Chapter 534: Wildlife Eyes

"Let me understand this..." Dean said, gripping the chocolate mug and closing his eyes for a moment. "You left in the morning as usual and returned as the king of beasts? Theo inherited it... I was right; you have wildlife eyes."

Arion, who was sitting at the opposite end of the sofa with Theodore tucked comfortably against his chest, stared at him.

"I am not the king of beasts."

"The infected call you their king."

"Elias said that was an imperfect translation."

Dean opened his eyes.

"He offered controller, leader, anchor, and king, and somehow you think one of those sounds less concerning?"

Arion looked down when Theo shifted beneath the soft grey blanket, one tiny hand emerging near the open collar of his father’s shirt before settling there.

"Anchor is relatively harmless."

"You can command corrupted animals, restore infected humans, change their bodies, hear some of their thoughts, and apparently inherited all of it from an emperor who died ninety-nine years ago. You are not getting away with *anchor*."

A faint smile appeared at the corner of Arion’s mouth.

Dean took another drink of chocolate and studied him over the rim.

He had waited until they were alone to have this conversation properly.

Otto had already returned to the imperial residence with enough historical records to occupy several archivists for the foreseeable future; Hendrik was coordinating the classified investigation into Dominic’s reign, and Victor had effectively taken possession of Elias’s medical schedule while repeatedly reminding everyone that restoring a man’s appearance did not constitute proof that eight years of infection had magically disappeared from every biological system.

Theo, thankfully, cared about none of it.

At three months old, he had spent most of Arion’s explanation attempting to grab the edge of his father’s shirt.

Dean lowered his mug.

"There is going to be a rule."

Arion’s eyebrows lifted.

"No infected things come home."

"Things?"

"People, animals, mysterious forest creatures, soldiers with claws, wolves, bears, anything with black eyes that follows you because it has decided you are its long-lost monarch."

Arion looked toward Theodore.

Theo’s eyes were currently gold.

Dean followed his gaze.

"He lives here already."

"He also has black eyes sometimes."

"He is exempt because I gave birth to him."

"That seems arbitrary."

"That is biology."

Arion laughed quietly and adjusted Theo higher against his chest when the baby began slipping down the blanket.

Dean watched his husband support Theodore’s head with practiced ease, remembering how absurdly nervous Arion had been the first time he held him outside the incubator.

Now he could settle their son against one arm while reading reports, prepare bottles without thinking about the measurements, and identify the difference between Theo being hungry, tired, irritated, or simply offended by the existence of socks.

Apparently fatherhood had been considerably easier for Arion to learn than whatever strange inherited power currently turned infected creatures into cooperative wildlife.

Dean rested his mug on the side table.

"I am serious."

"I know."

"No knights in the guest wing."

"I have not proposed putting knights in the guest wing."

"No knights in the staff quarters either."

That earned him a pause.

Dean pointed at him.

"There. That expression."

"What expression?"

"The one that says you had not considered it until I mentioned it and now you think it might be practical."

"I was thinking that if they are former Alaminan soldiers—"

"No."

"—and they recover fully—"

"Arion."

"—some may eventually want to return to service."

Dean stared.

Arion had the decency to look mildly amused.

"I know you."

"That sounds accusatory."

"It is experience. You brought twelve corrupted beasts home because they refused to stop following you."

"They were dogs by then."

"They became dogs approximately five minutes before you decided transportation was a reasonable solution."

"It was longer than five minutes."

"That is not helping."

Theo made a small sound.

Both of them stopped.

The baby blinked up at Arion, frowned with enormous concentration, and then caught one of his father’s fingers with both hands.

Dean’s annoyance dissolved immediately.

"Oh, look at him."

Arion smiled down at their son.

Theo pulled at the finger with every gram of strength his tiny body possessed and appeared deeply satisfied when Arion allowed his hand to move.

Dean sighed.

"This is why we never finish arguments anymore."

"We were arguing?"

"I was establishing household law."

"Of course."

Dean leaned sideways against the sofa cushion, his expression becoming more thoughtful as the humor faded.

"What happened to Elias’s family?"

"Hendrik found them."

Dean straightened slightly.

"Alive?"

"His sister is. His parents died several years ago."

"Oh."

"Mara lives in the southern district now. Married, one child."

"Does she know?"

"Not yet. Elias wants Victor to confirm he is stable before anyone tells her."

Dean nodded slowly.

That made sense, even if the thought of finding out that a brother mourned for eight years had actually survived somewhere inside the infected forest made his chest tighten.

"And the other knights?"

"We do nothing until Elias has been examined properly and the archives have been reviewed."

Dean looked suspicious.

"That sounds remarkably responsible."

"I am capable of being responsible."

"You transformed a bear because you wanted to see what it looked like underneath."

"And it worked."

Dean rubbed his forehead.

There was no point.

More importantly, Arion was right about waiting.

Whatever Elias believed he remembered from the infected collective, they still had no way of knowing how much was literal, how much had been distorted over decades, or whether Dominic’s history would support any of it.

But Theodore’s eyes already supported one part.

Inheritance.

Dean looked at their son again.

"Dominic had no children."

"No."

"Officially because he refused to pass the curse."

Arion’s expression shifted.

Dean immediately noticed.

"What?"

"My family records say something else."

Dean waited.

"Dominic considered Adrian Smith his mate."

Dean searched the name for half a second before recognizing it.

"His guard commander?"

"Later his personal consort, although most public histories avoid that wording."

Dean stared.

"Dominic was mated to an alpha?"

"Technically, he couldn’t mark him. But for nearly forty years they were like mates."

"And historians decided he heroically refused children because of a curse rather than admit the obvious reason he didn’t have biological children with his mate?"

"Yes."

Dean slowly smiled.

"That is spectacular."

"I thought you would appreciate it."

"Oh, I do. Somewhere, Dominic has been dead for a century and is still being inconvenienced by family propaganda. That and the fact that he was insane enough not to let others know that without a king the beasts would rampage."

Arion’s faint amusement disappeared.

"That part bothers me more."

Dean looked at him over the edge of the mug, immediately recognizing the shift in his husband’s expression.

"It should. If Dominic knew the beasts were only behaving because he was there, then dying without telling anyone what would happen afterward was a spectacularly irresponsible way to leave an empire."

"We don’t know that he told no one."

Dean paused.

Arion adjusted Theodore against his chest when the baby shifted, supporting his head with one hand while his other rested across the small body beneath the blanket.

"We know what the public histories say," Arion continued. "We know what survived in the restricted family archives, and apparently we know what the infected remember. Those are three very different sources."

Dean considered that.

"You think someone buried it."

"I think an emperor who controlled an infected population for decades probably did not wake up one morning, decide that information was irrelevant, and die without mentioning it."

"That would certainly improve my opinion of Dominic."

"It would also explain why portions of his reign are sealed."