Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 391: Bribes and Blueprints

Dax returned in the same way that storms return to coastlines: unaffected by borders and already inside your bones before you saw him.

The palace adjusted around his arrival with that quiet choreography only long-practiced fear and respect could produce. Corridors cleared without anyone being told to clear them. Doors opened a second before he reached them. Security shifted like a living net, not because Dax needed it, but because everyone else did.

Rowan met him first, as protocol demanded and as habit required.

Dax looked the chief of security over once and nodded. "He behaved?"

Rowan’s mouth tightened in a way that suggested he had many opinions and liked living too much to share them. "He sat down."

"That’s not an answer," Dax said, voice mild.

Rowan’s gaze flicked to the bags in Dax’s hand - plural and suspiciously neat. "He... attempted to pace. The cat prevented a diplomatic incident."

Dax’s mouth curved. "Good."

He moved past Rowan without slowing, coat still on, hair loose, expression calm in the way only men with no remaining obstacles could afford to be calm. One of the guards reached for the bags out of instinct.

Dax didn’t let go.

"No," he said, and there was something faintly possessive in the word, as if the bribe itself was part of the claiming. "These are mine."

The guard froze.

Rowan wisely chose not to comment.

By the time Dax reached the door of their suite, he could already feel it through the bond: Chris was awake, keyed up, and attempting very hard to pretend he wasn’t.

Dax opened the door and immediately paused as the room looked like a war had been declared on interior design.

It was initially subtle, but only if you knew what normal looked like. A chair had been dragged a few inches from its original position. The rug was slightly skewed. A stack of papers sat on the table like a threat.

Then Dax’s gaze lifted past the sitting area and landed on the far side of the room.

Chris stood there with a tablet in one hand and a pencil behind his ear like he was about to draft legislation. His hair was slightly messy, his sleeves were rolled up, and there was a look in his eyes that Dax had seen in three contexts: policy battles, personal revenge, and nesting.

Sahir and Killian were there too.

That was the first sign something had gone horribly, predictably wrong.

Sahir stood near the doorway to the adjacent corridor, posture elegant, hands folded behind his back, expression strained in the way older statesmen got when their authority was being ignored by someone shorter and more determined.

Killian was in the middle of the room holding a rolled blueprint, face neutral, but his eyes were sharp and alert, like he was one sentence away from drawing a weapon and calling it ’efficiency.’

Between them, on the floor, lay an entire layout of potential baby-room placements.

Multiple.

As if the child required options and contingency plans.

Chris looked up when Dax entered.

For a heartbeat his face softened, relief flickering across it so quickly it barely existed, and then the softness vanished under instinctive defensiveness, as if admitting he’d missed Dax would cost him pride.

"You’re late," Chris said.

Dax glanced at his watch as if to humor him. "Eight hours, as promised."

Chris’s mouth tightened. "It felt longer."

Dax’s gaze swept him again - checked his color, his posture, and the tension in his shoulders - and then the bond hummed warm and content like a satisfied animal.

"You didn’t sleep," Dax observed.

Chris opened his mouth.

Dax lifted one finger. "Don’t lie."

Chris shut his mouth with offense. "I rested."

Sahir made a sound that could have been a cough if it weren’t so clearly a dignified attempt not to laugh.

Killian’s gaze flicked to Dax, respectful, relieved, and faintly amused in the way men get when the real authority returns and they can finally stop being responsible for someone else’s emotions.

Dax looked between them. "Why are you both here?"

Sahir replied smoothly, "Your consort requested assistance."

Killian added, dryly, "He requested obedience."

Chris didn’t look guilty.

He looked entirely justified.

"They were arguing," Chris said, pointing at the layout like it was evidence in court. "About the placement of the baby’s room."

Dax’s brows lifted, slowly. "Were they?"

Sahir’s smile was polite and lethal. "I suggested a room with better natural light and better distance from the eastern corridor."

Killian’s voice remained even. "I suggested a room with better security, fewer blind spots, and thicker walls."

Chris waved the tablet. "And I suggested both of you stop talking like the baby is either a garden project or a military asset."

Dax blinked once.

Then he laughed, soft and genuine enough to surprise even himself.

Chris’s eyes narrowed immediately. "Don’t."

"I’m not laughing at you," Dax said, still amused. "I’m laughing because you are nesting like an angry general."

"I am not nesting," Chris snapped, which was exactly what a nesting omega said right before he started moving furniture out of spite.

Tania appeared like a summoned witness, padded to Dax’s boots, and rubbed her head against his leg with the smug affection of a creature who believed she had successfully managed this entire crisis.

Dax bent slightly and scratched behind her ear without taking his eyes off Chris. "You were redecorating."

Chris’s chin lifted. "I was fixing."

Sahir, very wisely, took one small step back, as if retreating from the blast radius of a royal domestic dispute.

Killian did the same.

Dax’s gaze slid to the blueprints again. "So what is the current decision?"

Chris stabbed the screen of the tablet with his finger. "That one."

Killian glanced. Sahir glanced.

They both looked like men recognizing defeat.

Dax’s mouth curved. "Compromise."

Chris gave him a look. "It’s my decision."

Dax leaned in slightly, voice turning low and affectionate in that dangerous way that made Chris’s spine stiffen. "Of course it is."

Chris’s eyes flickered. The bond between them warmed and satisfied, and Chris hated that it betrayed him so easily.

Dax set the bags down on the table with intentional caution.

Chris’s gaze snapped to them immediately.

"You brought the bribes," Chris said, trying to sound unimpressed and failing.