Chapter 30: Chapter 30: Feisty
"You want me to answer my crazy ex?" Chris asked dryly, thumb still hovering over the screen.
Dax’s brows lifted a fraction, violet eyes glinting with amusement rather than judgement. "Ex?" he echoed, slow and warm, as if tasting the word. "I don’t want you to do anything, Malek. But ignoring forty calls while you drink my wine is going to eat holes in your stomach faster than the alcohol."
He reached lazily for the decanter, refilling Chris’s glass without looking away. "If she’s really crazy, you can hang up after the first sentence. If she’s not, you’ll know what the emergency is and stop chewing on it in your head."
Chris let out a small, humorless huff. "You sound like my older brother."
"Older brothers are usually right," Dax murmured, tilting his own glass in a mock salute.
Chris’s thumb hovered over the screen. He could have let it buzz itself out again, dropped it back into his pocket and pretended it never happened. Instead, with a small sigh that felt like surrender, he swiped and lifted it to his ear.
Dax’s brows twitched upward a fraction. He hadn’t expected him to actually pick up. But he didn’t move or speak; he just poured the last of the wine into his own glass and lounged back, robe sliding a little on his shoulder, eyes fixed on Chris with the kind of quiet focus a predator gives prey when it finally steps closer.
"Chrissy?" Clara’s voice spilled out of the speaker, breathless and bright, the same syrupy panic he remembered from before. "Finally. Do you have any idea how..."
Chris cut her off, voice flat. "What’s the emergency, Clara?"
Across from him, Dax stayed still, swirling the wine slowly. Only the faintest tightening at the corner of his mouth betrayed the flicker of possessiveness he buried beneath the easy charm.
On the other end, Clara’s breath hitched and sharpened into fury. "What the fuck is wrong with you? After all I did for you..."
Chris let out a tired breath through his nose. "You did nothing more than be my mock girlfriend when I wanted Andrew off my back," he said flatly. "And I remember paying quite well for that."
There was a stunned pause on the line, then a brittle laugh. "You make it sound so ugly."
"It was ugly," Chris said, voice still low and even. "Ugly and over. Stop calling me."
He thumbed the screen before she could spit another word and the call cut off with a neat, merciful click. The glow of the phone went dark, leaving only the reflection of his own face and the warm lamplight spilling across the table.
Dax tipped his glass back, violet eyes never leaving him. When he set it down again, his expression was exactly as it had been a moment ago, amused and unbothered, but the way his fingers curled once around the stem betrayed the weight he kept locked behind that mask.
"What a feisty woman," he murmured, as if nothing had happened. He nudged the cheese plate closer again, voice still soft and coaxing. "Now eat."
Chris picked up another slice of cheese, dragging it slowly across the cracker. "You like feisty women?" he asked, the words coming out half-teasing, half-tired.
Dax’s mouth curved. "I like honesty," he said. "Feisty just makes it interesting." He swirled his wine lazily. "But tonight isn’t about her. Tonight is about you not collapsing on my carpet."
Chris snorted, chewing. "Sounds like a kingly edict."
"More like a host with expensive rugs," Dax replied, tone easy. "I don’t want blood or crumbs on them."
That earned a small, real laugh from Chris, brief but unguarded. He reached for another grape without thinking, then a sliver of cheese. The food dulled the gnawing in his stomach; the wine spread a slow warmth through his limbs. His eyelids felt heavier with each bite.
Dax watched, saying little now, only humming at Chris’s muttered jabs, letting the rhythm of eating and drinking lull him. By the time the glass was half empty, Chris’s posture had softened, his long frame folded into the corner of the sofa, head tipped back, lashes low.
"You’re falling asleep on me," Dax murmured.
Chris made a vague noise, eyes half-shut. "M’not... just resting..."
"Of course." Dax set his own glass aside and leaned forward, voice a low purr. "Rest as much as you need."
When his black eyes finally slipped shut, lashes still damp from steam, Dax let the silence stretch. He waited. Ten breaths. Twenty. Until the man’s chest rose and fell in an easy, steady rhythm that left no doubt.
Only when Dax was sure he was truly asleep did he rise. The robe whispered around his legs as he bent and slid his arms under the limp, warm weight, lifting him easily against his chest.
The instant Chris settled against him, the omega’s scent rose, faint from the shower, scrubbed clean, but still there under the cotton and wine. It hit Dax like a soft shock. He stilled, every muscle going taut, and for a heartbeat the room, the shadows, and the low hum of his own mind all went silent. The edges that had been gnawing at him all day blurred and almost dissolved.
He dipped his head almost without thinking, his nose brushing the damp hair at Chris’s temple, then sliding down to the crook of his neck. A slow breath. Another. The scent filled his lungs, clean and new and entirely his, and for the first time in hours the darkness coiled at the edges of his vision loosened.
"Easy..." he murmured into skin that was already warm with sleep, a sound no one else would ever hear. He stayed there a second longer, inhaling again, letting the omega’s pheromones anchor him, before straightening and carrying Chris through the suite.
In the dim bedroom he laid him on the bed, arranging the blankets so his blistered feet lay free. For a heartbeat he stood looking down at the sleeping omega, the mask slipping just enough for a flicker of something dark and possessive to show in his eyes.
Dax straightened and pressed a button on the wall panel. A faint chime sounded, and moments later a discreet voice crackled back through the intercom.
"Bring a first-aid kit to my rooms," he said. "And be discreet."
A muted acknowledgment crackled back. Dax glanced once more at the bed before turning away, the calm Chris’s scent had left in him still holding like a thin thread, his expression once again the picture of lazy composure.