Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 163: I want in

Chris glanced down at the tea, then at the pale gleam of the collar around his throat, intricate latticework, rows of perfect-cut diamonds catching the soft sun, the center crest heavy enough to feel like gravity. It was ridiculous. Obscene. And unmistakably Dax.

"Now I’m wearing something that cost more than a mid-rise bridge in a flood zone," he said, voice even. "Because apparently sentiment needs sparkle when you’re a monarch."

Sahir’s eyes flicked to the collar. Just once. Just long enough to confirm what he already knew.

"Twenty-seven million," he said calmly.

"Point eight," Chris corrected. "Or so the media says."

That earned a faint exhale. Not quite a laugh, Sahir didn’t waste breath on amusement yet, but something closer to disbelief tempered by years in statecraft.

"That’s... almost restrained. For him."

Chris narrowed his eyes. "How is that restrained?"

Sahir didn’t miss a beat. "Because it doesn’t come with a nameplate, satellite tracking, or a built-in panic chip."

Chris paused. "Wait. Was that an actual option?"

"Probably," Sahir said. "He once commissioned a wristwatch that could override the national emergency broadcast system. Just in case someone tried to mute him during a meeting."

Chris blinked. "That’s real?"

"Unfortunately."

There was a brief silence, and then Chris sighed, fingers brushing the collar lightly. "You know... the clasp is pheromone locked. Only he can open it."

Sahir didn’t move at first. He just sat still, eyes sharp, fingers steepled. Then he spoke, voice cool and deadpan.

"And you’re telling me that like it’s not a red flag wrapped in diamonds."

Chris gave him a tired look. "You try explaining that to him." He rubbed his temple. "From what I heard, it was supposed to be delivered to his office. But Cornelia Altera rerouted it directly to our suite. Hanna tried to put it on me after two weeks of using Dax’s name to control everything I did."

Sahir didn’t blink, but the shift in atmosphere was immediate. Chris could see now how dangerous the man really was. "She tried to put it on you?"

"Past tense," Chris said, dry as sand. "Like her. You can ask Killian. I’m sure he wrote a ten-page report with timestamps and an annotated diagram. I just don’t want to think about it."

Sahir huffed. "Killian keeps internal intelligence like a dragon hoards gold. If I don’t phrase the request like a riddle at a cursed temple, I get nothing."

Chris let out a short laugh. "Sounds like you two work well together."

"We don’t," Sahir replied flatly. "Which is why we work at all."

Chris leaned back slightly, letting the tea warm his hands. The collar still felt too heavy, but the conversation had shifted into something pleasant.

After a moment, Sahir asked, "How are your lessons going?"

Chris frowned. "Lessons?"

"You’re scheduled for etiquette, ceremonial positioning, court formatting, and constitutional briefings every Tuesday and Thursday," Sahir said. "Everything overseen by Serathine D’Argente and... Cressida Fitzgeralt."

The last name was delivered like a diagnosis.

Chris raised a brow. "So you two don’t get along."

"She’s a witch," Sahir said plainly, then took a sip of tea.

Chris waited for more. When nothing came, he asked, "That’s it?"

"We were courting the same man," Sahir continued after a sip of tea, entirely casual. "The Marquis of Fitzgeralt. Forty years ago."

Chris blinked. "That Marquis?"

"The same."

"I thought he was..."

"Dead," Sahir supplied smoothly. "Yes. But rivalry is eternal, unfortunately."

Chris looked between his tea, Sahir, and the sheer weight of unresolved historical emotional warfare. "So you were both..."

"Attached to him, yes." Sahir lifted one shoulder. "He was charming. Intelligent. And devastatingly irresponsible; his youngest grandson didn’t inherit the irresponsibility, fortunately for him."

"And he was an alpha, no?" Chris guessed.

Sahir gave him a look that suggested Chris had just solved a puzzle that children usually solved with crayons.

"Yes. Alpha. And I," he added with absolute, almost graceful poise, "am an omega."

Chris tried to assemble that into something less dramatic than the emotional Cold War it clearly was. He failed.

"So... Cressida won?"

Sahir made the smallest grimace a human could make and still be considered composed.

"She married him. That is not the same thing."

Chris’s mouth twitched. "Do you two talk about it?"

"We talk around it," Sahir corrected. "Mostly by pretending the other doesn’t exist unless a committee legally requires otherwise."

"That sounds exhausting."

"That is diplomacy," Sahir replied.

"Dax said that you were disappointed that Cressida got to meet me first."

Sahir didn’t answer right away.

Instead, he adjusted the angle of his teacup with the kind of precision that suggested disappointment was too mild a word and resentment too impolite to say aloud.

"I was," he admitted finally. "But not for the reasons he thinks."

Chris raised an eyebrow. "Which were?"

"That she’d get to sink her claws in first. Leave her perfume on the curtains. Wrap you in silk and bite-sized policy until you forget how to breathe like a civilian."

Chris let out a small breath, part laugh, part warning. "You’re not wrong."

Sahir gave him a dry look. "I rarely am."

Chris smiled faintly, then shook his head. "She said she liked me."

"She said the same thing about a scorpion once. And then nominated it to the Trade Council."

"I didn’t know that was an option."

"It wasn’t," Sahir said. "But she made it one just to play with them."

Chris gave up whatever poise Serathine and Cressida had drilled into him and let his head fall forward with a soft thud against the table. "At this point, you can kill me. It’d be easier than managing all this."

He sighed, still facedown. "Now I’m basically an intern in politics, social chess, and, ugh, optics, while trying to keep the robe a secret from Dax."

That got Sahir’s attention. He sat up straighter, and his icy blue eyes sparked with interest.

"What robe?"

Chris froze, then slowly lifted his head, face tight. "Shit."

"Language, my dear," Sahir said smoothly. "Now, would you like to tell me more about it..."

Chris watched him warily.

"...or should I mention that the king is due to arrive in five minutes and let him find out with me?" 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Chris scowled. "That’s blackmail."

"Yes."

He exhaled. "Fine. I’ve refused to wear them until now... they look too much like dresses, and... Hanna, again."

Sahir raised one brow but didn’t interrupt.

Chris pressed his lips together, then finally admitted, "Killian, Serathine, and Cressida are helping me prepare one. For the gala. As a gift for Dax’s birthday."

He looked away. "It’s supposed to be a surprise."

There was a pause.

Then Sahir smiled sharp, pleased, and utterly unapologetic. "I want in."