Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 152: Another fight (2)

Dax did not flinch, did not look chastised, and did not even look surprised. He looked, instead, like someone deciding which part of a chessboard now mattered.

"Yes," he said simply. "I do."

Chris blinked. He had been fully prepared for denial, or principle, or a lecture. The admission threw him for a moment.

"But I still don’t like when you do it," Dax continued. "Especially at the table."

Chris stared at him. "You don’t like it because it’s me saying it, not because of the word itself."

"That’s correct," Dax answered, tone even.

"And that’s..." Chris stopped, exhaled, shoulders deflating slightly under the day. "...unreasonable."

"Yes," Dax said again, easily, without apology. "It is."

Chris dragged a hand through his hair, tired enough to not even argue the philosophy of the thing. Two weeks of etiquette drills, speech refinement, posture corrections, lineage protocols, and political phrasing lessons had worn him down in small increments that he pretended to ignore. There was only so much elegance a human being could tolerate before the instinct to bite returned.

"I’m exhausted," Chris said finally. "And I’m not in the mood to discuss the philosophy of it, or your possessiveness." He paused for a moment, trying to calm the irritation rising in his chest. "How..." He knew that the question would start another fight or moment of anger between them, but he was too tired to care. "How much do you want me to give up on myself to match your court?"

Dax did not speak immediately. He didn’t look wounded or offended; he didn’t straighten or bristle. He simply gave Chris a thoughtful look.

"None of it," Dax said at last.

Chris’s brow pulled down in a small, skeptical frown. "That’s not what it feels like."

"It feels difficult," Dax corrected, "because the court demands performance. Not I."

Chris’s eyes flicked away, toward the window, toward the polished surface of the table, anywhere but the quiet intensity across from him. "Yeah. It’s the same thing." He placed his cutlery down with a little more care than necessary. "I’m sorry for ruining the mood. I... I need to rest." Chris spoke and stood up from the table.

"Sit back."

The words were quiet, not raised, not sharpened, but they landed with the weight of something that tolerated no dismissal.

Chris paused, not out of fear, but from exhaustion. He was too tired to fight, to perform, and to pretend he didn’t understand what that tone meant. He lowered himself back into his chair, but every line of him was ready to stand again if pushed too hard.

Dax did not move toward him. He simply remained seated, hands resting loosely beside his plate, gaze steady.

"You did not ruin anything," Dax said. "You stated a limit. That is not failure. That is communication."

Chris let out a slow breath. "It didn’t sound like communication. It sounded like I snapped."

"You are tired," Dax replied. "And you have been pushed for days by people who do not know where your threshold is."

Chris’s jaw tightened. "They’re doing their job."

"Yes," Dax agreed. "But they won’t know when to stop if you are not standing your ground." He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs with more grace than someone his size should have. "You did the same with Hanna."

The name sent a jolt through Chris; he clenched his jaw and forced himself to calm down. "What is this supposed to mean?"

"It means that you do not use your power or influence. I’ve told you from the start that you can fire employees if you don’t like them, they don’t do a good job, or you don’t feel comfortable. Any reason, really."

"So now it’s my fault what happened because of her?" Chris asked, tension running like a wire through his posture.

"No," Dax said, without hesitation. "It is not your fault." His voice remained steady, neither defensive nor correcting. "But you let it continue longer than you needed to."

Chris stared at the tablecloth instead of Dax. The stitching blurred a little. He didn’t like how quickly the conversation had turned into self-reflection, how easily Dax could hold up a mirror and make him see more than he wanted to. He didn’t have the energy for that tonight.

"Sure," Chris said, and the word was a thin, tired thread. "I’ll keep it in mind."

Dax watched him for a moment. Chris hated that he could feel it. The awareness. The care. It was grounding and suffocating at the same time.

He didn’t want to talk about Hanna. He didn’t want to think about lessons, posture, or which fork belonged to which course. He didn’t want to think about how many times he’d had to rephrase himself to avoid sounding "too direct," who had noticed his hands when he spoke, or what it meant that three separate instructors had commented on how he walked.

’I don’t fucking care.’ He thought bitterly. ’At least here I can swear in peace.’

He had given up an entire life. A career he liked. A city he understood. A world where he belonged without needing a glossary.

And now he was tired. Bone-deep tired.

He rubbed his fingertips across his brow, eyes briefly closing.

Dax didn’t interrupt.

When Chris finally spoke, his voice was muted. "I know I’m supposed to adjust. I know there’s a way things are done here. But I don’t like being reminded every hour that I don’t fit."

"That is the court," Dax said. "Not you. And not us."

Chris looked at him then, very carefully. "It’s all the same room, Dax. Same building. Same air. I don’t have anywhere to go to breathe."

The words weren’t dramatic or pleading. They were simply true.

Dax exhaled; he understood exactly which part of that sentence mattered.

"You do," he said. "With me."

Chris’s eyes moved, but his expression didn’t change.

"Do I?" He asked before he could stop himself. "I’m dining with the king, I can’t swear, I can’t leave whenever I want, and I definitely didn’t enjoy a quiz on my lessons when you already have reports on everything I do."

Dax didn’t look taken aback. He didn’t stiffen or bristle. He absorbed it with the same steady attention he had held the entire evening.

"That is fair," he said.

Chris wasn’t sure he’d been prepared for that answer.

"You are correct," Dax continued, voice level, neither warm nor cold. "You do not have the freedom you had before. And that is not because of me. It is because you are being shaped into someone the court cannot swallow."

Chris blinked slowly. He hated how much sense that made. He hated that it was true. And he hated that none of this felt like something he had chosen, even if technically he had.

"I don’t want to be shaped," he said, voice quiet. "I don’t want to be improved, or corrected, or polished, or turned into something that fits."

"You are not being turned into anything," Dax replied. "You are being protected. There is a difference."

Chris let out a slow, tired breath. "It doesn’t feel like protection. It feels like I’m losing the parts of me that made me... me."

Dax didn’t interrupt him. He waited.

Chris looked down at the table, then back up. His voice was very steady now.

"I don’t want to disappear."

"And you will not," Dax said.

"Dax... stop lying." Chris spoke up and rose from the table, unconcerned about Dax’s permission.