Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 469: Between Arrivals

For once, the palace was quiet in a way that felt earned after Nero’s hydraulic little project.

The children were at the airport.

Which, in itself, was enough to make half the security team consider resignation.

Nero had insisted on going in person because apparently greeting friends required scale, coordination, and visible drama. Nayra had gone too, partly because she genuinely wanted to see them, partly because someone with judgment needed to be present, and partly because leaving Nero unsupervised in an airport environment felt like the beginning of an international incident.

Dean. Sebastian. Zion.

Three names, three incoming storms, and not one of them mild enough to justify optimism.

Chris had watched the motorcade leave with the expression typically reserved for legal threats. Then he had turned, looked at Dax, and said, "If they get banned from civilian airspace, I’m blaming the bloodline. Your bloodline."

Now, an hour later, he was stretched along the length of the private lounge sofa in a light, soft traditional robe, barefoot, one arm folded under his head and the other draped over his middle. His short black hair sprawled on the sofa, and the low evening light sharpened the elegant line of his face into something both softer and more dangerous.

Dax stood by the open terrace doors with a glass in one hand, his white-blonde hair loose to his shoulders, the city lights far below catching faintly at the rings on his fingers. He had changed after dinner into traditional sahan dark house clothes that somehow still looked regal on him, though that was less about the clothes and more about the fact that Dax could stand near a window in silence and make it look like a political statement.

Chris watched him for another few seconds before saying, "You’re looming."

Dax didn’t turn. "I’m standing."

"You’re seven foot three. There’s no meaningful difference."

That got the faintest shift at the corner of Dax’s mouth. He finally looked over his shoulder. "You’ve been quiet too long."

Chris considered that. "That’s because the children are in public with passports."

"Yes."

"And because if I think about it too much, I’ll call Rowan and tell him to turn the convoy around."

"He’d refuse."

"He would pretend to refuse. Then he’d do it."

Dax crossed back into the room and set the glass down on the low table before taking the chair opposite the sofa.

Chris looked at him and frowned. "Why are you over there?"

Dax raised a brow. "You’re objecting to distance now?"

"I dislike unnecessary furniture choices."

For one beat, Dax said nothing.

Then he rose again and came to sit beside him instead.

Chris looked deeply vindicated. "There. See. Civilization."

Dax settled beside him with the quiet inevitability of a man correcting a bad decision he had briefly entertained out of politeness.

Chris looked pleased with himself for exactly two seconds.

Then Dax reached for him.

One hand slid to Chris’s waist, the other to the back of his thigh, and before Chris could offer commentary on the maneuver, Dax pulled him cleanly across the sofa and into his lap.

Chris let out a short sound of protest that had no real resistance in it. "You are absurdly handsy for a man pretending to be calm."

"I was calm," Dax said.

"And now?"

Dax looked at him with open patience. "Now I’m correcting the distance again."

Chris, now half sprawled across seven feet three inches of king and dark house clothes and dark spiced rum, narrowed his eyes with token suspicion. "That sounds like a justification you came up with after the fact."

"It was immediate."

"Of course it was."

Dax’s hands settled him properly, one broad palm at his lower back, the other spanning his hip through the soft fold of the robe. He shifted Chris until the omega was seated securely sideways across his thighs, one bare foot trapped warm against the sofa cushion, the other dangling uselessly because Dax’s lap had always been less a seat and more a territorial claim with excellent posture.

Chris looked down at him, black eyes still sharp in the low evening light. "You remain very pleased with your own instincts."

"Yes."

"That level of honesty should be punishable."

Dax smiled. "And yet you stay."

"That," Chris said, "is because I have poor taste in husbands."

"No," Dax said. "You have excellent taste. You simply resent being correct."

Chris laughed softly at that, then felt Dax’s hand shift higher against his back and went still by half a degree.

The room had already quieted around them, the terrace doors open to evening air, and the city lights below softened to gold and distance. The children were still elsewhere. The palace, for once, had left them alone.

Dax looked at his mouth.

Chris noticed immediately. "There it is."

"What?"

"That look."

Dax didn’t deny it.

Chris’s voice lowered, amused and warm. "You waited exactly long enough to seem civilized."

"I was civilized."

"No. You were patient."

"That too."

Then Dax lifted one hand from Chris’s hip to the back of his neck and kissed him.

Chris went quiet under it at once, one hand catching at Dax’s shoulder on instinct. The first kiss was slow, deep, and careful enough to feel intentional rather than hungry.

Chris answered him just as directly.

His fingers slid into the white-blonde fall of hair at Dax’s shoulder, while the kiss deepened by degrees. Dax’s hand shifted slightly higher along his spine, keeping him exactly where he wanted. The low drag of rum, evening, and home in Dax’s scent. The softer note of rain in Chris’s scent, quiet and content enough to settle beneath his skin.

When Dax finally drew back, it was only far enough to look at him.

Chris’s mouth curved first. "There. Much better."

Dax hummed approvingly.

Chris’s thumb lingered at the line of his jaw for one beat longer, then slid down to the collar of Dax’s dark house clothes. He held the fabric there lightly, not pulling yet, just taking up all of the attention.

"You know," Chris said, voice softer now, "we have at least two hours until the children are back."

That finally changed Dax’s expression.

The warmth in his purple eyes grew darker and more private in a way that Chris knew very well and liked too much.

"Yes," Dax said.

Chris smiled.

Then, since he had never seen the point in pretending to be shy with his own husband, he moved in Dax’s lap and kissed him on his own terms: slowly at first, then deeper, with one hand in Dax’s hair and the other moving to the first fastening at his collar.

Dax let him.

There was something almost indulgent in the stillness of him then, in the way he allowed Chris to set the pace for a moment simply because he enjoyed watching him do it.

Chris loosened one fastening, then another.

"You’re staring again," he murmured against Dax’s mouth.

"Yes."

"That was not permission to stay dressed."

A low laugh moved through Dax’s chest at that, brief and warm and entirely too pleased.

Chris pulled back just enough to see him and then calmly opened the rest.

Dax watched him the entire time.

The dark cloth opened slowly beneath Chris’s fingers. The line of Dax’s throat. The strong column of it. The first glimpse of skin under lamplight. The white-blonde fall of hair against his shoulders. The black ring catching dim gold light whenever he shifted his hand.

Chris liked all of it.

His own scent had softened fully now, fresh rain deepened by warmth and contentment, the colder edges long gone. Dax noticed that too. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

When the last fastening gave, Chris pushed the dark fabric back from one shoulder and kissed the newly bared skin there, then the side of Dax’s throat.

Dax tipped his head slightly to let him.

That, more than anything, made Chris smile.

"Better," he said.

"Yes," Dax replied, his voice lower now.

Chris leaned back just enough to pull the robe loose from his own shoulder in answer.

Dax’s hand spread wider at his waist.

"Come on, then," Chris murmured, brushing one last kiss to his mouth. "Before I decide to become dignified again."

"You were never in danger of that," Dax said with a knowing grin.

Chris laughed softly, slid fully out of his lap just long enough to stand, and held out his hand.

Dax took it at once.

Chris drew Dax up from the sofa and led him to the bedroom.