Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 468: Encouragement

Years later, the palace had grown no calmer. It had only changed form.

Nero was twelve now, which meant he had matured from toddler menace into a far more refined and dangerous category of problem: a boy with height coming in too fast, confidence that had never once known proper restraint, and the catastrophic blessing of a father who found escalation educational.

His sister, Nayra Zaria, at nine, had inherited none of that particular madness.

Which was perhaps why Chris was so close to her.

At that exact moment, she stood beside him near the open balcony doors with her arms folded and her dark eyes narrowed in shared judgment, and Chris, not for the first time, found himself wondering when exactly Nero had surpassed him in height.

The answer, apparently, was recently and without permission.

At twelve, the boy was already seven foot two.

Chris deeply resented this.

Not because he cared about height in any insecure sense - he did not. He had long ago married a seven-foot-three king and survived that experience with his dignity mostly intact. But there was something personally offensive about looking out across the south courtyard and realizing that the son you had once carried on one hip was now built like a military myth and using that size to commit architectural vandalism in public.

Below them, Nero was ’adjusting’ a fountain system with three pages, two junior guards, and one horrified gardener.

Nayra watched in silence for three full seconds before saying, "He looks too large to be doing that."

Chris nodded. "Yes. It makes the whole thing feel more illegal."

Nero, below, was currently halfway up the stone rim of the lower basin, one long leg braced against carved marble, white blond hair falling into his face as he argued with a pulley line like it had personally insulted him. At his age, with Dax’s scale already settling into him, he no longer looked like a child playing at chaos.

He looked like a coup with good bone structure.

Nayra exhaled softly through her nose. "Papa should not let him escalate unsupervised."

Chris turned his head and looked at her with quiet affection. "That is because you are sane."

"No," Nayra said. "That is because I have eyes."

Fair.

A little farther back in the room, Dax sat with a cup of tea and the calm composure of a man who absolutely knew his son was turning a decorative water feature into an engineering statement and had not yet decided that was a problem.

Chris pointed at him without looking. "This is your fault."

Dax lifted his eyes from the courtyard. "No. It is his initiative."

"That is a worse sentence."

Nayra glanced over her shoulder at her father. "You let him become a concept."

Dax’s mouth shifted faintly. "He was always going to be one."

Chris laughed before he could stop himself.

Then he looked back down at Nero, who had just straightened to full height beside a junior guard and, in doing so, made the poor man look briefly decorative.

Chris narrowed his eyes. "When did he become taller than me?"

Nayra, with the merciless accuracy of a girl who noticed everything and forgave almost nothing, said, "Last month. You were in denial."

"I was not in denial."

"You called it posture."

Chris looked at her. "I dislike living with witnesses."

Nayra grinned. "I know."

Below them, Nero threw one arm out in the middle of giving some deeply unnecessary instruction, and the motion was so offensively familiar in its confidence that Chris immediately turned back toward Dax.

"Oh, no."

Dax raised a brow. "What?"

"He gestures like you now."

"Yes."

"That should concern you."

Dax placed the tablet he had been reading on down beside his tea and turned the screen dark with one precise touch, the rings on his fingers catching the summer light.

Then he looked back out at the courtyard, where Nero was currently directing a pulley line like a young general with no respect for stonework.

"I choose the less chaotic outcome," Dax said. "Let him have the fountain or let him drive."

Chris turned his head slowly.

Nayra did too.

For one beat, the room held.

Then Nayra said, with perfect calm, "That is not a real choice."

"It is," Dax replied. "A strategic one."

Chris stared at his husband. "You are comparing light structural vandalism to handing a twelve-year-old a vehicle."

"Yes."

"That should not sound reasonable in your voice."

Dax lifted one shoulder slightly. "And yet."

Below them, Nero shouted something about counterbalance with enough confidence to make a junior guard obey instantly.

Nayra watched him in silence, then said, "He would absolutely choose the car."

"Yes," Chris said. "Because he is your son."

"That is not the accusation you think it is," Dax said.

Chris looked offended. "It was an extremely accurate accusation."

Nayra glanced between them, then back to the courtyard where Nero had climbed onto the low wall around the fountain basin and was using his impossible height to do something no properly supervised child should have had the reach to attempt in the first place.

"But what is he even trying to make?" she asked.

Dax followed her line of sight.

Below them, Nero had one hand on the rope and the other waving around like he was explaining state policy instead of attacking plumbing.

"A mistake," Chris said.

Dax set his teacup down beside the darkened tablet and rose, crossing toward the open doors with the calm of a man approaching not a crisis, but an interesting test.

"That’s not an answer," Nayra said.

"It’s the most honest one."

Dax looked down into the courtyard. "Nero."

His son immediately looked up. "Papa!"

"What are you building?"

Nero brightened at once, delighted to be asked the important question. He pointed at the fountain with all the solemnity of a prince unveiling a national monument.

"A better one."

Chris closed his eyes briefly. "Of course."

Nayra frowned. "What’s wrong with that one?"

"It only goes up and down," Nero called back, offended by the obvious failure of everyone else’s imagination. "Boring."

Nayra blinked once.

Then she looked at Chris.

Then at Dax.

Then back at her brother. "You’re insulting water."

"Yes," Nero said.

Chris put a hand over his face. "God, he really is yours."

"No," Dax said. "The dramatic criticism is yours."

Nero pointed to the center stream. "If I move this, then it goes there..." he pointed higher, "then it splits."

Nayra leaned a little farther forward. "Into what?"

"Three!"

There was a beat of silence.

Then Chris said, "That’s actually a plan. I hate that."

Nayra kept staring at the fountain. "The left side looks wrong."

Chris turned toward her. "Do not get involved."

"I’m not getting involved," she said. Then, after another second, "But that side still looks wrong."

Below them, Nero heard her immediately. "Which side?"

"The left one," Nayra called back. "It looks heavier."

Nero froze and looked at the mechanism, then at her.

Chris stared at his daughter. "You were absolutely getting involved."

Nayra looked up at him, offended. "I’m helping him not be stupid."

"That," Chris said, "is involvement."

Dax’s mouth moved faintly.

Nero shifted position, squinting at the rope and the bucket with sudden seriousness. Then he shouted, "How wrong?"

Nayra thought about it, then answered with all the confidence of a child who knew she was right but had no interest in making it elegant.

"Very."

Chris laughed.

Dax did too, more quietly.