Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 411: Not your therapy room.

The apology didn’t sound like surrender.

It sounded like a man swallowing glass because he’d decided it was better than watching the room crack.

Or, better yet, Sahir apologized for ending the fight he couldn’t win, but because his intentions were good, he didn’t feel obligated to mean it.

For a heartbeat, Dax didn’t respond.

His posture remained too rigid, his mantle too perfect, the stillness of a king deciding whether to accept an apology as closure or dismiss it as weakness.

Rowan’s gaze remained steady, alert to the subtle danger that always accompanied the word ’sorry’ in powerful rooms: the impulse to go too far.

Anna didn’t move. She was breathing quietly, like any sound might jinx the outcome.

Chris studied Dax’s profile - his jaw, the tightness at the corner of his mouth, the armor-like restraint he wore - before speaking, his voice calm enough to bridge the gap.

"Dax," Chris said, not sharp, just steady. "He said it."

Dax’s eyes flicked to him.

Softened for half a breath.

Then, with effort, he turned back to Sahir.

"You overstepped," Dax echoed, voice low.

Sahir’s chin lifted slightly, as if acknowledging the verdict rather than pleading against it. "Yes."

Dax held the stare for a beat longer than necessary, like he was letting Sahir feel the line he’d crossed.

Then Dax’s shoulders loosened by a fraction.

"Good," Dax said finally. "Now don’t do it again."

Sahir’s mouth tightened. "I won’t."

Dax’s gaze narrowed. "I mean it."

Sahir didn’t blink. "So do I."

The room exhaled in increments.

Rowan’s posture eased by half a degree, but he didn’t relax completely. He never did. Not with matters that involved the heir, the line, and men who could change the fate of the country with one stubborn sentence.

Chris leaned back carefully, the movement restrained by healing, and let the collar at his throat catch the light as he did.

"Alright," Chris said, voice returning to administrative calm. "Now both of you out of my office."

Dax didn’t move immediately; the instinct in him - the one that had kept Chris alive for months by turning the entire palace into a controlled environment - still didn’t understand the concept of leaving.

His gaze flicked once, quick and proprietary, to the couch by the window where the baby monitor sat, its tiny screen dark but very much there, like an accusation.

Chris lifted his brows slightly, as if to say, ’I am not going to dissolve into dust because you walked ten steps away from me.’

Dax’s jaw tightened.

Rowan, who had been raised in the same ecosystem of unspoken violence and quiet loyalty, shifted just enough to block the door with his body without making it look like he was blocking anything at all.

Chris tapped the folder in front of him with one finger.

"Out," he repeated, mild. "This is an office. Not a war room. Not a nursery. Not a therapy circle."

Sahir exhaled through his nose, the sound almost dry enough to count as amusement, and turned first, because Sahir, unlike Dax, had a lifelong talent for retreating while pretending he was the one granting mercy.

"Very well," Sahir said, inclining his head toward Chris with formal precision. "Your Majesty."

Then he paused at the door; he looked back, eyes landing on Chris’s throat.

For a second, his expression softened into something that had no business being allowed on his face.

Then he swallowed it whole.

"Rest," Sahir said quietly, as if he could pretend he hadn’t been the one trying to invade that rest with rules and entitlement. "If you can."

Chris gave him a look that was neither forgiving nor cruel.

"I’ll put it on my schedule," Chris said.

Sahir’s mouth twitched, and then he left.

The door clicked behind him.

Dax remained.

Chris waited.

The silence stretched just long enough for Rowan to become a little more alert again and for Anna to stop breathing like she was trying to be invisible.

Dax’s eyes moved over Chris’s face, slower now, the fight drained but the possessiveness still sitting behind his ribs like a loaded weapon.

"You’re pushing," Dax said, voice low.

"I’m breathing," Chris corrected. "There’s a difference."

Dax stepped closer to the desk, like the furniture offended him by being between them.

His hand came down on the edge of the wood, firm enough to declare ownership over the concept of boundaries.

"You’re not fully healed."

Chris leaned back a fraction, carefully, because yes... he wasn’t. Healing was not magic. Healing was time and discipline and Nadia’s terrifying competence.

"I’m healed enough to read," Chris said. "And to sign things. And to pretend I enjoy being useful."

Dax’s eyes narrowed.

Rowan quietly cleared his throat once. A reminder that the king was about to become unreasonable in front of witnesses.

Dax ignored it.

He leaned in, close enough for Chris to feel the warmth of him, for the faint scent of spice and clean skin to settle over the desk like a blanket.

His voice dropped, intimate in a way that was almost unfair.

"If your body punishes you for this," Dax said, "I’m going to punish your schedule."

Chris’s mouth quirked.

"That sounded like a threat and foreplay at the same time."

Anna’s eyes widened.

Rowan looked at the ceiling as if he could file for early retirement by sheer willpower.

Dax didn’t blink.

"It was both," he said.

Chris huffed a laugh that tried to pretend it didn’t hurt.

Then, because Dax couldn’t help himself, he reached out and brushed his knuckles along Chris’s cheekbone like a silent check for fever, for strain, for anything that might justify dragging him back to bed.

Chris leaned into the touch. "I’m fine, Dax. I just need to return to normal before my inbox becomes sentient and I lose my mind from boredom."

Dax’s thumb paused at the corner of Chris’s mouth, like he was weighing whether to believe him or simply override reality.

"Your inbox is already sentient," Dax said, flatly. "It has allies."

Rowan’s eyes flicked down, because he wasn’t going to react. He wasn’t. He was a professional.

Anna made a very small sound that could have been a cough if anyone wanted to pretend.

Chris’s lips quirked. "See? This is why I need to work. If I stay in bed another day, you’ll start issuing executive orders against paper."

Dax’s gaze held his, steady and possessive and tired in a way only devotion could make a man.

"I would win," Dax said.

"I know you would," Chris replied. "That’s the problem."

For a moment, Dax didn’t speak. He just looked at him. Took him in. The faint pallor that still clung under Chris’s eyes. The careful way he sat, spine straight, refusing to show weakness in an office even though his body was still negotiating what it had been through.

Dax’s hand slid from Chris’s cheekbone to his jaw, then stilled, holding him as if touch could keep him anchored in this room.

"You don’t have to prove anything," Dax said, voice low.

Chris’s smile faded into something quieter.

"I’m not proving," he said. "I’m... coming back."

Dax’s expression tightened at the edges, the way it always did when he heard that phrase and remembered what almost happened.

Rowan moved just enough to remind the room he existed and that if the king decided to carry his consort out of the office over his shoulder, someone would have to pretend it was the norm.

Chris caught Dax’s wrist gently.

"Go," he murmured. "Before you start rewriting my calendar with blood."

Dax’s eyes narrowed.

Chris added, sweetly, "I promise I will be very boring. I will sit. I will drink water. I will not duel the Finance Council."

Anna’s gaze snapped up.

Chris looked at her, innocent. "Not physically."

Rowan’s mouth twitched once, quickly, then vanished.

Dax stared at Chris like he was trying to decide if this was a joke or a warning.

"It’s always a warning with you," Dax muttered.

Chris’s smile returned, small and wicked. "You married me."

Dax leaned in and pressed a kiss to Chris’s forehead, then he straightened, eyes cutting to Rowan.

"Stay."

Rowan nodded.

Dax’s gaze moved to Anna.

"If he even looks tired—"

"I’ll call Nadia," Anna said immediately, like she’d been trained for this exact moment for six straight weeks.

Chris sighed. "This is tyranny."

"It’s love," Dax corrected, and then, finally, he left.