loose at his waist, open enough to show the faint marks of pregnancy along his hips and lower stomach, delicate lines like the memory of stretching written softly into skin. And the scar sat low and clean, still visible, still early in fading, a thin line that reminded him that his body had been cut open and then closed again by the best hands alive.

Chris stared at it anyway because it didn’t matter how perfect the work was. It was still proof.

He tugged the robe a fraction wider without thinking. He didn’t recognize himself in the mirror the way he used to. That he’d spent years mastering control over everything, and the one thing he had been unable to control was the way his own body carried history.

He hovered a hand near the scar, then stopped, like touching it would confirm something he wasn’t ready to name.

A soft click came from the door.

Chris didn’t turn.

"You’re still in here?" Dax asked, mild.

Chris closed his robe and turned to Dax.

Dax was leaning against the doorframe like the concept of privacy was a rumor he’d heard once and rejected on principle. He’d changed out of his work clothes at some point - dark lounge pants, a loose shirt, sleeves pushed up, and his hair falling freely on his shoulders. Just a man who owned the entire wing by existing in it.

Chris forced his mouth into something that resembled normal. "I was..."

"Thinking," Dax supplied, gaze flicking once to Chris’s midsection like his eyes had a direct line to every lie Chris tried to tell himself.

Chris lifted his chin. "Showering."

"You were showering ten minutes ago." Dax’s tone stayed gentle. He pushed off the frame and approached with such silence that people forgot they could breathe.

Chris felt his own mind do it - reach for angles, for jokes, for a distraction sharp enough to make the mirror stop existing.

"So now you’re timing my hygiene?"

Dax’s mouth curved like he approved of the attempt, even as he ignored it completely. He stopped in front of Chris, close enough that the heat of him bled into the steam-warm air.

"I’m timing your spirals."

Chris’s smile held for a second too long. "I don’t spiral."

Dax reached out and caught the belt of Chris’s robe between two fingers, not pulling or yanking - just holding, like a quiet claim. His eyes stayed on Chris’s face.

"You do," he said. "You just do it elegantly."

Chris’s throat tightened in a way he hated. It was embarrassing, the way his body still reacted to Dax like they were at the beginning of their bond.

"Don’t start," Chris warned, because warning was easier than admitting anything.

Dax’s thumb brushed the damp hair at Chris’s shoulder, pushing a strand back.

"I didn’t come to start," Dax said. "I came to stop you."