Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 475: Impossible

Chris said it before Dax could finish the thought.

"No."

Dax’s hand stayed on his stomach, his expression too focused to pass for teasing.

"It smells like you’re pregnant," he said.

Chris stared at him. "That is impossible."

A sigma like Dax did not impregnate his mate by accident. He controlled that with the same terrifying precision he controlled everything else in his life. And their sex was not subtle in the specific mechanism that mattered. If Dax wanted to plant his seed directly into Chris’s womb, Chris knew. He would absolutely have known.

"I would know," Chris said flatly.

Dax nodded once. "You should."

Chris blinked. "Then we’re done."

"No."

Chris dragged a hand over his face. "I hate that answer."

Dax looked at him steadily. "I’m not saying this makes sense. I’m saying your scent is wrong."

That made Chris go quiet for a second, not because he agreed, but because Dax sounded certain.

Chris knew his own body. He knew stress, bad sleep, summit pressure, too much perfume in enclosed rooms, and too many aggressive alphas in tailored suits. But now that Dax had said it, the last week rearranged itself in his head in an irritating pattern. The exhaustion. The strange taste in his mouth. Coffee being off. His appetite shifts.

"No," Chris said again. "You are not calling Travis."

Dax reached for his phone.

Chris glared. "Dax."

"I’m calling Travis."

"I do not want to speak to that man."

"He is your obstetrician," Dax said while tapping on his phone, his arm extended well out of Chris’s reach.

"Yes, and I saw him last month. Everything was fine then." Chris had a complicated relationship with the man’s profession. Travis himself was competent, discreet, and irritatingly difficult to hate. Obstetrics, however, had a talent for appearing precisely when Chris least wanted to discuss the state of his body with anyone in scrubs.

Dax did not look up. "That was last month."

"That is usually how time works."

"And your scent is different now."

Chris glared at him. "You say that like it’s a reasonable sentence."

"It is."

"It is not. It is deeply offensive."

Dax finally sent the message and lowered the phone, looking altogether too calm for a man who had just detonated Chris’s evening. "It’s still true."

Chris folded his arms. "No. What is true is that you are overreacting because you enjoy chaos and apparently wanted a more private version after tormenting Caelan all day."

Dax’s gaze sharpened. "This has nothing to do with chaos."

"That is exactly what a man says right before creating more of it."

A brief vibration sounded from Dax’s phone. He glanced at the screen.

Chris narrowed his eyes. "Tell me you did not mark it urgent."

Dax looked back up. "I marked it immediate."

Chris made a quiet sound of outrage and stood from the sofa before Dax’s arms could reclaim him, smoothing a hand down his shirt as though fabric alone could restore dignity. "I am not discussing impossible pregnancies in a private lounge fifteen minutes before dinner."

"Ten," Dax corrected.

Chris turned slowly. "You are making this so much harder." 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

"Yes," Dax said, without shame. "Because you would otherwise avoid it."

Chris opened his mouth, then closed it again, offended by the accuracy. "That is beside the point."

"It is the point."

The phone buzzed once more.

Dax checked it, then said, "Travis is waiting in the medical suite."

Chris stared at him. "You truly are impossible."

Dax slipped the phone into his pocket and stepped closer, his expression now stripped of all amusement. "Maybe. But if I’m wrong, he tells us I’m wrong, and you mock me for a year. If I’m right, I want to know now."

That quieted Chris for exactly one breath.

Then he muttered, "I already planned to mock you for a year."

Dax’s mouth twitched. "You can extend it."

Chris hated that this was almost reassuring. He hated even more that beneath the irritation and disbelief, something colder had started to move under his ribs.

Because Dax wasn’t unsure.

And Dax, for all his many crimes against moderation, did not sound like this over nothing.

Chris looked away first. "Fine," he said. "But I reserve the right to be hostile."

"You already are."

"I can become worse."

"I know," Dax said, and held out a hand. "Come on."

Chris looked at the offered hand, then at his husband’s face, then took it with the long-suffering air of a man walking toward a personal insult arranged by medicine itself.

—

The private medical suite in the east wing was, to Chris’s lasting offense, far too familiar.

It was discreet, modern, immaculate, and designed with the kind of expensive calm that made every surface look as though it had been engineered to reduce panic by six percent. Soft lighting. Frosted glass. Clean lines. A concealed monitor built into the wall. Cabinets that hid equipment until needed. An examination table in the center that Chris disliked on principle before even sitting on it.

Travis stood near the counter in dark slate scrubs under a white coat, tablet in one hand, expression composed in that deeply irritating way competent physicians perfected over time.

"Your Majesties," he said.

Chris, already on the examination table and already hating every second of it, replied, "Don’t."

Travis did not even blink. "Understood."

Dax stood beside the table like a beautifully dressed threat in an open black shirt and loosened tie, one hand resting near Chris’s knee with the contained intensity of a man pretending not to terrify the room for the physician’s convenience.

The test had not taken long.

That was, perhaps, the cruelest part.

A blood draw. A rapid panel. Travis moved with swiftness while Chris stared at the ceiling and reconsidered his life. Dax had been silent through most of it, which was frankly more alarming than if he had paced holes into the floor.

Now Travis glanced at the result on the tablet, then back up.

His face did not dramatically change.

He was too good for that.

"Well," he said, and Chris hated that tone instantly, "the pregnancy test is positive."

The room went still.

Then Travis, because apparently he feared no one and respected structure more than atmosphere, added, "Congratulations."