The patch on his arm blinked a steady purple.
"Stable," Nadia said, glancing up from her tablet like she was announcing a royal decree.
Chris, slouched sideways on the couch with a cushion over his face, groaned. "Define stable."
"Not having a cardiac event," she said dryly. "You should be grateful."
"I was almost murdered by embarrassment this morning," he muttered into the pillow. "That should count."
Across the room, Rowan stood near the door in his immaculate black uniform, every button and every fold perfectly in place and dark red hair slicked back. The man radiated quiet military calm, the kind that made other people sit straighter without realizing it. Chris resented that about him. Mostly because it worked.
"I’m assuming," Rowan said evenly, "that ’embarrassment’ refers to whatever happened before His Majesty’s departure?"
Chris lowered the pillow just enough to glare at him. "You don’t want to know."
"On the contrary," Rowan said, his mouth twitching like he was fighting a smile. "I feel responsible for your well-being. I’d like to know what’s causing your elevated vitals."
"What’s causing my elevated vitals," Chris said, voice flat, "is the fact that I kissed the king in front of an audience."
Nadia’s stylus froze mid-note, her green eyes raising from the tablet with incredulous amusement at the tea that Chris was spilling. "You what?"
Chris threw the pillow at her. "Not on purpose!"
Rowan’s expression didn’t move, except for the faintest raise of one brow. "Noted."
Chris groaned and dropped back against the cushions. "Oh, for... stop noting things! You’re all acting like I planned a public scandal before breakfast."
"Technically," Nadia said, scrolling through her readings, "your heart rate suggests you didn’t hate it."
Chris sat up so fast the room tilted. "Excuse me?"
She didn’t even look up. "Pulse spikes, pheromone readouts, neural response patterns. You’re adapting to his scent faster than expected."
"Adapting," Chris repeated, deadpan. "Like a parasite."
"Like someone whose body’s remembering what it is," she corrected calmly.
Rowan coughed into his fist, politely, but with that faint tone of someone dying inside from secondhand awkwardness. "Perhaps," he said carefully, "we could redirect this conversation to something less... physiological?"
"Thank you," Chris said, pointing at him. "Finally, a professional."
"You’re still trembling," Rowan added, his hazel eyes glinting with barely contained amusement. He saw Dax leaving and the king was reluctant to leave, something that had never happened until now. That alone told him that it was more than a kiss between the two.
"I hate everyone in this room," Chris said, still clenching the pillow fiercely.
Nadia closed her tablet with a satisfied click. "That’s a healthy emotional response."
He shot her a look. "You say that about everything I say."
"Because you keep surviving," she said, unbothered. "That’s progress."
Chris exhaled through his nose and leaned back again, one hand pressed over the blinking patch. It pulsed faintly, almost soothing, like the world had finally stopped screaming for five minutes. He could actually breathe again.
Dax was gone, halfway to Rohan by now with Killian and Tyler, probably charming diplomats or terrifying bishops, depending on the hour. The palace felt too quiet without him, and that fact alone annoyed Chris more than he wanted to admit.
"I’m supposed to rest," he said finally. "Maybe read. Maybe not think about the part where I committed light treason by kissing the king in his bed."
Rowan didn’t even blink. "That’s not treason, sir. It’s domestic, expected even."
Chris turned his head slowly. "Do you want to die?"
Rowan smiled faintly, which, for him, was practically laughter. "No, sir. Merely doing my job."
Nadia stood, already walking toward the adjoining room. "I’ll have the chef bring you something mild. Maybe tea. Definitely no coffee."
"I hate it here," Chris muttered.
"I’ll write that in my notes," she said, not looking back.
When the door shut behind her, Chris slumped sideways on the couch again, staring at the ornate ceiling like it had personally wronged him. The patch blinked purple with what Chris could call technological spite.
"I’m stable," he muttered. "That’s debatable."
Rowan tilted his head, arms folded behind his back. "You’re safe," he said quietly.
Chris cracked one eye open. "For how long?"
"Until His Majesty returns," Rowan said. "And knowing him..."
"...he’ll come back early," Chris finished, sighing. "Perfect. I’ll have just enough time to die of secondhand embarrassment before he walks through the door again."
Rowan’s lips twitched. "I’ll alert the medical staff."
Chris groaned into the couch. "You’re all terrible."
"Stability confirmed," Rowan said.
"God help me," Chris muttered, face buried in the cushions. "I miss the suppressants."
The patch blinked purple again, steady, calm, and quietly mocking the omega.
—
The tarmac shimmered under the Rohan sun, heat rising in slow, translucent waves that blurred the edges of the air. The plane’s engines wound down, the low roar fading into silence as the royal insignia caught the light, purple and gold, a mark of Saha’s empire and its king.
Dax descended the steps like a shadow slipping into daylight. He was composed as ever, in a crisp black suit, with his shirt unbuttoned just enough to make formality look like dominance, the faint glint of his signet catching in the sun. The breeze carried his scent before he even reached the ground, dark, controlled, faintly spiced, the kind of pheromone that warned others to bow before their instincts did it for them.
Marianne Lancaster was waiting for him at the end of the runway. Tall, striking, her white uniform pressed sharp, her brown hair pinned back with the precision of a soldier. Her posture screamed command, one of the few women in Rohan who could look him in the eye without flinching. A dominant alpha like him.
"Your Majesty," she greeted, her voice low, edged with that familiar blend of respect and challenge that came with her rank. She extended a hand, but her blue pupils had already dilated slightly. She caught it, the faint echo that clung to him beneath the power, subtle but there.
Omega.
Dominant omega.
Her nostrils flared, just once. And Dax saw the realization flicker across her face, quick as lightning: whoever it was, she could smell them on him. On his skin, his collar, his pulse.
"You’ve changed your cologne," she said lightly, her tone a perfect soldier’s mask. But Dax wasn’t fooled. The hint of curiosity beneath it wasn’t professional.
He smiled, slow and sharp, the kind of smile that made generals rethink strategy. "Something like that."