Caught by the Mad Alpha King Chapter 278: Things People Pretend Not to See

It took exactly seven minutes, two sugars, and a very healthy pour of Sahan whiskey for Marianne Lancaster to rember she was not, in fact, a battlefield casualty.

Chris watched the transformation with reluctant admiration.

At first she simply sat there, hands wrapped around the steaming mug like soone clinging to the last rope dangling from a collapsing airship. Her shoulders were stiff, jaw set, and eyes distant in the uncanny way soldiers sotis stared at every disaster behind them layered over each other like ghosts.

Then the whiskey took effect, and her spine relaxed. Her jaw loosened. Color returned to her face, and her expression shifted from "fundantally haunted" to "functioning human being with a lingering desire to stab soone, but perhaps later, and politely."

She took one last swallow, set the mug aside with a decisive motion, and exhaled.

There she was.

Dax, who had been leaning casually against the desk with an infuriating blend of curiosity and quiet amusent, raised a brow as if confirming she had upgraded from a volatile grenade to a controlled explosive.

"Better?" he asked.

Marianne didn’t dignify that with a verbal answer. She lifted the mug slightly in his direction like a toast to survival.

Chris crossed one leg over the other and considered her over the rim of his own cup.

For all her dramatics when she entered, now that the storm had passed, she wore composure like armor, clean, straight-lined, and unapologetically functional. And beneath it, he could feel the discipline. The sharpness honed from years of being far closer to war than most palaces ever had to acknowledge.

He understood why Dax trusted her.

He also understood why people misjudged her.

"So," Chris said lightly, because if no one else was going to ask the obvious question, it might as well be him. "Is it true you once had a crush on him?"

No one said anything.

Dax blinked.

Marianne closed her eyes.

Killian, rcifully absent, no doubt felt a disturbance in the universe strong enough to require tea.

Marianne finally opened her eyes again and looked at Chris with a resigned sort of patience, as if he’d just asked whether the sun truly existed.

"Yes," she said plainly. "Once. A very long ti ago."

Dax shifted, posture tightening in that faintly alard way n adopted when the past walked into the room uninvited.

Chris did not help him. He leaned an elbow against the sofa armrest and smiled, sweet and dangerous.

"How tragic," he said lightly. "Unrequited love."

Marianne snorted. "Don’t flatter him. It wasn’t love. It was... fascination, obsession, maybe. I was young, stupid, idealistic, and very convinced I could understand and possibly civilize the most dangerous creature alive." She turned her head toward Dax and arched a brow. "Spoiler alert: I could not."

Dax’s mouth twitched. "You tried."

"I did," she agreed. "And then I stopped. Because, unlike many people, I enjoy being alive."

Chris’s lips curved, but not unkindly. "And yet the world insists on using that history as leverage."

"Of course they do," Marianne replied, her tone settling into sothing colder, steadier, and more adult. "It’s convenient. It’s pretty. It makes politics personal. They think dangling the illusion of an old emotion will grant them access to a king who does not allow access." She shrugged. "Unfortunately for them, I am not sentintal or suicidal. And most importantly..." her gaze flickered toward Chris, "I know when I have lost. Gracefully."

Dax’s eyes ward, sothing satisfied and fiercely approving flickering behind them.

Chris regarded her thoughtfully.

"You’re on his side," he said quietly.

Marianne nodded. "I am on stability’s side. On the continent not exploding’s side. On the side of fewer wars and fewer children dying and fewer countries collapsing because fragile n think they deserve crowns. Dax provides that." Her mouth softened just barely. "You can take the beast for all I care."

"Beast?" Chris echoed, a laugh slipping out before he could temper it. "That’s dramatic. "

Marianne gave him a flat, unimpressed look.

"Yes," she said plainly. "Beast. Your beast. Congratulations."

Dax lounged back in his chair with arrogance, clearly satisfied with the label and with absolutely no interest in disputing it. If anything, the word seed to please him. The dangerous curve of his mouth made that plain.

But Marianne was not done.

She lifted her gaze, sothing colder sliding beneath her composure again, sothing that reminded Chris of the woman who had survived wars, governnts, and negotiations with monsters wearing crowns.

"And since I appear to be committed to honesty today," she added, "allow to remain consistent."

Her fingers drumd once against the armrest. A tiny, controlled motion. Nothing dramatic. But it carried tension like a wire pulled taut.

"Adonis Malek called a month ago," she said simply.

Half the room’s oxygen vanished.

Dax straightened.

Chris didn’t move, but he felt sothing shift inside him, like the smallest stone dropping into very deep water.

"He reached out," Marianne continued, her voice smoothing into sothing clinical again, like she had wrapped the mory in gauze so it wouldn’t bleed. "As a strategist asking the wrong person to commit the wrong kind of treason."

Her jaw tightened.

"He proposed... an understanding."

Dax’s voice was deceptively soft. "Define ’understanding.’"

Marianne held his gaze without flinching.

"He suggested a future in which I gained... influence... over you," she said. "Whatever that ans in his delusional imagination. And in exchange, the Maleks would gain control over Consort Christopher."

Silence pulled taut.

She lifted both hands slightly in mock surrender, a humorless echo of casualness.

"And before you ask how, I have no earthly idea what sort of miracle they think would let ’influence’ you. Unless they were planning on drugging the water supply, I fail to see the logistical pathway."

Chris exhaled slowly through his nose.

"But they were very clear on their end of the bargain," Marianne continued, her tone sharpening. "They were fixated on having Christopher in their hands. And..."

Her gaze flicked to Chris, assessing rather than pitying.

"...they made a point of emphasizing his status as the Malek dominant oga male."

Chris set his cup down, simply resting the porcelain on the low table between them and folded his hands, posture composed, gaze thoughtful.

"Do you want to help," he asked gently, "or did you co here only to inform us?"

The question was sothing that made Marianne Lancaster recognize Chris as soone capable of tilting the fate of nations if she chose to lean in the right direction.

Marianne huffed softly, rubbing her temple with two fingers.

"I wouldn’t have dragged myself here to collapse dramatically in front of His Majesty and his very well-upholstered sofa if I only wanted to inform you," she muttered. "I’ll help. Happily. But only if two conditions are t."

Dax arched a brow in faint amusent. "You’re negotiating with ?"

"Yes," Marianne replied without hesitation. "First: both of you forget the soup incident. Entirely. Permanently. Cut it out of history. If it so much as gets referenced in a codic anecdote, I will defect to your worst enemy on principle."

Dax’s mouth curved.

Chris nodded solemnly. "Reasonable."

"Second," Marianne continued, voice flattening, "you find a reason, an official, respectable, diplomatically sound reason, to be as far away from Heather as possible while we’re here. A state tour, joint task force, or an ergency summit in the outer provinces. I don’t care. If I have to babysit that royal nace for the entirety of this visit, I will start setting fires."

Dax almost smiled.

"That," he said quietly, "is negotiable."

So of the tension bled from Marianne’s shoulders. "Excellent. Then we have an arrangent."

For a heartbeat, there was sothing almost comfortable in the room.

Then Chris felt the need to ruin it.

"Good," he said softly.

"Because," he continued, as if discussing the weather, "you’re going to have to continue with the plan Adonis started."

He turned his head, t Marianne’s gaze directly, and allowed the faintest spark of amusent to curl through his eyes like a secret he was thoroughly enjoying.

"You," he finished, almost kind and entirely cruel, "have to try to seduce Dax."

"NO!" The two alphas roared.