Chapter 465: Chapter 465: Detected

Two months later, the palace had adjusted itself around a new kind of chaos.

Nero was sixteen months old now, which meant he had progressed from dangerous optimism into something far worse: conviction.

He walked properly now. Ran, if one were being honest and unkind. He had opinions about food, sleep, doors, buttons, and the moral failure of any adult who denied him immediate access to objects he had no business touching. His vocabulary had expanded just enough to make refusal feel personal. His temper had expanded more.

This afternoon, he was in the sitting room of the private suite staging what Chris had already classified as a political event.

“No,” Nero said, with the full outrage of a tiny prince who had just been prevented from climbing onto a side table to ’help’ with paperwork.

Chris, seated at the low worktable with two screens open and a folder half-marked beside his elbow, did not look up. “Correct.”

Nero planted both feet wider, tiny hands fisted at his sides, curls wild with effort and fury. “No.”

“Yes, that was your first statement,” Chris said. “Do try for a second argument.”

Rowan, standing a few feet away with a tablet in hand and the expression of a man who had once believed stewarding a royal household would involve fewer negotiations with a miniature despot, looked up briefly.

“He’s been like this for twelve minutes,” he said.

Chris signed a digital page without glancing away from the screen. “Only twelve? Remarkable. I assumed we were in hour two.”

Nero, hearing himself insufficiently centered, turned and glared at both of them.

Then, because escalation was his native language, he kicked the padded leg of the chair and announced, “Mine.”

“No,” Rowan said, before Chris could.

Nero looked at him, stunned by the audacity.

That was when the private suite door opened.

Dax stepped inside fresh from parliament, still in formal dress, black layers immaculate, gold mantle draped over one shoulder, white-blonde hair tied back from his face. He brought cold air, political fatigue, and his scent with him – dark spiced rum, still rich even under the polish of a public day.

Nero saw him first.

“Papa!”

The fury evaporated instantly, replaced by the radiant relief of a child finding the superior audience for his grievances. He launched himself toward Dax at a speed that should have been illegal.

Dax caught him one-handed without breaking stride.

“What has he declared war on now?” he asked.

“My work,” Chris said.

“Authority,” Rowan corrected.

Nero buried his face into Dax’s shoulder for one second, then lifted his head and announced with fresh indignation, “No.”

Dax nodded gravely. “A serious position.”

Chris finally looked up. “Do not encourage him. I’ve spent the last hour defending administration against anarchism.”

Dax’s gaze shifted from Nero to Chris.

Then he crossed the room.

Chris watched him approach with narrowing eyes. “What?”

Dax stopped at the table.

Nero, sensing that something important was happening and therefore probably related to him, patted Dax’s chest and said, “Papa.”

Dax ignored him for once.

His head tilted slightly.

Then he leaned in.

Chris, caught between suspicion and familiarity, held perfectly still as Dax bent close to his throat, then lower, near the side of his neck. He inhaled once.

Then again.

Rowan looked up from the tablet slowly.

Chris stared at his husband. “Dax.”

Dax straightened with one brow raised.

Then he laughed, low and soft and entirely too pleased with himself.

Chris’s eyes narrowed further. “Why are you making that sound.”

Dax looked at him for a long second, purple eyes dark with private amusement. “Because.”

Chris set his stylus down. “I dislike that answer.”

“Yes,” Dax said. “You will dislike the next one more.”

That got Rowan’s full attention.

Nero, now offended that the conversation had once again drifted away from him, tugged at Dax’s mantle and declared, “Mine.”

Dax set him down absently.

The child wobbled, recovered, and immediately tried to climb Dax’s leg in protest.

Chris folded his arms. “Well?”

Dax looked at him like a man admiring excellent architecture he intended to inhabit indefinitely.

“You’re pregnant.”

Rowan blinked once.

Chris did not move at all.

Nero, who had finally succeeded in attaching himself to Dax’s knee, looked up at the silence and said, helpfully, “No.”

That broke it.

Rowan covered his mouth badly.

Dax’s mouth curved.

Chris stared at his husband. “You are not allowed to walk in from parliament, sniff me like a bloodhound, and announce life-changing news in front of my steward.”

“Our steward,” Dax corrected.

Then the small smile at the corner of his mouth sharpened into something much closer to a grin. “And are you truly surprised when we have been trying very actively for the last two months?”

Chris looked at him in silence.

That was, unfortunately, the problem.

No, he was not surprised in the practical sense. He was surprised in the emotional sense. In the ’I was in the middle of work and expected my afternoon to remain administrative sense. In the my husband just identified pregnancy by scent in front of witnesses and now looks unbearably pleased with himself sense.’

Which was a different category of offense entirely.

“That,” Chris said at last, with slow precision, “is not how normal people phrase that.”

Dax’s grin did not lessen. “I am not normal people.”

“No,” Chris said. “You are a national threat with excellent instincts.”

Rowan, still standing with Nero in his arms and making a heroic effort not to react, lowered his gaze to the child as though he had suddenly become intensely interested in toddler management as a survival strategy.

Nero, meanwhile, looked between them and said, “Papa no.”

Chris pointed at him immediately. “Exactly.”

Dax looked at his son. “You are not helping me.”

“No,” Chris said. “For once, he’s helping civilization.”

Dax’s gaze came back to him, still amused, still deeply satisfied in that controlled way Chris knew too well by now. “You do remember how this happens.”

Chris stared. “I am going to push you out a window.”

“That would be unwise.”

“It would be cathartic.”

Nero, sensing a rise in energy and assuming it belonged to him, slapped one hand against Rowan’s shoulder and declared, “Window.”

Rowan closed his eyes for one second. “I would like it noted that I did not ask to be present for any part of this.”

“You manage the household,” Chris said. “Suffer.”

“That has become the job description,” Rowan replied.

Dax leaned one hand on the back of Chris’s chair and looked down at him with entirely too much composure for a man who had just detonated the afternoon. “You are thinking too hard.”

“Yes,” Chris said. “Because one of us has to.”

“We have done this before.”

“We have done one child before,” Chris snapped. “And even then, you did not detect him like contraband.”

Dax’s grin widened. “No. This time I had warning.”

Chris looked deeply offended. “You make me sound smuggled.”

Rowan’s mouth twitched.

Chris pointed at him next. “Do not.”

“Your Majesty,” Rowan said, face blank again by force, “I am giving myself a great deal of credit for remaining silent.”

Nero chose that moment to point at Chris’s throat and announce, with absolute conviction, “Baby.”

The room froze again.

Chris turned slowly toward his son.

Dax laughed, low and warm and impossible to mistake now.

Rowan looked down at the child in his arms as if reevaluating every security assumption he had ever made. “That is worse.”

“That,” Chris said, “is not a word he should have available.”

“He uses it for the nursery dolls,” Rowan said.

“That is still not helping.”

Dax bent slightly, close enough that Chris could smell dark spiced rum beneath the remains of parliament and sunlight and the outdoor air he had brought in with him.

“No,” Dax said softly. “But it is entertaining.”

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