Chapter 33: Chapter 33: Scavenger
Dax stayed leaning against the observation glass, one shoulder to the frame, arms folded. From here the holding room was a pale, sterile box; he could smell stone dust and metal through the vents, faint and clean, a backdrop to the far stronger scent that still clung to his palms from the villa.
Chris.
Even scrubbed clean, even dulled by exhaustion, that scent had been a miracle. Dominant omegas were almost a myth now; Lucas had been a once-in-a-generation fluke. And somehow, through a string of chance and timing, he had found another before anyone else had.
He thought of Jason on the other side of the glass. Men like him didn’t court miracles. They caught them, drugged them, forced them into heat, and used them to awaken recessives and to chain them to alphas who would be dependent forever. If Jason had gotten to Chris first... Dax’s jaw flexed once, the only outward sign of the fury coiled under his skin.
Inside the room, Jason’s lips moved around a ragged breath. Confusion flickered over his face, not fear yet, but the beginning of it. The pull of Trevor’s pheromones was wrapping around his lungs, curling inside his skull like smoke.
But still Jason tried to posture, shoulders rigid, jaw clenched. "You think this scares me? I’ve stood in front of alphas before."
Dax’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. ’Not like Trevor and definitely not like me.’
Trevor tilted his head, calm and cold. "Not like me." His pheromones shifted, glass-sharp, sliding under Jason’s skin. He didn’t lunge, didn’t raise his voice; he simply let that ancient weight settle. Dax felt it even through the glass, the way it rewrote a room without lifting a hand; someone like Jason, a recessive alpha, had no chance in front of a dominant.
Jason’s pulse stuttered; his fingers twitched on the tabletop. Trevor leaned closer, voice low and almost gentle: "That’s just the surface. You haven’t even earned worse yet."
The questions came like knives after that. Names. Places. Treachery. And finally, through the fog, Jason cracked: Christian Velloran, Cardinal Benedict Allen Morton. The names dropped like stones into still water.
Jason’s gaze flicked sideways, frantic now, searching the dark pane of the observation window. He couldn’t see anything on the other side of the glass but his own reflection, yet Dax felt the plea in it all the same: the way a drowning man will still reach for a shadow.
Dax didn’t move. He let the violet of his eyes stay flat and unreadable. ’If you were hoping for a savior, you picked the wrong predator,’ he thought. The only person his mercy belonged to was back in his villa, asleep, still smelling of rain and wine.
Blood sheeted down Jason’s face in thin red ribbons, spidering from his eyes and nose to his mouth. His fingers clawed at nothing, nails scraping the iron tabletop, but there was nothing to take off, no hand to push away, just the invisible grip of Trevor’s dominance rooting itself in every nerve.
Dax catalogued the convulsions the way another man might catalogue the weather. A recessive alpha’s body trying to resist command: chest tightening, pulse skipping, capillaries rupturing. It was clinical, almost dull. What held his attention wasn’t Jason’s suffering but the name he’d just coughed up and the image of Chris if the clergy had gotten to him first. Drugged, forced into heat, turned into a living trigger for recessives. The shadows at the edge of Dax’s vision coiled tighter, claws pricking just beneath his skin.
’If they touch Christopher,’ he thought, like a knife sliding back into a sheath, ’not one will get to live.’
Inside, Trevor stayed as still as marble, watching Jason drown on dry land. The air in the room had taken on a low, thrumming quality, the kind of pressure that made lesser men fold before a blow was ever struck. Jason’s hands jerked once more at his throat, his breath a wet gurgle, and then his body arched and slumped forward across the table, blood smearing the iron surface.
Dax exhaled slowly through his nose. There was no other reaction but the thin satisfaction of removing a piece from the board and the cold, bright thread of fury for the players still hidden behind it. He straightened a little, violet eyes sliding from the blood-slick corpse back to Trevor.
’One less scavenger,’ he thought, his calm returning. ’And when I’m finished, there won’t be a single one left to circle Christopher.’
When Trevor stepped into the hall to issue his orders. Clean it, and send a piece back with Fitzgeralt’s regards. Dax stayed where he was, leaning against the glass. Chris’s scent still clung to his palms, clean and warm, a thread of smell that blurred the edges of his own darkness.
’Mine,’ he thought, the word low and private. ’And no one will ever get to him first again.’
—
The air outside the holding room tasted cleaner, though Dax could still smell iron and stone on his coat. Trevor fell into step beside him as they headed back through the manor’s narrow corridor. Dax let his hands slide into his pockets, his gait loose and lazy on the surface, but his mind still replayed Jason’s words and the image of Chris in his villa bed.
"You’re insufferable," Dax said lightly, letting the drawl slip back into his voice as they turned another corner. He could feel Trevor’s eyes flick toward him. "You could let me have fun with Jason too."
Trevor didn’t look over. His answer came colder than the marble walls around them. "Fun. Is that what you call it now?"
Dax laughed, low and unbothered, violet eyes sliding to a portrait on the wall rather than Trevor’s face. "You were always territorial."
He could almost feel the weight of Trevor’s look without seeing it. He wore this expression when deciding whether someone deserved to walk away whole.
"Don’t push me, Dax."
"Oh, come on." Dax’s voice dipped into a teasing rumble. "I’m not the one who left the remains in a sealed chamber like a warning sign. You know your staff had to mop the ceiling?"
Trevor’s jaw flexed once, but he didn’t answer.
The sound of their voices carried ahead of them, bouncing off the stone. Dax heard it echo back a split second later and knew someone could be in earshot. He slowed fractionally, scanning the corridor with the same instinct he used on a battlefield. And then he caught the scent a moment before he saw him.
Lucas.
He stepped around the corner just as their voices reached him. The silence that followed was casual, which only made it worse. Dax turned first, of course, with that damned grin already curling at the corners of his mouth like he’d been expecting this exact moment and had already drafted ten alternate punchlines in his head.
"Ah," he drawled, all charm and amusement, "saved by the husband. Good timing, Lucas; we were just discussing interior design."
Trevor didn’t look surprised. He didn’t look guilty either. His gaze met Lucas’s, waiting for him to ask.
Lucas’s eyes narrowed faintly. "I like this hallway. I’d prefer if we didn’t paint it with someone’s ceiling art."
Dax let out a low whistle. "He did hear it."
"I have ears, Dax," Lucas said. "And a fairly vivid imagination."
"Dangerous combination," Dax murmured, already brushing imaginary lint from his coat as though he weren’t the one who’d just flung a conversational grenade into the hallway. "Well, I should go. Someone’s expecting me. Preferably fed. Possibly mad."
Lucas didn’t look at him. "Try not to start another war while you’re at it."
"No promises," Dax said brightly over his shoulder, already retreating. "I hear northern princes are into drama this season."
He felt their eyes on his back but didn’t slow, his stride lengthening as he reached the outer doors where Tyler waited with the car. He slid into the back seat, fingers flexing once against his knee.
"To the apartment," he said.
The driver dipped his head and eased the car away from the manor.