Chapter 49: Chapter 49: News
Dax let the door close softly behind Mia, the faint scent of her perfume fading down the drive. For a moment there was only the hiss of the sea outside and the muffled clatter of a car pulling away.
He turned to Chris. The younger man stood just inside the threshold, shoulders squared as if bracing for a blow, hands buried in his pockets. In the low light of the hall, his hair looked almost black-blue, the suit fitting him like it had been waiting for him all along. The slippers gave him away, though, a quiet detail Dax found more grounding than any court uniform.
"Come," Dax said quietly.
Chris followed without a word, the soft soles of his slippers making no sound against the marble. The villa’s long corridor swallowed the echo of the closing door behind them; ahead, only the muted hum of the sea and the faint burn of lantern light at each archway.
Dax set a palm between his shoulder blades, a quiet, steady pressure that guided him forward. The weight of it was enough to remind Chris what the man beside him was, a king, a soldier, a man who could crush a cabinet with his bare hands and had just walked out of a room full of evidence proving that.
Their suite was warm when Dax opened the door. The lamps had been turned low, the terrace doors cracked for a line of salt air. The bed was already turned down, a small courtesy he hadn’t ordered but didn’t mind.
Dax crossed to the low sideboard by the window, uncapped a crystal decanter and poured two measures of the amber-gold liquid into heavy glasses. The scent of oak and smoke curled up as he handed one across.
Chris hesitated, then took it. "Hmm... Sahan whisky, it has to be really bad news," he said.
Dax’s mouth curved, a flicker of humor that didn’t quite reach his eyes. "It is," he admitted. "The whisky’s good. The news isn’t." He touched the rim of his glass to Chris’s with a soft click and drank.
Chris took a sip as well, letting the burn slide down his throat while his mind turned. The whisky was rich, old, and layered with smoke and salt; it should have been comforting, but all it did was confirm his suspicion.
Dax set his glass down on the sideboard and leaned a shoulder against it, violet eyes fixed on him. "We’re leaving before dawn," he said at last. He didn’t soften the blow, already bracing for Chris to close himself off again. "The audit I ordered turned over more than corruption. If I’m not in the capital when it breaks, the opposition will call it a purge."
Chris’s fingers tightened around the glass. "I see..." He exhaled, a slow hiss through his teeth. "And here I thought there was really bad news." He rolled the glass between his palms. "It’s fine. A day won’t make a difference."
For a moment Dax only watched him, reading the small movements of his face, the steadiness under the words. Relief flickered through him like a quiet exhale. Chris wasn’t throwing up walls, wasn’t bolting for the door, he was still here, still looking at him.
Chris stepped forward, tilting his glass so it hovered near Dax’s as if to touch them together. Before it could clink, Dax moved without thinking, reaching out and pulling him into the circle of his arms. The heavy glass was caught safely in one hand as his other arm wrapped around Chris’s back, his forehead coming to rest against the younger man’s shoulder.
For a heartbeat Dax stayed there, eyes closed, breathing in the rain-clean scent threaded through Chris’s shirt. The omega was a line back from the edge of the madness crawling under his skin. In his head he was already in Saha, already cutting through ministers and surgeons like paper, but his body stayed here because it had to.
Chris felt it, the way the king’s muscles were coiled rather than slumped, the heat of a predator holding himself still. Instinct told him this was a storm being leashed. He let Dax’s weight settle against him anyway, one hand rising without thought to rest lightly at the back of his neck.
"Easy," Chris murmured, the same word he used with Mia when she spooked, low and steady. His thumb moved once against warm skin in a slow, soothing arc. "It’s just me."
Dax’s mouth curved, a flicker of something dark and amused against his shoulder. ’Easy.’ If Chris knew what was sitting behind his eyes, he wouldn’t use that word. The only thing keeping his hands still at this moment was the scent in his lungs and the pulse under his fingers.
He lifted his head, his violet gaze catching Chris’s for a beat. Then, without warning, he closed the last inch between them and caught his mouth in a shameless kiss. The taste of whisky and salt on his tongue.
Chris’s soft lips trembled faintly for a moment before opening for him, a startled sound caught in his throat. Dax pressed in, one hand sliding up the line of Chris’s back until his fingers curled at the base of his skull. He tasted Chris’s mouth like a man starved, every flick of his tongue, every move of his lips asking more from the man in his arms.
A moan escaped Chris’s throat, and Dax almost mauled him into the bed; he was a greedy man and wanted everything, but he stopped. There was enough time and the omega melting in his arms was enough for the moment.
Chris was breathless; the king really knew how to kiss. "You..." He wanted to scold Dax for kissing him out of nowhere, but his body was betraying him, already melting in the arms of the alpha.
Dax’s thumb swept once along the edge of his jaw, a dark smile ghosting over his mouth. "Yes?"
"You sleep on the couch or in another bed," Chris said, trying to wriggle out of his embrace.
Dax’s laugh came low and unhurried, a rough sound that vibrated against Chris’s chest. "You’ve got a sharper tongue than sense," he murmured, still holding him loosely. "First you let me kiss you, then you banish me to the couch."
Chris shot him a glare that had no real force. "First you kiss me without asking."
"The moment called for it," Dax teased, violet eyes glinting. "Besides, I won’t sleep much today."
"You won’t listen to me, will you?" Chris asked, finally giving up on trying to pry himself free. The man was a giant, and there was no way of escaping without Dax’s intention too.
"Not when you say it only to jab me." The corner of Dax’s mouth twitched. Then, almost as an afterthought, his thumb brushed along the edge of Chris’s jaw again, a faintly possessive gesture before he let his hands fall away.
"Go and lie down," he said quietly. "The flight would take five hours if there is good weather."
Chris blinked at him. "And you?"
"I’ll work," Dax replied, already reaching for the decanter again. "It’s what I do when the world burns." He glanced back over his shoulder, that dark smile still there. "Don’t worry, I’m not climbing onto your bed tonight. Go."
"And here I was worried and wanted to ask if you need any help," Chris muttered, arms folding loosely.
Dax’s laugh rolled out again, low and pleased, a sound that made the glasses on the sideboard tremble. "Help?" he echoed. "What I need is to sleep next to you, but that’s another kind of help entirely." He poured himself another measure, the amber liquid catching the lamplight, and lifted it in a mock toast. "Since you’ve already exiled me to my paperwork, I’ll settle for that."
Chris shook his head, half a smile tugging at his mouth despite himself, and turned toward the bedroom. Behind him Dax’s quiet laugh followed, low and satisfied, before the king bent over his tablet again, the sea whispering through the open terrace doors.