Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 389: No need for permission.

He didn’t give Adonis time to process the words. Dax closed the remaining distance between them in two silent strides. He didn’t even touch him

He simply let go.

The air around Dax shimmered with the sudden, overwhelming release of his pheromones. The rich, intoxicating aroma of dark spiced rum, aged in shadow and bitterness, flooded the space. It was thick enough to taste, to feel on the skin like an oil, seeping into the porous concrete of the motel, the cracked asphalt, and the very fibers of Adonis’s ill-fitting clothes.

Adonis flinched back, a hand flying to his nose, but it was useless. His eyes widened in dawning horror. "No... I had them removed. The glands, the receptors... everything!"

"Did you think you could cut the sky out of your lungs and still breathe?" Dax murmured, his voice a soft contrast to the violence he was unleashing. "This isn’t about your senses, Adonis. This is about your cells. About the water that makes you up."

A choked gasp escaped Adonis’s lips. His body went rigid. It started subtly, a deep, internal ache that felt like a growing pressure behind his eyes, in his teeth, and in the marrow of his bones. The pain intensified, turning into a fire that raced through his veins. He could feel it happening, the water molecules inside his own cells responding to Dax’s biological command by expanding, pushing, and straining against the fragile membranes that contained them.

"Gods," he choked out, stumbling back against the motel door. His hands clawed at his own chest and his stomach, as if he could tear the agony out. "Make it stop!"

Dax watched, his face a mask of cold satisfaction. This was it. The shape of surrender. Not a bowed head or a plea for mercy, but the body itself turning against its owner, transforming into a prison of expanding, agonizing pressure. He could see the changes happening beneath Adonis’s skin. A faint mottling began to appear, like a bruise blooming in reverse, as tiny capillaries burst under the strain.

"You took Christopher from me," Dax said, his voice quiet but clear, cutting through Adonis’s ragged breathing. "You twisted my life, my kingdom, into a weapon to use against me. Did you think a new face would erase that debt?"

Adonis tried to scream, but the sound was cut off as his lungs, filling with fluid, refused to cooperate. His body was betraying him in the most fundamental way. The pressure was mounting, a relentless, biological tide. His skin became taut, shiny, and swollen, turning a sickening purple as larger vessels ruptured. Blood trickled from his nose, then from his ears, then from the corners of his eyes as the delicate tissues ruptured.

He dropped to his knees, his body convulsing. The expansion was nearing its breaking point. Dax observed the moment when the abdominal cavity could no longer withstand the pressure. There was no loud explosion, only a sick, wet tearing sound as the skin and muscle gave way. A torrent of blood and fluid poured onto the asphalt, followed by the dark, visceral shapes of organs propelled out by the force from within.

Adonis was still conscious, his eyes wide with an agony that went beyond physical pain. His mouth worked, but no sound came out. His chest heaved once, twice, and then with a sound like wet leather tearing, his ribcage split. The pressure building up in his lungs was released.

Dax didn’t flinch. He simply watched as the last of the man who had been Adonis disintegrated before him. The swollen and grotesque head lolled to the side as the pressure inside the skull eventually blew through the temporal bone. It was over. The old wound was cauterized with the clinical, brutal efficiency of his own biology, rather than with fire.

The scent of dark spiced rum and blood hung heavy in the air. Dax inhaled once, a deep, cleansing breath. The emptiness he had carefully cultivated was back, but this time it felt different. Cleaner.

"Clean it up," he said to his men, his voice devoid of all emotion. He turned away from the gruesome remains without a second glance, walking back to the car. As he settled into the leather seat, the hunt finally over, he allowed himself to think of one thing: Chris. For the parts of Dax that were allowed to be human and reckless and warm. This was done. Now, one more stop and he could go home.

—

The meeting with Caelan had been made official.

That was the part that would have amused Dax, if amusement was something he felt for men like Caelan. The emperor had wanted a stage. A record. A pretense of control. He’d signed the paperwork and called it diplomacy, as if the word itself could turn Saha’s king into a visitor rather than an equal.

Caelan’s office was everything you’d expect from an empire that worshipped itself: high ceilings, heavy desks, and walls designed to make you feel inferior. The air smelled like old paper and polished wood, and there was a faint, constant pressure from people who thought their titles made them untouchable.

Caelan was waiting when Dax entered.

He didn’t rise fully from behind the desk - just enough to perform respect without actually giving it. His expression was controlled, but there was a hungry brightness in it, the kind men got when they believed they were about to watch someone else swallow humiliation.

Because he had sent Sirius and expected Dax to be insulted, as many Sahan ministers would be.

Dax walked in like he’d never heard of the concept.

He didn’t comment on the room. He didn’t acknowledge the attempt at dominance in the layout. He didn’t even look at the guards.

He crossed the space, stopped at the desk, and placed a USB stick down on the polished surface with two fingers.

The sound was small.

Caelan’s eyes dropped to it. "What is this?"

"Proof," Dax said, voice calm. "And a courtesy."

Caelan’s jaw tightened. "You’re very direct for a man who was—"

"Sirius is doing a good job," Dax interrupted, conversationally enough to indicate that he was done with Caelan’s fantasies. "You chose well."

The smallest flicker - surprise, then suspicion - moved across Caelan’s face. He had expected insult. He had expected Dax’s pride to bruise and show. Compliments didn’t fit the script.

Dax’s gaze stayed steady. "Your men, however, are not."

Caelan’s fingers hovered near the USB, not touching it yet, as if it might stain him. "My men."

"They tried to hide Adonis," Dax said. "They failed."

Caelan’s eyes narrowed. "Adonis is—"

"On that drive," Dax interrupted, still calm, "is the footage you’re going to pretend you never saw. Your people will tell you it’s edited. That it’s incomplete. That it’s not admissible, that it’s propaganda, and that Saha manufactures illusions."

He leaned forward slightly, enough to make the air between them feel intimate in the worst way.

"It’s not for court," Dax said. "It’s for you."

Caelan’s hand finally closed around the USB.

His knuckles were pale.

"So this is a threat," Caelan said, as if naming it gave him control over it.

Dax smiled. "No. This is me being polite."

Caelan’s eyes flashed. "You come into my office, you drop—"

"I come into your office," Dax agreed softly, "because you wanted it official. Because you wanted to believe you sent Sirius to deal with me in Saha and that I would arrive here bruised by it. Because you wanted me to perform."

He straightened again, and the ease of him was the most insulting thing in the room.

"I don’t perform for you," Dax said.

Caelan’s lips thinned. "And yet you brought me a gift."

Dax glanced at the USB like it was nothing. "I brought you a consequence."

Caelan stared at him, and in that stare was the old imperial reflex - ’I am the Emperor. Men like you are supposed to bow, eventually.’

Dax let him have it. Let him press against that delusion until it hurts. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Then Dax spoke again, voice quiet enough that the guards wouldn’t feel invited into the conversation but clear enough that Caelan wouldn’t be able to pretend he misheard.

"Next time," Dax said, "you’re on the list too."

Caelan went very still.

The silence stretched. The office seemed to hold its breath around the emperor’s pride, waiting to see whether it would crack into rage or calcify into caution.

Dax didn’t wait for the answer.

He turned, unhurried, and walked back toward the doors as if the meeting were already over.

Behind him, Caelan’s voice tightened. "You can’t threaten—"

Dax paused at the threshold and looked back just once.

He didn’t raise his voice.

"I didn’t," he said. "I informed you."

Then he left Caelan with the USB on his desk, the knowledge in his hand, and the sick understanding that Saha’s king didn’t need imperial permission to make an emperor bleed.