Chapter 113: Chapter 113: The purge (1) (Win-Win)
The Cardinal’s voice blew up the nave like a bell of accusation. "How dare you?!" he shouted, outrage ricocheting off marble and glass, every sanctified syllable a challenge.
Dax let the sound wash over him for a beat and then, with a small, almost bored motion, flicked his fingers once toward Edward Rose through the line. The signal was nothing elaborate, just a ready, professional hand at the edge of violence. Edward’s men, reading the motion, fell back a step and melted into the shadowed ring of security, pulling their presence away like obedient shutters closing.
Only Killian stayed forward, a single dark figure at Dax’s shoulder. For a second the two of them were the only honest things in the room.
Dax smiled slowly, pleased, and the air appeared to change before anyone could identify it. He inhaled, and the scent he carried unfolded: dark spice with something animal, old, and utterly deliberate. It moved before words, a pressure more than a smell, settling under tongues and at the back of throats.
The effect was immediate and unnerving. The priests’ bravado wavered like a curtain in a draft. Hands reached to throats. Eyes widened. One man doubled over, retching; another stared at his own hands as if they belonged to someone else. The Cardinal’s furious color bled into grey; his voice, so full a heartbeat before, hiccupped into a rasp. He took a step back and his knees betrayed him.
Dax’s laugh was soft, pleased, and small enough to be intimate even in the cavern of the temple. He relished the confusion, the scrambling sanctimony unspooling into animal instinct. "You have been very industrious," he said conversationally. "You sold them mercy and breath like nothing."
As the priests and the Cardinal struggled to maintain their composure, Dax’s scent continued to permeate the air, a dark, intoxicating presence that seemed to seep into every pore and corner of the temple. The once-proud men of the clergy now found themselves at the mercy of something far more primal and powerful than any of their rituals or prayers.
Dax watched the chaos unfold with a mix of amusement and satisfaction, his eyes glinting with a predatory gleam. "You’ve been playing with lives," he continued, his voice low and dangerous, "as if they were mere pawns in your games. But you’ve underestimated the true cost of your actions."
The Cardinal, now reduced to a trembling figure, managed to find his voice, though it was barely a whisper. "You... you cannot do this. We are men of God. We are above your petty laws."
Killian leaned one shoulder against a column, eyes half-lidded, and muttered, "Here we go."
With a swift motion, Dax grabbed the Cardinal by the throat, lifting him effortlessly. The man’s struggles grew weaker as Dax’s grip tightened, his fingers digging into flesh. Blood trickled from the Cardinal’s mouth, his eyes bulging as he gasped for air.
He tightened his grip, and the sound of snapping bone echoed through the temple. The Cardinal’s body convulsed, his struggles turning into desperate, choking gasps. Dax’s pheromones intensified, a dark, suffocating cloud that seemed to choke the very breath from the room.
Suddenly, the Cardinal’s body began to swell, his veins pulsing with an unnatural purple pallor. His eyes widened in horror as his flesh started to tear, blood and viscera spraying across the marble floor. With a final, gut-wrenching scream, the Cardinal’s body burst in a shower of gore, his remains splattering across the temple.
The priests around them began to retch and claw at their throats, their faces turning red and then purple as they fought for air. One by one, they fell to the ground, their bodies convulsing as they suffocated.
Dax’s men moved in, their actions swift and efficient, subduing the remaining clerics. As the last of them was secured, Dax turned to Killian, a smirk playing on his lips, his hands and clothes spattered with blood and gore.
"Let’s clean this up," he said, his voice echoing through the temple.
—
The call came early in the morning after the king’s departure. Christopher was once again ignoring her; the last robes she had managed to sneak into the wardrobe were still there. Hanna was in the tailoring suite, halfway through pinning a hem, when her phone vibrated with a restricted number. Only one person used that line.
"Your Grace," she said, snapping her fingers for the assistants to clear the room.
Cornelia Altera’s voice came through smooth, the same way ice might sound if it could speak.
"You’ve heard Dax is still away?"
"Yes, ma’am," Hanna said. "He left the other day; he was in the palace for less than two hours before leaving the omega alone again."
Cornelia made a small chuckle of amusement, disbelief, or both. "He’s not in the palace. That’s what matters. Which means it’s time for you to finish what we discussed."
Hanna reached for a pen and notepad automatically, though she didn’t need to write a word. "You want me to handle the suite."
"I want you to erase it," Cornelia corrected softly. "Everything personal. Replace Palatine-inspired clothing, books, and other items with Sahan pieces. The style we discussed last time. Say the King ordered it himself."
Hanna chuckled. "I’ve already started; he has his cheap things from Palatine, but for clothes there are just a few pieces. I’ve talked with Killian, making sure that I’ve understood the King’s orders. Of course it was to secure the excuse in front of the other staff."
Cornelia’s pause stretched long enough for Hanna to think the call had ended. Then came the sound of fabric rustling, the faint click of a lighter, and Cornelia’s voice, poised and edged like glass.
Cornelia’s voice tightened, a faint smile threaded through the words like a blade through silk. "Good. Make sure it’s convincing. When he returns, I want him to see nothing that belongs to Palatine. Let the little omega think that he is going mad. Dax will come back distraught and certain the alpha is trying to break him. My sources tell me the King prepared a collar for the boy; intercept it before it reaches the king’s office and place it on that omega’s neck. Use any lie."
Hanna’s pen stilled. The image of a velvet-lined box crossing the palace corridors, meant for Dax’s hands, meant to mean devotion, turned in her mind like a coin catching light. "That won’t be hard," she murmured. "He doesn’t know anything about Sahan omegas."
"Good," Cornelia said, almost kindly. "Keep it that way. The King will be furious with his omega for letting anyone touch that collar; you know how vain dominant alphas are. Blame the staff, blame the courier, blame the omega himself." Her voice went colder, the last syllable a neat, lethal bead. "Make sure it looks like betrayal. Make sure the king is hurt, that anyone other than him would place that collar on his omega’s neck."
Hanna swallowed. The room around her, with pins, sketches, and sunlight on silk, felt suddenly smaller, as if the palace itself had leaned in to listen. She could see the collar being carried in as an offering; she intercepted it before it reached the king’s office and delivered it to Christopher.
A smile cracked on his stern face. ’Would the omega cry? I want to see him broken.’