Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 467: Daughter

Dax didn’t even blink.

"If it is false labor," he said, already reaching for his phone anyway, "you may bite me twice."

Chris narrowed his eyes. "I hate you being calm."

"I’m not calm."

That was true.

His voice was stable. His hands were stable. The rest of him had fallen into that cold, terrifying stillness that Chris had come to recognize as Dax’s most focused state.

Rowan was already on the line before Dax needed to ask.

"The birthing team is moving," he said. "The chief physician is on his way. The surgical suite is being prepped in case they need it."

Chris looked at him flatly. "You’re all traitors."

"Yes," Rowan said. "But organized ones."

Another contraction hit.

This one was worse.

Chris’s hand locked hard around Dax’s wrist, and this time he did not bother pretending it might be nothing. The pain crossed low and deep, dragging through his back and down into his hips hard enough to steal speech for a few seconds. He breathed through it badly, which irritated him further, which helped nothing.

Dax stayed close, one hand firm at the small of his back, the other steadying his shoulder.

"Breathe," he said.

Chris bared his teeth. "I warned you."

Then he bit him.

He caught the inside of Dax’s wrist between his teeth with all the deeply sincere irritation of a man in labor who had been given one command too many. It was a good bite too. Sharp enough to leave an opinion.

Dax barely reacted.

He looked down at the point where his mate had chosen violence, then at Chris, and the corner of his mouth moved.

"That was unnecessary," he said.

Chris released him and glared. "Then stop being correct."

Nero, from Rowan’s arms, gasped in outright delight. "Papa bite!"

"No," Chris snapped.

"Yes," Rowan murmured. "I’m afraid that was quite visible."

The door opened then, and the room filled with competent people moving quickly.

The physician, a man named Travis, came in first, sleeves already pushed back, his expression professionally dry in the way physicians develop when they have seen everything and are disappointed by half of it.

"Well," he said, taking in the scene in one sweep - Chris pale and furious; Dax unbothered with teeth marks on his wrist; Rowan holding a scandalized prince. "That seems real."

Chris gave him a look. "Your gift for reassurance remains grotesque."

"And yet accurate."

He crouched in front of Chris, asked three quick questions, put a hand briefly to his abdomen, and then looked up at Dax.

"How far apart?"

"Minutes," Dax said.

"Regular?"

"Enough."

Travis nodded once and stood. "We move now."

Nero’s face changed.

He had tolerated many things in life - buttons, baths, and betrayal by collars - but his father and papa being taken somewhere urgent without him was apparently where his personal constitution drew the line.

"No," he said.

The word came sharply and frightened this time, not tyrannical.

Chris heard it immediately and turned his head despite the pain. "Nero."

The child’s eyes were already wet.

Dax looked toward Rowan. "Take him to the nursery suite. Keep him with Elena until I send for him."

Nero’s lower lip trembled. "Papa no go."

Chris reached for him once, and Rowan brought him close enough for Chris to brush his face again.

"We’re getting your sister," Chris said.

Nero blinked, trying to process too many moving pieces at once.

"Sister?"

"Yes."

"No kick?"

That got a broken laugh out of Chris despite everything.

"No more kick."

Nero considered the bargain gravely.

Then he put both hands on Chris’s shoulders, leaned in, and pressed a wet, serious kiss to his cheek.

"Papa okay," he declared.

It should not have hit as hard as it did.

Chris swallowed once. "Yes."

Rowan took the child then, because if he didn’t, Nero was going to climb directly into the crisis and try to negotiate with medicine.

Dax helped Chris to his feet.

This time there was no pride left to waste.

Chris leaned into him openly while the team moved around them. The palace had prepared for this for weeks, and it showed. Corridors cleared. Doors opened before they reached them. Staff disappeared intelligently. The entire route to the birthing suite had already been stripped down to necessity.

By the time they reached it, Chris had stopped pretending he might still be walking back out of this unchanged.

The contractions were real.

The pain was real.

Travis confirmed it after the first examination with brutal honesty.

"We’re not risking this becoming difficult," he said. "The labor’s started, but not in a way I’m willing to trust. We proceed with the section."

Chris, pale and sweating now despite the climate-controlled suite, looked at him. "You all sound far too excited to cut into royalty."

Travis looked bored. "You’re not that special on a table."

Dax’s gaze lifted slowly.

Travis ignored him, which was one of the reasons he was still alive.

Chris was put on the preparation bed, black hair pushed back, face drawn tighter with every wave of pain but still somehow sharp enough to insult anyone who deserved it.

Dax was beside him the whole time.

He did not leave.

Not when they changed Chris into the surgical gown. Not when the monitors were attached. Not when the antiseptic was painted cold over skin that had spent months stretching around their daughter. Not when the staff tried, briefly and with admirable stupidity, to suggest that he wait outside for final prep.

That lasted four seconds.

Then it did not.

Chris was aware of him in fragments throughout it all - his scent, a dark spiced rum that he didn’t want anyone else to smell; the warmth of his hand around Chris’s when the contractions were the worst; and the low murmur of his voice close to Chris’s ear when the room became unbearable.

The surgery itself became a blur after that.

And then... Sound. It started small and then became an offended shriek.

The cry cut through the room with astonishing force.

Chris turned his head at once, disoriented enough that for one second the world reduced to noise and light and the impossible understanding that she was no longer inside him.

Dax did not move for half a breath.

Then he did.

The baby looked absurdly small in his hand.

Not literally one-handed, of course; someone sensible had placed her there with proper support, properly wrapped, and properly assessed - but in Dax’s grasp, with his height and shoulders and giant hands and impossible scale, she looked like something the gods had made too delicate and then, by mistake, given to a king.

She was furious.

Perfectly, gloriously furious.

Dark hair plastered in damp curls against her tiny head, face scrunched with outrage, fists flexing in the blanket as if existence had offended her personally from the first moment.

Dax looked down at her and went completely still.

He looked wrecked by the child once again.

Travis said something nearby about good lungs and excellent color and a number Chris did not care about because Dax turned slightly then, bringing the child closer, and Chris saw her properly for the first time.

Their daughter.

Chris laughed once, weak and astonished and a little wrecked around the edges. "She looks annoyed."

Dax’s purple eyes lifted to him, and for once there was no king in them at all.

Only a father.

"Yes," he said, his voice lower than usual. "She does."

The baby cried again, louder now, objecting to air and light and the indignity of blankets.

Chris looked at her, then at Dax holding her with the impossible care of a man who could snap bones with one hand and was now afraid of crushing a seven-pound person with sheer reverence.

"You’re holding her like a jewel," Chris murmured.

Dax looked back down at the child in his hand. "She is."

Dax came closer when the staff permitted it and bent slightly so Chris could see her better.

Up close, she was even smaller.

A tiny dark mouth. Tiny nose. Tiny furious sounds. One fist escaping the blanket just enough to flex in objection.

Chris lifted a hand. His fingers brushed the edge of her cheek once, barely there.

Their daughter turned her face weakly toward the touch and made a tiny, deeply offended noise.

Chris closed his eyes for one second.

When he opened them again, Dax was still there, towering over the bed with their child in his hand and the look of a man who had lost every remaining piece of distance he’d once maintained from love.

"She was worth the treason," Chris said quietly.

Dax’s mouth curved, small, wrecked and real.

"Yes," he said.