"I want it."
Trevor didn't flinch, but something in his eyes tightened, the way a man's grip tightens around a knife he never meant to use at the table.
"You can't have it," he said, calmly.
Dax's smile was still there, technically. It just… stopped being a smile in the human sense. It turned into the kind of baring that belonged to predators and kings and men who had learned to make "polite" sound like a mercy.
Trevor watched it happen in real time, the shift from playful tyrant who teased Chris like he was his favorite indulgence to something older, darker, and far more honest.
The real king of Saha, that Chris, would never see.
Dax's attention sharpened the way an animal's does when it smells blood on snow.
"Repeat that," Dax murmured.
Trevor kept his voice even. Friendly, if you were generous. "You can't have it."
Dax's violet eyes didn't blink.
