Chapter 264: Chapter 264: Event contained

The terrace gasped as one.

Chris froze in that suspended moment between impact and reaction, one very clear, very incredulous thought cut through him with startling calm.

’Is someone actually stupid enough to try to hurt me?’

’When Dax had killed for less? When Dax had killed for me?’

The world snapped back into motion violently.

Guards were already moving, chairs were shoved back as bodies closed in, and the illusion of decorative security was shredding itself without apology. Someone was slammed to the stone floor behind Chris with a sound that cracked through the terrace like a dropped plate.

“Down.”

The word carried absolute authority.

Chris felt Rowan’s presence at his back before he saw him, a hand hovering just shy of contact, ready but restrained, trusting Chris to remain upright unless told otherwise.

“I’m… fine,” Chris said automatically, breath still uneven. He lifted one hand, palm out, halting the rush toward him before it could swallow the space. “I’m fine.”

His clothes were soaked. Soup clung unpleasantly to fabric, heat fading into clammy discomfort. He looked down once, registering the mess with detached clarity.

The soup was lukewarm, as Chris rarely eats something hot and the palace staff made sure he was accommodated anywhere he was. It didn’t hurt him at all, aside from the cloyed clothes.

That, somehow, made it worse.

Behind him, someone was furiously shouting now.

“I didn’t touch him! I didn’t… this is…”

“Silence,” Rowan said.

Chris turned.

The noble, a delegation from Rohan based on his blue badge, he thought distantly, was restrained on the ground, face twisted with outrage. Outrage that the script had not gone as planned.

The absurdity hit Chris all at once.

He stared at the man, water dripping from his sleeves, and felt something dangerously close to laughter lodge in his throat.

’You really thought this would work? You really thought Dax would let this stand?’

For a fleeting, vivid moment, Chris imagined Dax hearing about this secondhand. The way his expression would go flat first. The way the air around him would change. The bodies that would follow.

Someone, now sprawled on the terrace floor by a bulky alpha, was about to have a very short political career.

He stepped back from the table himself.

“That,” Chris said quietly, and the word carried farther than he intended, “was… dramatic.”

Mia was on her feet now, white-hot fury barely contained. “Are you out of your mind?” she snapped toward the restrained noble. “Do you have a death wish?”

The noble twisted against the restraint, breath coming fast and indignant rather than afraid. “This is outrageous,” he insisted, pitching his voice outward, toward the terrace, toward any potential witnesses. “I merely stood. The server lost balance. I never touched His Grace; this is a misunderstanding.”

A lie delivered with diplomatic polish.

Chris watched it with the detached irritation of someone who had seen the same lie dressed up too many ways.

Rowan didn’t look at the man.

“Secure him,” he said instead, calm as ever.

The pressure on the noble’s shoulders increased enough to remind him that words had already failed.

“You cannot detain a diplomat without cause,” the man snapped, forcing dignity into his tone. “This will become an incident.”

Rowan finally looked down at him.

“Yes,” he said. “It already is.”

He straightened slightly and continued, voice level and procedural. “You are being detained pending review of terrace footage and staff recordings. His Majesty will be informed before any release is considered.”

The noble’s face shifted. The outrage cracked, replaced by calculation scrambling for footing.

“Cameras?” he repeated, too quickly.

Chris felt something cold and tired settle behind his ribs.

’Of course there are cameras. Dax is a controlling freak,’ he thought. ’Why do people keep forgetting that?’

“I think,” Chris said quietly, because the noise was starting to press in on him, “we’re finished here.”

He turned first to Denise and Milo. “I’m sorry,” he added, softer now. “This wasn’t… how today was meant to go.”

Denise’s hand lifted instinctively, as if to touch his arm, then she stopped herself, respecting the moment. “Go,” she said gently. “We’ll meet again soon.”

Milo nodded, already distant, his attention splitting between Chris and the unfolding containment behind him. “We’ll catch up.”

Chris looked at Mia.

She was standing rigid, jaw tight, eyes bright with the kind of fury that came from fear arriving too late.

“Walk with me,” he said.

“Obviously,” she replied, already moving.

They left the terrace together, the sound following them: murmurs, the scrape of restraint, and the brittle calm of an incident being folded into protocol.

The corridor was cooler and quieter, the perimeter already cleared by the rest of the security team. Hale, the second in command and the one Chris described his scent as a forest that could punch, was already behind him, coordinating the rest of the team while Rowan was dealing with… informing Dax.

Chris became aware of the damp weight of his clothes again, of how the fabric stuck where it shouldn’t. He tugged absently at his silk shirt, with a disgusted grimace on his face. It was mushroom cream soup.

“That guy,” Mia said finally, low and vicious, “is going to die. Metaphorically or literally. I don’t care which.”

Chris let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “Please don’t tell Dax you don’t care which.”

She shot him a look. “I’m not the one who married a man with a kill count.”

Chris only hummed as he increased his pace to reduce the time he had to feel the wetness on his chest and legs.

—

Rowan waited until the corridor doors closed behind Chris and Mia.

Until the perimeter was sealed and Hale’s quiet confirmation came through the channel. Until the terrace, with all its gasps and spilled illusion, was firmly behind them and what remained was the part that always felt worse.

He stepped aside into a recessed alcove meant for statuary, empty now, the marble walls cool beneath his palm. His hand hovered over his comm longer than necessary.

Of all the calls he had made in his life, battlefield extractions, late-night evacuations, deaths delivered in careful language, this ranked uncomfortably high.

Andrew would already be with the King. Parliament day. Dax seated at the center of that echoing chamber, composed and patient in the way predators are patient. Andrew standing just behind him, close enough to intervene, far enough to remain invisible.

Rowan exhaled slowly, the breath measured and deliberate.

“And here I thought you would take pity on me.” Rowan said, looking to the ceiling for help. The plaster didn’t care.

He activated the secure channel.

“Rowan,” Andrew answered. “This better be urgent.”

Rowan closed his eyes.

“It is,” he said quietly.

“Is His Grace safe?” Andrew asked at once, knowing that it was either that or war.

“Yes,” Rowan replied. No hesitation. “Uninjured.”

Andrew knew him too well to relax at that.

“What happened?”

Rowan opened his eyes and focused on the marble in front of him, its surface worn smooth by time and hands long gone.

“There was an incident on the upper terrace during lunch,” he said. “A member of the Rohan delegation initiated a provocation. Soup and water were used as cover. Security intervened immediately. The subject was restrained. Footage has been secured.”

Silence stretched on the other end of the line.

Rowan could picture Andrew shifting slightly, his attention splitting, one part still anchored to the King, the other already calculating.

“Say that again,” Andrew said, quietly. “Slowly.”

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