Chapter 17: Poisoned wine

Chapter 17: Chapter 17: Poisoned wine

He stayed outside longer than he should have, leaning against the stone wall with the night air cooling his overheated skin. His feet still ached viciously in those ridiculous shoes, but at least the pressure in his head was settling, the inhibitor doing its work.

The quiet was broken by two younger servers slipping out, one barely more than a kid, the other speaking fast and low as he pressed a tray into his hands.

"Take this straight to the purple-eyed alpha. Table marked on the card. Don’t fuck it up. Smile, pour, bow. Got it?"

Chris’s attention snagged on the word like a hook. Purple eyes.

He let his gaze flick down, casual, nothing to draw notice, but sharp all the same. The glass caught a glint of lantern light, wine the color of rubies, rich and dark. He’d seen that tint before, too many years ago, a detail that lived in memory the way scars did.

Poison.

His mouth went dry.

There were only two men in that hall with violet eyes. Trevor Fitzgeralt, the man with more loyalty in this country than half the Parliament combined. And the other, Dax of Saha, a king who had the same word carved into him in a far older language.

Chris swore under his breath, a bitter laugh escaping before he could stop it. Of course. The night couldn’t just give him sore feet and half-burned coffee in the staff room, it had to drop an assassination attempt in his lap too.

The kid adjusted the tray, eager, completely unaware.

Chris’s fingers tightened once against the edge of the doorframe. ’Walk away,’ a voice whispered, the one he’d built to keep himself alive. ’Don’t draw attention to yourself. Let the rich fuckers deal with it themselves.’

’Fuck.’ His jaw clenched. ’If I keep stopping the kid, they’ll see. They’ll start looking at me.’

He exhaled through his nose, the sound low and sharp. Chris trailed the kid back inside, keeping just far enough that no one would peg it as stalking. The noise hit him first: laughter, the crisp pop of champagne corks, and the constant buzz of cameras from the press penned at the far end. The chandeliers threw light across polished marble so clean it gleamed like water, with gilded columns rising like they belonged in a palace rather than a private manor.

And there, like the axis on which the whole room turned, stood the purple-eyed alpha.

Dax was impossible to miss. He was the tallest man in the hall, shoulders cutting clean lines under a tailored coat of black with subtle gold embroidery that caught in the light. His expression was carved neutrality, the kind of composure that made people instinctively lower their voices when he passed. Even Trevor Fitzgeralt that had the energy of a contained storm, couldn’t match Dax, who looked like the mountain that storm broke against.

And right now, the poisoned wine was headed straight for him.

Chris adjusted the tray in his hands, the shoes still punishing his feet. He wasn’t supposed to be here, wasn’t supposed to see this, but the glass caught the chandelier glow and he knew. He fucking knew.

He hovered at the edge of the service lane, a half-step slower than the boy carrying the tray. His mind scrambled through options. Spill something? Cause a scene? Risk Clara finding him if he drew eyes?

The young server slipped between two guests in sequined gowns, bowed low, and set the glass at Dax’s place with the kind of precision that screamed rehearsal.

Chris’s pulse went sharp in his ears.

One move, one careless sip, and the tallest man in the room, the only one whose gaze had snagged his without reason, might never stand again.

Chris’s pulse went sharp in his ears.

’Do something.

Don’t do anything.’

Both instincts roared at once, tearing at the careful mask he’d built over years of staying invisible.

"Fuck," he hissed under his breath. His shoes still felt like torture devices, and the chalk of the inhibitor was still bitter on his tongue, but his body was already moving before his head finished arguing. He slipped out of the service lane, keeping low, using the flow of servers as cover.

Two steps. Three. The poisoned glass sat on the tray, a jewel among crystal, catching the light with every sway of the chandelier. Dax didn’t even look at it; he was listening to someone at his shoulder, big hands relaxed on the armrests like he owned the room.

Chris angled himself in, tray balanced high. His heart hammered. He could knock it over. He could "trip." He could switch it out and hand him a fresh glass with a smile.

’Make it look like work,’ he told himself. ’Don’t make it look like saving a king.’

Christopher acted before the thought even finished forming.

"Wait."

His voice was too loud, sharper than he meant it to be, cutting through the hum of strings and polite chatter. Several heads turned his way, curious and mildly annoyed, their jeweled glasses halfway to their mouths. The kid with the tray froze, wide-eyed, as Chris shouldered past him, setting his own tray down on a side table with a clatter that rang too bright in the gilded air.

The poisoned glass gleamed on the linen, a jewel in the wrong crown.

Dax had already noticed. Of course he had. The king of Saha sat back in his chair, one long leg stretched with easy confidence, the picture of composure. The faintest tilt of his head amusement, maybe curiosity cut through the tension. His violet eyes locked onto Chris, unblinking.

Chris’s throat went dry. He’d spent years pretending to be invisible, a background blur in crowded rooms, but under that gaze he felt dissected, weighed, and judged.

"I..." he started, words fumbling, brain scrambling for a lie that would make sense. He could say the wine was mislabeled, that he was checking for a replacement, that...

But Dax lifted the glass first.

Chris’s heart lurched. "Don’t," he hissed, stepping closer, forgetting protocol, forgetting Clara, forgetting everything but the sheen of that liquid catching the chandelier light.

Gasps fluttered around the table. A servant correcting a guest was bad enough. A servant raising his voice to a king? Suicidal.

Dax’s brows rose at the interruption, his violet gaze sharpening with interest, the faintest smirk tugging at his mouth as music and laughter carried on around them, oblivious.

"Do you mean poisoned?" he asked softly, the words slipping out with the lazy precision of a man who already knew the answer. His curiosity was cold, the kind that made men confess without being asked twice.

Christopher straightened, heart hammering, but his voice came out steady, far steadier than the mess going on inside him.

"I mean, someone attempted to insult Your Majesty’s table." His black eyes flicked to the glass in the attendant’s hand, then back to Dax. "And such an insult doesn’t belong in this hall."

For a moment, the hall itself seemed to narrow to the space between them and that jeweled glass of wine.

Then Dax shifted in his chair, turning his presence on the trembling attendant.

"Put it down."

It could have sounded merciful if not for the blade under the words. The boy set the glass down on a side table, hands shaking hard enough to ripple the liquid.

"Now," Dax continued, still not sparing Chris a glance, "tell me who handed you that glass."

The boy’s mouth opened and closed. His eyes darted toward the far side of the hall.

"Answer me," Dax said again, softer, almost intimate. And somehow more lethal.

The boy stammered something that barely resembled a name. Dax didn’t bother to look. He just flicked two fingers. Guards emerged from the shadows like wolves, one twisting the boy’s arm behind his back, the other sealing the glass in a case.

Chris swallowed, stepping back, head bowed. He hid the grim satisfaction curling in his chest. ’Well, that was entertaining. Almost worth the blisters. Almost.’

Only when the doors shut behind the guards did Dax look back at him, slow as a blade turning in the gut. His expression was unreadable, except for the faint curl of his mouth.

"You," Dax said at last, leaning back slightly in his chair, fingers drumming once against the polished table. "You have quick eyes. And quicker instincts." A pause. "Name."

’Fuck.’ Chris had expected to be ignored, maybe shoved aside, not... singled out. Not dragged under a king’s violet stare like this.