Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 452: Pressure

A week later, the palace had resumed functioning with the same cold efficiency Dax had always hated in the aftermath of loss.

Meetings returned. Reports piled up. Security rotations stabilized. Rowan had stepped into the steward’s office with the grim focus of a man too busy to collapse, and Hale had taken over the queen’s security with such rigid thoroughness that even Chris had stopped pretending to complain about it. Killian’s funeral had been conducted with full royal honors, flawless from start to finish.

The ashbox remained in Dax’s private sitting room.

The portion of Killian’s ashes meant for Windstone had already been sent according to his wishes, handled personally and without spectacle. The legal matters had been settled too. Killian’s will had been clear, practical, and painfully him. A few properties were left to nephews. Enough to Windstone to make the gesture personal without turning it into theater. His ashes split between Windstone and Dax exactly as requested.

Dax had respected it.

Now the remaining ashbox sat beneath his hands in the quiet of late evening.

He was alone, leaning forward slightly in his chair, elbows on his knees, both palms resting on the carved lid. Lamplight caught on the rings across his fingers - gold, blackened platinum, old signets, stones with histories, pieces chosen because he liked the weight of them, the look of them, the statement of them. Dax had never believed grief and beauty needed to stay in separate rooms. He liked spectacle. He liked jewelry. He liked things that lasted.

Chris had entire sets of collars to prove it.

Jewelry-heavy, absurdly expensive things Dax commissioned on instinct and presented to his husband as if dropping the GDP of a minor province around Chris’s throat was an entirely normal expression of affection.

He looked down at his own hand on the ashbox.

At the rings.

At the hard glitter of stone and metal against polished, carved wood.

Then the thought arrived.

Dax went still.

His gaze lingered on his fingers for a few more seconds, on the gleam of gemstones in the firelight, on the fact that he had always understood certain things best when they were solid, wearable, and impossible to ignore.

Then he leaned back a little and said to the empty room, "Well."

Chris entered not long after and stopped at the doorway.

He knew that look.

It was not grief exactly. Nor was it calm. It was worse: Dax had an idea.

Chris shut the door behind him. "Why do you look like you’ve either solved a national crisis or invented a new one?"

Dax lifted his eyes to him. "I had a thought."

Chris’s expression flattened immediately. "That sentence has never brought me peace."

Dax glanced once at the ashbox, then at his own hand, turning it slightly so the rings caught the light again.

Chris noticed.

His eyes narrowed. "Why are you looking at your jewelry like that?"

Dax answered with complete seriousness. "Because it gave me an idea."

Chris crossed the room and sat opposite him, his gaze moving between Dax, the ashbox, and the unmistakable air of a man who had already reached a conclusion and was now only deciding how much he wanted to enjoy everyone else’s reaction.

"What idea?"

Dax rested his hand back on the box.

Then said, very evenly, "I’m going to have Killian’s ashes pressed into a diamond."

Chris looked at him, then at the ashbox, and then at Dax again.

For several long seconds, he said absolutely nothing.

Finally, very carefully, he asked, "Did you just look at your rings and decide to turn your dead steward into a gemstone?"

Dax considered that. "When you say it like that, it sounds dramatic."

Chris let out a disbelieving breath. "It is dramatic."

"Yes," Dax said. "That is not an argument against it."

Chris leaned back and stared at the ceiling for a moment like he was appealing to powers beyond mortal marriage.

"I need you to know that I currently don’t know whether to be impressed or plan an escape route."

Dax grinned, his purple eyes darkening. "You know there is no corner where I would not look for you."

Chris turned his head slowly and looked back at him.

"That," he said, very flatly, "is exactly the sort of sentence that makes escape feel like a reasonable life choice."

Dax only looked more pleased with himself.

It was the grin that did it, not the words - sharp, beautiful, and slightly dangerous, the kind that reminded Chris with offensive clarity that his husband was not only rich, grieving, and clever, but also profoundly committed to dramatics whenever the mood struck.

Which was often the case.

Chris narrowed his eyes. "You cannot say things like that immediately after proposing posthumous gemstone conversion."

"I can," Dax said. "I just did."

"Yes, and now I’m concerned for the structural integrity of my life."

Dax’s grin did not fade. "Your life is very well maintained."

"My standards for maintenance do not include being hunted through the palace because I mocked your memorial jewelry plans."

"You wouldn’t be hunted for mocking me," Dax said. "Only for leaving."

Chris stared at him for a long moment.

Then he said, with the weary dignity of a man trapped by both love and absurdity, "Do you hear yourself when you speak, or is this simply a private service I suffer alone?"

Dax leaned back in his chair, one hand still resting on the ashbox, rings flashing in the firelight. "You like me."

"I do," Chris said. "Against medical advice."

That finally pulled a low laugh out of Dax.

Chris hated how much he liked that sound.

It was brief, roughened a little by the weeks behind them, but real enough to loosen something in the room that had been wound too tight since the funeral.

Chris looked at him more carefully after that.

The grin was still there, but softer at the edges now. Less menace. More life. Dax did not always come back from grief quickly, and he did not come back cleanly, but when he did, it was often through strange, sharp instinctive acts that made sense only once one looked directly at the shape of his love.

Chris exhaled and glanced at the ashbox again.

Then at Dax’s hands.

At the heavy rings, the polished stone, and the instinctive possessiveness in the way his fingers rested over carved wood.

"You really did get this idea from looking at your own jewelry," Chris said.

"Yes."

"You saw your rings, looked at Killian’s ashes, and thought ’diamond,’ naturally."

Dax tilted his head slightly. "When you insist on phrasing it like a scandal, it loses some elegance."

Chris gave him a long look. "No. It gains accuracy."

Dax’s mouth curved again.

Chris shook his head and muttered, "I married a dragon."