Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 345: A Glass

Chris heard them before he saw them.

Not with ears, though the soft click of the corridor door carried, and the returning footsteps had that careful lightness Trevor used when he wanted to sound harmless, but through the bond first: the subtle tightening under Chris’s ribs that always came when Dax was... managing himself.

Dax stepped back into the parlor with a smile already in place.

It was an excellent smile. Warm, easy, husband-shaped, one that would have melted any omega in the immediate radius.

It just didn’t reach the part of him Chris lived in.

Trevor followed with the same casual expression he wore when he was lying to people who had money and influence and absolutely no right to the truth.

And then Chris’s gaze dropped, automatically, because his body noticed injuries the way it noticed hunger or cold. Instinct before thought.

A handkerchief wrapped around Dax’s palm with the lazy arrogance of a man who had never accepted help without a fight but would happily impose on Chris. The cloth was clean, but the wrap was too loose to be useful, as if Dax didn’t care about healing it but most likely wanted Chris to not worry about it.

Chris’s mouth went a little still.

In his arms, Sebastian slept heavy with milk and warmth, one small fist curled into Chris’s shirt as if the world was simple and safe and had never required a lie. Chris didn’t move too fast. He didn’t disturb him. But something in Chris sharpened anyway because the bond whispered wrongness in a tone it didn’t use for accidents.

Dax sat beside him like nothing had happened, close enough that his thigh brushed Chris’s knee. Close enough that Chris could feel how controlled he was, how unusually restrained his pheromones stayed, when Dax normally never bothered pretending at restraint in the same room as Chris.

’Yeah. He’s not fooling me.’

Dax leaned in and kissed Chris’s temple like a man returning from a normal conversation.

Chris let him.

The bond was a private language, and he wasn’t about to translate it with posture and silence while Lucas and Trevor watched.

"How was your... border update?" Chris asked mildly, voice soft enough not to wake Sebastian.

Trevor’s smile appeared on cue. "Thrilling. You would have loved it."

"Liar," Chris murmured.

Dax’s uninjured hand slid to Chris’s thigh, possessive, familiar, and almost sweet, as if touch could anchor the room back into normal.

Chris’s eyes flicked to the loose wrap again. "What happened?"

Dax didn’t hesitate, which was the first sign the story had been rehearsed.

"A glass," he said, faintly amused, like the entire situation was ridiculous. "Windstone’s love for thin crystal and my grip are not friends."

Chris didn’t react. He let the lie settle between them like a polished ornament aunts insisted on keeping: pretty, neatly placed, and useless if you actually needed it to hold anything.

"A glass," he echoed, mild as a priest and twice as suspicious, because repetition was sometimes a weapon.

Dax’s smile didn’t move. His eyes did, just a fraction, checking whether Chris would let it pass.

Trevor made a soft sound that could have been amusement or resignation, then leaned over the tray with the smooth competence of a man who could pour tea while pretending he hadn’t just walked into the room carrying a secret like a body.

"Windstone is going to have a heart attack," Trevor said lightly. "He already looked like he was composing your obituary in his head."

"I am not dying," Dax replied with the offended dignity of an immortal creature being inconvenienced by mortality.

Trevor hummed. "Tell that to the napkins."

Chris didn’t look at the tea. He didn’t look at Trevor. His attention stayed on the bandage and the way the bond kept humming with that quiet metallic tension, as if Dax had swallowed something sharp and was smiling around it.

Sebastian shifted; Chris adjusted him slowly, carefully, because the baby slept like trust itself - warm and unquestioning, a small weight that made the room feel sacred in the most inconvenient way. Chris’s thumb brushed once over the back of Sebastian’s head. Then he leaned back just enough for his shoulder to press into Dax’s, letting the king think he was believed.

"You should have let Nadia look at it," Chris said softly, conversationally, the way you say a normal thing when you aren’t ready to say the real one. "You had her on standby until now."

Dax’s gaze flicked, brief, and the control in him tightened. "She’s on standby for you," he said.

Chris kept his tone mild. "Do I bleed?"

It sounded practical, but Dax caught the danger under it, and that Chris is in fact not letting this go.

Dax looked at Sebastian, then back at Chris, his hand still on Chris’s thigh as if he needed the contact to remember where his temper belonged.

"You don’t," Dax said simply.

Trevor set the teapot down with a soft clink. "He does," he added, bright and airy, like this was a normal afternoon and not a king sitting too contained for his own skin.

Chris’s gaze returned to the bandage, to the cloth sitting there like an excuse.

’A glass,’ he thought, and almost smiled at the audacity of it. ’This jerk would go to the moon and back to get more of my attention. And now he is letting it pass? I’m not blind you rascal.’

It was plausible. Windstone did treat thin crystal like a religion. He’d once looked personally wounded when Lucas broke two by mistake, then watched Lucas clean the shards like contraband to avoid being politely executed by staff.

Even Lucas, further back in the room, didn’t scoff. He only lifted his brows once, acknowledging that yes, fragile things existed and yes, people did stupid things around them.

But the bond didn’t care about plausible.

The bond cared about truth.

Chris shifted Sebastian again, slow enough not to wake him, thumb smoothing once over the baby’s hair. Then he let his shoulder rest against Dax’s a little more fully comforting himself in the warmth and the soft scent of spiced rum.

"Next time," Chris murmured, conversationally, "let Nadia look at it anyway."

Dax’s jaw tightened for a heartbeat, so small only Chris would catch it.

"Next time," Dax replied just as softly, "I won’t cut myself."

Chris’s mouth curved into a faint smile.

"Sure," he said, and let the topic die where it stood, because Sebastian slept and Lucas and Trevor were here, and Chris didn’t start wars in rooms full of witnesses.

He could wait.

Because there were places the truth couldn’t hide.

And he already knew the car ride to the Palatine capital would be one of them.