Taming the Wild Beast of Alamina

Nero disliked the look on his mother’s face.

He disliked it more because Chris was trying to hide it.

That was never a good sign. Chris’s anger was familiar and manageable. Chris being furious enough to reorganize a room by tone alone was almost comforting, because at least then the danger had direction.

But Chris silent, one hand resting on the edge of Nero’s bed while his eyes moved over the transcript Thomas had sent up from the sealed section below the palace?

That was worse.

Dax stood behind him, reading the same projection.

Hale remained near the door, arms folded, expression grimly satisfied because Nero had been returned to bed, reattached to monitors, and medically cornered by everyone with authority over his continued survival.

Nero leaned against the raised pillows and looked at the transcript again.

Claudia’s Palace.

Dominant omegas were saints.

Dominant alphas were useful for fighting and fucking.

True ones. Pure ones.

Nero’s mouth curved without humor. "Andrea died as he lived. Repetitive and unpleasant."

Chris did not answer.

Dax’s gaze shifted from the transcript to Chris.

"Mother."

Chris inhaled once.

Nero had learned to fear many things in life. Poison. Hidden temple doctrine. His own temper. Hale with a medical report. Dax when quiet.

But that breath ranked very high.

"I know that name," Chris said.

Nero’s smile vanished.

Hale straightened.

Dax moved closer to Chris, not touching yet, just present. Chris and Dax had always been like that with each other, close enough to anchor and careful enough not to cage. Even with Nero, they had done the same as he grew older. They had given him privacy. More than most royal parents would have allowed, and far more than Saha’s court thought wise.

They had not asked about every closed door.

They had not demanded every report he read alone.

They had not searched his rooms or his devices or Hale’s briefings simply because they could.

Nero was twenty-one now. A prince, an enigma, and an adult. His parents respected that.

Which was precisely why their anger about the transfer plan had been so sharp.

Not because he had a private life.

Because he had hidden a capability that could break bodies, move dominance, and nearly kill him in the use of it.

Privacy was one thing.

A secret contingency powerful enough to alter a person’s biology in the middle of a battlefield was another.

Dax had said that on the flight, according to Hale, though Nero suspected Hale had enjoyed repeating it too much.

Now none of that mattered.

Chris was staring at Andrea’s words like they had reached back decades and touched him.

"Claudia," Nero said carefully.

Chris nodded once. "Elara’s daughter."

"Elara," Nero repeated.

The name was old family history. Elara Malek, Chris’s great-aunt, sold into Draxil as if she had been a debt someone wanted erased politely. Years before Nero’s birth, Chris and Dax had followed her trail and found a palace where they had expected a prison or a grave.

Instead, they had found Claudia.

Chris’s mouth twisted faintly. "We thought she was an entitled relic."

Dax’s voice was low. "We thought she was cruel."

"That too."

Nero looked between them. "Tell me."

Chris glanced at him.

For a moment, Nero expected resistance.

Not because they kept history from him out of hypocrisy, but because parents sometimes forgot that old pain was still information when the present started bleeding from it.

Then Chris sat in the chair beside the bed.

Dax remained standing behind him, one hand finally settling on his shoulder.

"We were looking into Elara," Chris said. "My great-aunt. The one sold by the Maleks. Records led us to a remote part of Draxil. We expected confinement. Something quiet and ugly. Instead, there was a palace."

Nero’s gaze sharpened.

"It wasn’t tied to any royal family," Chris continued. "Built around comfort and worship more than security. Claudia came down the steps like the place existed because she permitted it."

Nero could imagine it far too clearly.

A dominant omega dressed in mourning and jewels.

A palace designed like a shrine.

The kind of woman Andrea Vale would have mistaken for divinity because he was shallow enough to worship anything that made him feel chosen.

"She asked to speak with me alone," Chris said.

Dax’s jaw tightened, though the event had happened many years ago.

"You let him?" Nero asked Dax.

Chris looked offended. "I am not luggage."

Dax glanced at Nero. "Your mother told me with one look not to interfere."

"Ah. A strategic defeat."

"A marital decision," Dax corrected.

Chris’s mouth almost softened, but the old disgust won. "She talked for half an hour. About dominant omegas as natural rulers. Saints. Stabilizers. The only bodies with holy value. She said dominant alphas were animals. Good for fighting and fucking."

The transcript glowed between them.

Andrea’s words no longer looked like madness.

They looked copied.

Nero felt something cold move under his skin. "He was repeating her."

"Yes," Chris said. "Not perfectly, nor with her polish. Andrea had the subtlety of a cracked mirror. But the style of talking is hers."

Hale’s fingers moved over his console. "Claudia Malek. Married into a Draxil branch connected distantly to the Vale household. Records list her death twelve years ago."

"Vale," Nero said.

Dax’s hand tightened once on Chris’s shoulder.

Chris stared at the projected name. "I did not remember the Vale connection."

"You met her once," Dax said. "Decades ago. During a political storm, while we were hunting Adonis, and Caelan was financing trouble from Palatine like a petty hobby."

Chris laughed once, bitterly. "That is a generous summary."

"It is an accurate one."

Nero studied his mother’s face. "You think you missed it."

Chris did not answer.

"That is sentimental nonsense," Nero said.

Chris looked at him.

Nero continued before either parent could scold the phrasing. "You met an arrogant dominant omega in an isolated Draxil palace. She insulted alphas, offended your taste, and behaved like a saint made of jewelry. That did not automatically translate to ’hidden infection cult capable of directing beast season through pheromonal doctrine.’"

Dax’s mouth moved faintly. "He is not wrong."

"I rarely am."

Every pair of eyes in the room turned toward him.

Nero paused.

Then, with great dignity, he amended, "I am occasionally wrong in ways that improve the room."

Chris looked unimpressed.

Nero sighed. "Also, it might be new."

That made Chris still.

Nero glanced at the transcript again. "Claudia could have been doctrine. A rotten little shrine with silk curtains and alphas taught to kneel. But Andrea’s version involved infection control, human-infected bodies, and managed beast movement. That may have come later."

Dax’s gaze sharpened. "Someone weaponized her beliefs."

"Exactly." Nero’s smile was thin. "Claudia may have built the altar. Someone else learned how to feed beasts from it."

Chris stared at the name until it stopped being memory and became evidence.

Then Hale’s console chimed.

He read silently, and his expression hardened. "There is a foundation. House of Saint Claudia."

Dax’s hand settled on Chris’s shoulder.

Chris exhaled once.

"Find it," he said.

And this time, Claudia’s palace would not be left behind as an ugly memory.