Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 362: A night to remember (2) [Win-Win]
Ethan paused at the edge of the ballroom first, just inside the doorway, letting his eyes adjust to the lighting and his nerves adjust to the fact that Palatine did this on purpose - gold, velvet, chandeliers, and enough perfume in the air to qualify as a weapon.
He scanned the room the way he scanned a new construction site.
Where the exits were. Where security stood. Where the crowd was densest and where it thinned. Who had the posture of staff, who had the posture of a threat, and who had the posture of someone paid to smile while counting other people’s mistakes.
Then he spotted them.
It wasn’t subtle.
They had a gravity of their own with Chris at the center, like he’d been born to hold court even before anyone put a crown on his head; Mia, bright and sharp at his side; Lucas and Trevor nearby with that calm, dangerous composure of people who knew secrets and didn’t leak them, Cressida looking amused, like the entire Empire was entertainment; and Sirius standing slightly apart, the way a man stood when he was tired of being treated like a symbol.
Ethan watched for a second longer than necessary, because this was still surreal sometimes: he had been a construction engineer. A beta. A man with spreadsheets, concrete dust on his boots, and a friend named Leon who’d once complained about a foreman like it was the worst thing that could happen to him.
Now Ethan was an omega. Officially listed. Quietly monitored. Dressed in a suit worth more than his old apartment. Standing in the Palatine Palace because Mia was getting engaged and Chris was now the Queen of Saha, and everyone kept pretending those things were normal.
He took one steadying breath, then moved.
As he approached, he caught the end of Mia’s toast, her voice soft and certain.
"To Lucius," she said. "And everything they’ll never touch."
As if summoned by the words, or more likely by the gods of political inconvenience, Lucius appeared behind them with the weary elegance of a man who had just escaped diplomatic captivity.
He didn’t wait to be acknowledged. He stepped into the circle like it was a lifeboat.
"I swear," he muttered, "if one more noble asks me about heirs, I will burn this ballroom to the ground."
Ethan’s first thought was ’fair.’ His second was: ’I am walking into the middle of it.’
Chris turned slightly. "Good evening, darling."
Lucius gave him a look. "You knew, didn’t you?"
Chris smiled. "Define ’knew.’"
"They cornered me by the archway near the elder council," Lucius continued, as if Chris hadn’t spoken. "Three different lines of succession. Two genetic charts. A ten-minute lecture on the fertility decline of secondborn alphas."
Lucas winced. "That’s rough."
"Rough," Lucius repeated, deadpan. "They said, and I quote, ’If your brother refuses to do his duty, you may have to reconsider his right to inherit. An heirless crown is a weak one.’"
Sirius didn’t even blink; he’d been hearing versions of that speech since he was eighteen, and it had only gotten worse once Lucas had a child. "Did you stab anyone?"
"No," Lucius snapped. "Because I’m trying to be the calm brother."
Chris tilted his head. "How’s that going?"
Lucius turned to Sirius and leveled him with a look that could have bent steel.
"Do your job," he said flatly. "I’m tired of being asked if you’re capable of having children."
Sirius raised his glass again. "Physically? Yes. Politically? No. Emotionally? Never."
"I don’t care," Lucius said. "Fake a relationship. Buy a dog. Adopt an heir from the coast. Just... do something."
Cressida blinked, deep blue eyes gleaming with amusement. "You are aware that Sirius has three consorts? At this point he is trolling everyone."
Lucius looked heavenward, like he was praying for divine evacuation. "That doesn’t help, Cressida."
"It helps me," Sirius muttered. "I’m entertained."
Chris, sipping his drink, added helpfully, "One of them still thinks he’s going to be crowned Consort-Imperial."
"He tried to follow me into a Council briefing," Sirius said. "I had him assigned to the diplomatic envoy to Rohan as a reward."
"That’s exile," Mia noted.
"Exactly," Sirius replied, utterly unrepentant.
Lucius dragged a hand down his face. "You’re supposed to stabilize the Empire, not audition spin-offs for a royal disaster."
"They were all volunteers," Sirius said. "Some of them even had brochures."
Lucas wheezed. "Wait. Like, printed? Glossy?"
Chris nodded. "One of them had a section titled ’Why Sirius and I Are the Future of the Empire.’"
"Did it include children?" Lucius asked darkly.
"Yes," Sirius said. "Three. All named after constellations."
"Of course they were," Lucius muttered. "And did you respond?"
Sirius took a long drink. "I mailed them a star chart and circled none of the above."
Trevor coughed into his glass. "Honestly? That’s elegant."
"I’m running out of elegant," Lucius snapped. "They asked if Mia could carry a child for me and Sirius."
There was a beat of silence.
Then Chris said, too calmly, "Dax, do you want to set fire to some nobles?"
Dax didn’t even look up from his glass. "Do you want the fast-burning kind or the ones that scream longer?"
Cressida didn’t miss a beat. "I vote for a tasteful blaze with excellent lighting. Something that flatters Mia."
Ethan stepped into the circle, unhurried, perfectly dressed, posture steady, and said, dry and familiar, "Chris, for the love of god, please don’t burn anything in a foreign country."
The circle turned toward him like a single organism.
Ethan registered it the way he registered a crane shifting under load: a subtle change, sudden attention, and the weight of too many important people deciding you were now part of the problem.
Chris’s eyes flicked to him first, sharp and amused. The ’queen’ version of Chris still looked like Chris, just... with less tolerance for nonsense and more authority to end it.
"Ethan," Chris said, like a greeting and a warning in one.
Mia lit up immediately. "Ethan!"
