Chapter 446: Chapter 446: Crush Later

“Killian is dead.”

For a second, Chris didn’t hear anything after that.

Dax kept speaking – he had to be speaking, because Chris could see his own thumb still pressing the phone to his ear, could see Sahir’s mouth move in the background as if he were issuing orders, and could see the corridor lights reflecting off the polished floor like nothing in the world had changed.

But the words didn’t land.

They slid off the surface of Chris’s mind as if it had gone smooth and glassy to protect itself.

The ground felt… wrong.

Like the floor had tilted by a degree and he was suddenly standing on something unreliable.

Chris’s fingers tightened around the phone until the edge bit into his skin.

He forced air into his lungs, and the scent hit him through the speaker.

Dax’s pheromones – spiced rum and heat and that darker, ironed-down edge that meant restraint under strain – bled through the call like they always did when Dax was pushing too hard. It was impossible in theory and painfully familiar in practice. The air around Chris didn’t change for anyone else, but his body reacted anyway: shoulders locking, then easing; pulse stuttering, then finding rhythm again. A tether thrown across a continent.

It didn’t make the grief smaller.

It made Chris functional.

He swallowed hard and forced his voice to obey him.

“How long,” Chris asked, “until you reach Altera?”

A pause. Then Dax answered precisely, like numbers were something he could hand Chris to hold onto.

“Thirty-five minutes. Priority landing. Military runway.”

“Good,” Chris said, and it wasn’t gratitude. It was a command accepted.

He started walking again.

The corridor narrowed into purpose. Guards shifted aside. Staff flattened themselves into the walls. Sahir fell into step at a respectful distance, already listening, already anticipating what would be needed without being told.

Chris kept the phone to his ear as if it were holding him upright.

“I’m coming to you.” He said and ended the call.

—

By the time Chris reached the tarmac, the palace had already rearranged itself into emergency.

Floodlights carved the runway into hard white bands. Engines idled. Security teams stood in staggered lines with faces set and hands positioned where muscle memory lived. The wind smelled of fuel, cold metal, and the distant, faint sweetness of disinfectant.

Sahir was there, of course. So was a medical director Chris hadn’t seen in weeks because good rulers didn’t need urgent boards assembled at midnight unless something had gone catastrophically wrong.

Everyone wore PPE. Masks. Visors. Gloves. A barrier that made faces appear impersonal and prepared them to deal with the worst of the worst.

Chris stood without any of it.

Not because he was reckless.

Because he was the Queen, and the tarmac was not a place where he could look afraid.

He kept his coat closed. His hands were still. His spine was straight. His expression composed in the way Cressida had once demanded: regal enough to calm a country, sharp enough to make people move.

Inside, the grief kept trying to climb his throat.

He swallowed it down like bitter medicine, his mind chanting a single thing.

’Crush later.’

The plane approached low and fast, its lights cutting through the darkness and its wheels kissing the runway with a heavy, decisive scream of rubber and friction. It rolled hard, slowed, and turned toward the secured lane where the medical convoy waited.

Chris didn’t move until it stopped.

Until the door opened.

Until Otto stepped out first.

Otto came down the stairs with Arion in his arms, emergency physicians circling him like orbiting satellites – hands already checking monitors, a medic speaking fast, and another one keeping a sealed case tucked under their arm containing the difference between life and death.

Arion was limp with sedation, head heavy against Otto’s shoulder, hair mussed, face pale. Even from a distance, Chris could see a large, white patch covering Arion’s left cheek, which concealed the scratches.

Otto’s face was stone.

Not grief stone, but fury stone. Survival stone. A man who had decided he would not lose his son on anyone’s timeline.

The medical team did not pause for ceremony.

They met Otto at the bottom of the stairs and took control in a smooth, practiced motion – one physician guiding Otto forward, another speaking directly into Otto’s ear, and two more flanking Arion as if the child would vanish if they didn’t keep the space around him tight.

“Your Majesty,” the lead physician said clipped. “We’re moving to isolation.”

Otto nodded once, jaw flexing. He did not let go of Arion. They didn’t make him.

They moved as one unit, Otto carrying, physicians surrounding, security closing in, and vehicles already parked with doors open.

They disappeared into the sealed corridor without a glance back.

’Good,’ Chris thought, and meant it with the cold relief of someone who knew the only thing that mattered right now was speed.

Then he looked up again.

Because the first aircraft had only been the first.

A second set of lights cut the runway.

Another plane.

Saha’s plane. Dax’s plane.

It landed hard, slowed, turned, and came to a stop with brutal efficiency.

The door opened.

Chris’s lungs held air without permission.

Rowan came out first, rifle slung, shoulders tight, face wiped clean of expression by sheer discipline. His eyes scanned the tarmac in one sweep – security, exits, and sightlines – before shifting to Chris.

For a heartbeat, Rowan looked like he wanted to speak.

Then his throat worked once, and he didn’t.

Because behind him… Dax stepped into view.

And Chris’s body reacted before his mind could catch up.

Dax was still upright. Still tall. Still perfectly composed in the way men like him were composed when they were trying not to crack.

But his eyes… his beautiful purple eyes were distant.

His posture was wrong by a fraction. His shoulders held too much weight. His hands were empty, but they seemed to remember holding something heavy.

A man who never faltered, who rarely let the world see him bend, was walking down the stairs like gravity had become personal.

And he was doing it anyway because a child had to be saved first.

Chris didn’t wait for permission.

He didn’t wait for protocol.

He crossed the distance fast, boots striking concrete, coat and black hair shifting in the wind. Security tensed instinctively, then relaxed as soon as they realized who was moving and why.

Dax’s gaze found him halfway across the runway.

For a second, he didn’t change expression.

Then something in him softened, albeit only slightly.

Chris reached him and didn’t stop.

He wrapped both arms around Dax’s waist, anchoring himself there without hesitation, cheek pressing into the hard plane of Dax’s abdomen because Dax was too tall and Chris didn’t care. The top of Chris’s head barely reached Dax’s sternum. He held on tight and sure, as if he could physically prevent Dax from drifting out of his body.

Dax froze.

For one heartbeat, he stood still like he didn’t know what to do with being held.

Then he folded.

His arms came down around Chris, tight enough to make Chris’s ribs protest, hands spanning his back like he was afraid Chris might disappear too. Dax’s breath hitched once, the smallest fracture, and his scent surged – spiced rum and heat and grief pressed flat under iron control.

Chris closed his eyes.

Dax’s chin dipped, almost touching Chris’s hair, and his grip tightened again as if his body had finally found a place where it was allowed to stop pretending.

Rowan turned away and took two steps back and spoke into his comm in a voice that sounded too normal.

“Perimeter secure. Move the king to screening.”

Chris heard it and lifted his head just enough to breathe against Dax’s shirt and murmured, low and fierce, “You’re home.”

Dax’s voice came out rough, almost scraped. “I’m home.”

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