Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 427: We plan

"I’m saying it as... something I want to plan."

The words landed between them like a lit match dropped onto dry paper - small, ordinary, and immediately dangerous.

Dax stared at Chris, as he always did when he wasn’t sure whether something was a threat or a prayer.

Then his gaze dipped to Nero, warm and small in the sling, as if the child was the proof that the impossible could be survived.

Chris watched that flicker and felt his own throat tighten, stubbornness faltering into something softer.

Dax’s voice, when it came, was quiet enough that it didn’t travel. "Not here."

Chris blinked. "I didn’t—"

"I know." Dax cut him off gently, which was somehow worse than being cut off sharply. He shifted his stance, placing himself just slightly between Chris and the open corridor without making it look like guarding. "Not here," he repeated, his tone protective and fearful.

Rowan, who had been holding his breath like it was a job requirement, cleared his throat. "Sire, if you’d like, I can—"

"Go," Dax said mildly.

Rowan hesitated, then looked at Chris like he was sorry and furious at the same time, and finally bowed. "Yes, Your Majesty."

He walked away with the stiff, offended dignity of a man abandoning a friend to a conversation that might end in tears or conception.

Killian remained.

Dax didn’t look back, but his voice carried the smallest shift of command. "Killian."

Killian dipped his head. "Sire."

"Make sure no one is within hearing distance."

Killian’s mouth curved faintly, almost imperceptibly. "They already aren’t."

Chris glared. "You people are obsessed."

"We are employed," Killian corrected, and then he moved, becoming a living boundary between them and the rest of the palace.

Dax waited until the last passing staff member turned a corner and the corridor thinned into privacy by force.

Then he leaned down, close enough that Chris could feel his breath, and murmured, "Come with me."

Chris hesitated on principle. "I’m holding a baby."

Dax’s gaze flicked to Nero again, softened, then sharpened at Chris. "I am aware."

Chris’s mouth twitched. "That’s usually when people don’t abduct me."

Dax’s expression changed to fondness. "I’m not abducting you. I’m relocating you. There is a difference."

"Is there," Chris whispered, "or are you just using a prettier word?"

Dax didn’t answer.

He simply placed a hand at the small of Chris’s back and guided him, slow and careful, down the corridor toward the private wing like this was normal, like kings did this every day: escort their mates away from public spaces before fear and desire turned into spectacle. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

Nero made a pleased sound as if enjoying the motion.

Chris sighed like a man betrayed by the fact that his child had inherited his father’s taste for inevitability.

They reached a door that required no announcement.

It opened for Dax.

Inside, the quiet hit them like a blanket, a hush built for kings: thick carpet, warm light, and warded walls that swallowed sound and returned it to you as privacy.

Dax closed the door behind them with a soft click.

Chris turned immediately, because if he didn’t look at Dax, he’d feel like a coward.

Dax stood there for a moment as if recalibrating in a different world - the public king draining away, leaving behind the man who had watched Chris sleep through half a pregnancy and had been forced to pretend it didn’t terrify him.

His gaze swept Chris: the sling strap, the slight tension in his shoulders, and the way his jaw set when he was trying not to show vulnerability.

Then Dax exhaled, controlled, and said, "Say it again."

Chris blinked. "What, exactly?"

"What you said," Dax replied. "That you want to plan it."

Chris’s pulse hit his throat like it had the audacity to be dramatic.

He adjusted Nero, more to buy himself time than out of necessity, and then said, quietly, "I want another child."

Dax’s eyes darkened.

Hunger, yes - Dax was still a man, still an alpha, still very much in love - but it was threaded through with something heavier, something that made his voice careful.

"Why?" he asked.

Chris looked at him like he’d grown horns overnight. "Why not?"

For a beat, Dax just stared, genuinely trying to understand how a person could say something so simple in the face of everything they’d lived through.

Then the corner of his mouth twitched, betraying him.

"Christopher," Dax said, low, and Chris could hear the effort in it - like Dax was holding back an entire future with his teeth. "That’s not an answer."

"It is," Chris said, almost impatient. "It’s the obvious one. Nero is perfect. We have space. We have resources. We love each other. I assumed you wanted more too."

Dax’s eyes darkened fast at that - at the assumption, at the ’too,’ at the soft assurance of being wanted in return.

"I do," he said immediately.

The speed of it was the tell.

Dax just... admitted it, like the truth had been sitting in his chest this whole time, waiting for permission to come out.

Chris blinked once, startled anyway, because Dax was still Dax - built like war, trained like a king - and delight looked almost indecent on him.

"Then why are you asking me why?" Chris demanded, half offended, half amused. "What did you think I meant?"

Dax exhaled, controlled, and the delight did not fade; he simply tightened it into something safer.

"Because I want to be happy about it," he said, voice quiet and blunt, "without immediately remembering the parts that were not happy."

Chris’s expression softened a fraction despite himself.

Dax stepped closer, not looming, just closing the distance like it was instinct. His gaze flicked to Nero, then back to Chris’s face, reading him with that unnerving precision.

"I’m not asking because I don’t want them," Dax continued. "I’m asking because I want you."

Chris huffed a laugh. "That’s dramatic."

Dax’s eyes narrowed. "It’s accurate."

Chris rolled his eyes like he wasn’t affected. Like his pulse hadn’t jumped. "Fine. Yes. I want more children. Plural. In my ideal world, the nursery becomes loud enough to qualify as a security threat."

A genuine smile threatened Dax’s mouth: brief, dangerous, and delighted.

"Good," Dax said, and there was satisfaction in the word, like he’d just been handed a gift and was already planning how to protect it. "Then we do it the correct way."

Chris squinted. "There’s a ’correct way’?"

"There is," Dax said, absolutely unapologetic. "You talk to the medical team first."

Chris’s face did the thing it always did when someone tried to introduce responsibility into his joy. "Dax."

Dax didn’t back down, firm in a way that said he would rather be accused of overreacting than live through losing Chris.

"You get to want this," Dax said. "I am..." His mouth twitched, the delight flashing again, "very happy you want this. But we do not gamble with your body because we’re excited."

Chris opened his mouth, ready to argue on principle.

Dax cut him off with a gentler tone that somehow left less room to fight. "Let Nadia tell us what’s possible. Let them explain what went wrong with the sleeping. Let them tell you what the timeline looks like. Then we plan."

Chris stared at him.

Then, because Chris was Chris, he sighed like a man being oppressed by love. "You’re ruining my spontaneous optimism."

Dax’s eyes warmed. "I’m preserving it."

Chris’s mouth twitched, surrendering in the most dramatic way possible. "Fine. I’ll talk to them."

Dax nodded once, satisfied.

Then he leaned down and pressed a kiss to Chris’s temple, like sealing the agreement.

"Good," Dax murmured. "And after the appointment, you can tell me how many you want. Out loud. In detail."

Chris’s cheeks warmed instantly. "That was not part of the deal."

Dax’s smile finally fully arrived, bright and wicked for half a second before the king in him reassembled.

"It is now," he said.