Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 101: Waiting for him

Dax should have arrived by noon.

It was nearly three.

The palace, no, Dax’s palace, but apparently now his by extension, was quiet in a way that made his stomach twist. No footsteps echoing down the corridors, no murmured orders, no subtle wave of movement that usually followed the king’s return.

Chris had told himself he didn’t care. He’d told Rowan, Nadia, and even Hanna, with unnecessary dramatics, that Dax’s absence was "a blessing for everyone involved." But there he was, sprawled across the manicured grass of one of the private gardens connected to the royal suite, glaring at the sun like it had personally betrayed him.

It was peaceful here, deceptively so. The sky was clear, the scent of polished cedar still clung to the marble edges of the terrace, and the grass was cool under his back. It should have been a perfect setting for relaxation... if he weren’t very obviously waiting.

The thought alone made him groan and cover his face with one arm.

He wasn’t supposed to be the one waiting. Dax should be waiting for him, the King should be waiting for him. Not the other way around. But his body and his brain weren’t on speaking terms today, and both had decided to betray him the moment they remembered how to feel.

This morning had been humiliating enough. No one had warned him that his biology would pick today to reawaken like some sort of romantic tragedy. The memory made his skin flush again, standing in that damn bathroom, scent-drunk and slick because of a shirt. One fucking shirt.

He still hated himself for that.

And now, dressed in the few clothes Hanna had begrudgingly returned, he was trying to pretend he was a functional adult. He looked almost normal again: black slacks, a crisp white shirt rolled at the sleeves, simple and neat. If one ignored the faint scowl, the unbuttoned collar, and the way his hair was doing whatever it wanted.

It was easier to breathe in these clothes. He didn’t feel trapped in silk or expectation. Just... aware.

And maybe that was why being here, alone, in Dax’s private garden, wasn’t helping. The entire place smelled faintly like him. The air, the stone, the goddamn grass. His scent was soaked into everything, subtle but constant, the kind that whispered at the back of Chris’s senses and made his pulse skip against his will.

He sat up with a frustrated exhale. "No," he muttered. "We are not doing this again. You’re just a civil engineer. You build bridges. You don’t have feelings."

Except, of course, he wasn’t building anything right now. Dax had seen to that too.

"You need time to recover," the king had said, all calm authority and quiet possession. "You can go back to your work later."

Translation: You work for me now, and your only project is staying put.

Chris leaned back on his hands, eyes narrowed at the empty courtyard. "So here I am," he said to no one, "unemployed, unsupervised, and hormonally defective."

The breeze was polite enough not to answer.

After he’d started feeling better, Rowan had taken him on a tour of the palace, "so you stop getting lost between the gardens and the kitchen," as he’d phrased it. That had been when Chris realized that escaping this place was an architectural impossibility. Sure, he had his tour the first few days he arrived, but nothing compared to what happened this time.

Dax’s private estate wasn’t a home; it was a small empire built of marble and command. Corridors that looped into themselves, wings that led to entire courtyards, and rooms that looked identical but were somehow never in the same place twice. He’d spent two days memorizing routes and still ended up back at the same damn fountain twice.

The security only made things worse.

Every guard under Rowan looked like they could wrestle a tank and win. Polite, loyal, and absolutely terrifying. Each one greeted him with the same tone, respectful but cautious, like they weren’t sure if he was the King’s favored guest or a walking diplomatic incident.

He’d asked Rowan once, half joking, "How many of them would tackle me if I tried to leave?"

Rowan hadn’t even blinked. "All of them."

So he’d accepted his fate. Reluctantly, but still, he liked the alpha. Better to adapt than test Dax’s patience or, worse, his protection.

Chris flopped back onto the grass again, glaring up at the sky. "This is my life now," he muttered. "Unemployed, emotionally compromised, and waiting for a man who thinks diplomacy counts as foreplay."

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he could already hear Rowan’s voice: ’You sound like you miss him.’

He did not miss him. He just wanted the man to return so he could yell at him properly.

That was all.

And yet... the stillness of the garden gnawed at him. The faint hum of insects, the whisper of the fountain, and the warm sunlight, all of it felt like a stage waiting for its lead to arrive.

He’d deny it to his dying breath, but there it was: he was waiting for Dax Altera.

Chris sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "God, I hate this."

Then, somewhere in the distance, the low thrum of engines broke through the silence.

He froze.

It started faint, then grew louder and steadier, the deep, controlled hum of a royal transport descending.

His stomach twisted. His pulse betrayed him first, quick and traitorous.

"Oh, for... no," he said to the sky. "You are not doing this. You are not excited. You’re annoyed. Furious. Deeply inconvenienced."

But as the sound of the aircraft echoed over the gardens, Chris was already on his feet, brushing grass from his trousers and glaring at the horizon like it had personally offended him.

Chris didn’t even realize he was moving until he was halfway across the marble walkway, taking the route back through the eastern corridor.

If Dax was home, he’d go there first, their shared quarters, the king’s private wing.

The logic was simple enough: if you were Dax Altera, you didn’t go to your office, and you didn’t go to the council chamber; you went straight to the one place just a few were allowed. And apparently, that included Chris.

He pushed through the arched doorway into the suite’s foyer, pulse still annoyingly fast. The air inside was cool and filtered, carrying that same faint trace of spice and smoke that his body had unfortunately learned to recognize. He told himself it was just association. Familiarity. A purely environmental reaction.

It didn’t help.

He slowed when he reached the main hall, the wide corridor splitting left toward the reception room and right toward the bedroom. He took the right. The floors gleamed with the kind of polish that screamed royalty lives here, and his reflection followed him all the way down like a ghost with too many opinions.

The doors to their, his, bedroom were already open. That was unusual. Killian must have been here. Or Rowan. Or one of Dax’s staff who didn’t yet understand that Chris’s idea of privacy involved doors staying shut.

He stepped inside cautiously.