Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 409: Mutiny and Mortality

"Your Majesty," Sahir said calmly, "that is not a deterrent. That is a hostage threat directed at the entire government."

Dax’s glare didn’t soften. The golden mantle over his shoulder made him look like a war monument that had learned to speak.

"Then it will work," Dax said.

Rowan shifted his weight, the smallest movement in the world, but it was the kind that signaled he was tracking escalation rather than people. His eyes flicked to Chris once. He was the Chief of Security. He was also, annoyingly, right about pacing.

Chris put his pen down very slowly while not taking his eyes from the men in front of him.

The office was bright, but the air had changed. It had the charged stillness of a room where the most powerful man in the country was about to throw a tantrum and call it governance.

Chris looked at Dax for a long second, expression unreadable.

Then he sighed.

A sigh with the weight of a man who had just given birth, recovered, returned to work, and was now expected to referee an elderly omega and a king who treated loyalty like a chain.

"Alright," Chris said, voice even. "I have a baby."

Dax’s eyes cut to him instantly, the anger pausing like it had encountered a wall.

Chris continued, unbothered. "I also have an inbox staging a coup on my desk. And two sealed boxes that look like someone opened them, panicked, and decided denial was a lifestyle."

Anna made a careful, silent motion behind her papers that suggested she was trying not to laugh for survival reasons.

Rowan’s mouth twitched, then went flat again, professional.

Chris folded his hands on the desk, his collar catching the light with every small movement, diamonds and amethysts looking obscenely expensive and entirely unashamed of it.

"So," Chris said, tone pleasant in the way knives could be pleasant, "you are both going to be reasonable. Because I am not spending my first week back at work babysitting your feelings."

Dax’s jaw tightened. "This is not about feelings."

Sahir’s eyes flicked, dry. "It is absolutely about feelings."

Dax shot him a look that could have made ministers cry.

Sahir stared back, unflinching, because at eighty you either stopped being scared of kings or you died of stress, and Sahir had elected to be immortal out of spite.

Chris leaned forward slightly.

"Dax," he said, and the single use of the name in front of staff was a signal.

Dax’s gaze snapped to him, softer for half a breath, then guarded again.

Chris spoke calmly. "I know you, and I know Sahir." He raised a hand when Sahir wanted to interrupt. "You did something Dax didn’t approve of, and now you’re using the retirement as punishment." He pinned Sahir with his gaze. "Spill the beans."

For a beat, the room went so still it felt staged.

Anna stopped sorting.

Sahir, at eighty, had mastered silence as an art form. He didn’t fidget. He didn’t blink too fast. He simply looked at Chris like Chris had just accused him of treason in polite language.

Which, in Sahir’s case, was usually the first sign of pouting.

Dax didn’t move at all.

But his jaw tightened.

That was answer enough.

Chris’s eyes slid to Dax, then back to Sahir.

"Don’t," Chris warned, voice still calm, "try to tell me this is purely about ’legacy’ and ’structure’ and ’dignity’ when Dax is dressed like he’s about to declare war on an idea."

Sahir’s mouth tightened. "Your Majesty..."

"No," Chris cut in. "I had a C-section. I had stitches that still twinge when I breathe wrong. I came back to an inbox that wants to overthrow me, and you two are using my office like a therapy room."

He let that hang for a heartbeat, then added, deceptively mild.

"So. Beans."

Sahir held his gaze.

"His Majesty..." Sahir stared, and Chris wanted to throw himself out the window because Sahir only used Dax’s polite address in private with that tone when he wanted to weaponize something. "I can’t continue doing my duty when my views are considered ’dusty.’"

"They are," Dax cut in.

It came out too quickly, less as a calculated insult and more as the reflex of a man who’d had this argument before, somewhere else, without witnesses or Chris’s inbox.

Chris’s eyes narrowed a fraction.

Because now it clicked.

This wasn’t a long-planned retirement.

This was Sahir being offended enough to pick up the biggest lever in the room and swing it at Dax’s head.

Anna’s hands froze over a stack of papers.

Rowan didn’t move, but his attention narrowed, because this wasn’t a policy disagreement anymore. This was an omega sulking with a nuclear option and a king who had the emotional subtlety of a battering ram.

Chris shut his eyes for half a second.

When he opened them again, he looked at Dax with the calm of a man who knew exactly what had happened before he’d walked into the office.

"Let me guess," Chris said softly. "He proposed something that had no functional value and did it with ceremony in his voice."

Sahir’s mouth tightened, offended.

Dax’s jaw clenched. That was confirmation.

Chris looked at Sahir. "What was it?"

Sahir lifted his chin a fraction, as if he’d been wronged by history itself. "A proposal for the next fiscal quarter."

Rowan’s brows lifted slightly. "That’s normal."

"It wasn’t the entire proposal; it was one thing," Dax said, voice low. "It was the theatrics."

Chris turned his gaze back to Sahir. "Spell it out."

Sahir hesitated, only because he was choosing his words for maximum moral leverage.

Then he said it, smooth as an oath.

"I proposed," Sahir said, "that we rename the Western Maritime Corridor after him. The King’s Corridor. A symbolic consolidation. A message to the foreign press and internal factions that the kingdom remains under his absolute direction."

Rowan blinked once.

Anna’s mouth parted, then closed again with visible effort.

Chris stared.

Dax’s expression said, ’I would rather swallow glass.’

"So," Chris said carefully, "Dax called it dusty."

Something didn’t click; Dax liked to be theatrical; some days it was purely for his entertainment and art.

Chris stared at Dax like he was looking at a familiar blueprint and finding a line that wasn’t where it should be.

"Dax," Chris said slowly, "you’ve renamed half the southern fleet after poetry."

Dax’s gaze didn’t waver. "That was different."

Rowan’s mouth twitched, immediately suspicious of the phrase that was different.

Anna, wisely, lowered her eyes to the papers as if paperwork could protect her from royal contradiction.

Chris lifted a brow. "How?"

Dax’s jaw flexed once. His voice stayed calm, but the edge under it was unmistakable.

"Because it wasn’t just my name," Dax said.

Sahir’s eyes flickered, a fraction too bright.

Chris’s attention sharpened. "Oh, no."