"Yes," Lucas said after a moment. "Which means the situation is even worse than the visible version."
Sebastian gave a faint, humorless laugh. "That is one way to phrase it."
Because it was.
If Nero's status were public, then at least the damage would arrive honestly. People would know what they were evaluating. They would factor in the secondary-gender implications, the mating expectations, and the social and biological violence buried inside those arrangements when they involved someone like Nero. The math would still be bad, but at least it would be based on the real shape of the board.
Instead, the board itself was false.
"He is being discussed," Sebastian said, quieter now, "as a dominant alpha. That is already enough to make every court in range watch him like a strategic asset with a face." His jaw tightened. "If the truth came out, the scale would change."
