Chapter 19: Small Understanding

Aaron pulled the door shut behind him with more care than he usually bothered with.

The corridor was quiet in the way only the supervised wing managed after dark—torches turned low, servants scarce. It was peaceful. Aaron took one step away from the door, rolling the tension out of his shoulders, and nearly walked straight into his youngest brother.

Dexter stood three paces down the hall, silver hair neat even at this hour, expression unreadable in the half-light. He had clearly been heading for the same door Aaron had just closed. For a moment the two of them simply looked at each other.

Aaron recovered first.

"He’s asleep," he said, voice low. "Finally. Leave him alone."

Dexter’s gaze flicked to the door, then back to Aaron. After a second, Dexter inclined his head a fraction and turned as if to leave. He only made it two steps before he stopped again.

"What were you doing in there?"

Aaron stared at him, not certain what his brother meant by that question. Him and Dexter have never really been close, and after pulling the stunt he did with Levi, things had only gotten worse between them. Sure he won’t condone an outsider threatening his younger brother, but he also wouldn’t condone his younger brother disrespecting him.

"He’s our mate," Aaron said as calmly as he could. "You might have put your teeth in him first, but that doesn’t make him only yours. I can visit him when I want."

Dexter remained still, it seemed as though his brother had misunderstood his question. "That’s not what I meant."

The correction was mild. It still managed to make Aaron feel like he’d swung at something that had already moved. He exhaled through his nose, glanced once down the empty corridor, and jerked his head toward a recessed window alcove a few doors away. Privacy was relative in this house, but it was better than having the conversation in the middle of the hall where any servant with sharp ears could turn it into tomorrow’s gossip.

Dexter followed without comment.

Once they were out of direct line of the main walkway, Aaron leaned a shoulder against the stone and crossed his arms. Dexter remained standing, hands loosely at his sides. That picture of composure, it had always irritated Aaron how easily Dexter could paint it.

"I went to check on him," Aaron said eventually. "I felt maybe he needed some comforting. Plus the suppressants..."

Dexter studied him for a long moment. Something almost like amusement flickered across his face. Aaron comfort someone? He wasn’t even sure if his brother was capable of such an act.

"You’re a terrible liar when you’re trying to be noble," he said. "It’s unsettling. Can you go back to threatening to break furniture? I know how to handle that version of you."

Aaron’s mouth twitched despite himself. "Fuck off."

"There he is." Dexter’s voice stayed light, but his eyes did not. "You were in there long enough for a conversation. What did he tell you?"

Aaron considered deflecting. Then he thought of Levi’s flat, tired voice describing locked doors and two days without food, and the temper that usually pointed at his brothers swung hard toward an Alpha who wasn’t even in the building.

"He told me about Elvis," Aaron finally answered.

Dexter’s face contorted with discomfort and curiosity. He too had wanted to ask Levi about Elvis. "And?"

"And the bastard’s lucky he’s still breathing on our territory." Aaron’s voice dropped. "I’m not giving you details. They’re not mine to trade. But if he comes near Levi again with that smile and those plans, I will put him through a wall. Clear enough?"

Dexter was quiet for a stretch, he was glad that he wasn’t the only one who already loathed Elvis, but he could tell that wasn’t all. He had always wanted to have a personal conversation with each of his brothers concerning Levi, and what better time to speak to Aaron about it if not now.

"You’re angry I claimed him first."

It wasn’t a question.

Aaron turned to catch his brother’s face for a second, then he laughed, short and without much humor. "I’m angry about a lot of things. That one’s on the list."

Dexter looked away, toward the dark rectangle of the window, staring at the moon as though it was going to come and save him. The youngest prince’s voice, when it came, was softer than usual and stripped of its usual careful distance.

"You’re the strongest of us," Dexter said. "Everyone knows it. The training yards, the patrols, the way even the enforcers measure themselves against you without meaning to. Kai is Father’s chosen first heir. First in every room he walks into. First to be listened to. I was never going to win a direct contest for something all three of us wanted. Not against the two of you." He glanced back at Aaron, pale eyes steady. "So I didn’t try to fight fair. I waited until the agreement to wait was still fresh and the house was distracted, and I took the claim the only way I was certain I could keep it.."

For a moment neither of the two spoke or spared each other a glance, they both just stared at some distraction, each processing their own emotions differently.

Aaron felt the familiar, complicated twist in his chest—the same one that had lived there since childhood. Resentment at being overlooked. Reluctant understanding of why the others moved the way they did. The bone-deep exhaustion of always being the one in the middle.

"I get it," he said after a moment. The words came out rougher than he intended. "Doesn’t make it right. But I get it."

Dexter’s shoulders eased a fraction, as if he had expected a fight and received something harder to categorize instead. But Aaron wasn’t done yet, he shifted his weight, and finally caught his brother’s eyes.

"How do you feel about him? Levi. Beyond the bond."

Dexter considered the question with the same seriousness he gave to maps and bloodlines. "It’s a bit complicated, I guess. I mean the bond draws me to him, it wants me to protect him and also keep other Alphas away from him. Past that..." He gave a small, almost helpless half-shrug. "He’s still the payment Father accepted for Liora. Still the omega who was handed over like furniture. I don’t know how to separate the pull from the rest of it yet. The rest is... noise I haven’t sorted."

He looked at Aaron directly. "You?"

Aaron opened his mouth, closed it, and stared at a point on the opposite wall.

He had never loved a boy before. Had never particularly wanted to. Desire was easy; attachment had always felt like handing someone else a weapon. But the night the mate pull hit, something in him that had spent years being ranked second or third or not at all had suddenly stood on equal ground. That feeling had rooted deeper than he knew how to admit out loud.

He thought of Levi’s sarcastic mouth and tired eyes. The way the omega had flinched and then, slowly, stopped flinching quite so hard. The absurd, stubborn spark that refused to go out no matter how many times the house tried to crush it.

Aaron was not ready to name any of that.

"Same," he lied, and made his voice flat enough to sell it. "Bond’s loud. The rest is noise. We’ll figure it out when the suppressants aren’t trying to drown the whole thing."

Dexter watched him for a beat too long, as if he heard the lie and had decided, for once, not to call it out. A faint, knowing curve touched the corner of his mouth.

"You’re still a terrible liar," he said mildly. "But I’ll allow it. Night’s too long for another fight."

Aaron huffed. "Generous of you."

"I have my moments."

They stood in the alcove a little longer, the silence less sharp than it had been. Two brothers who had spent most of their lives competing for scraps of the same limited attention, briefly aligned by a shared problem neither of them had chosen.

Aaron pushed off the wall.

"Get some sleep," he said. "If Father tightens the rules again tomorrow, we’ll need to be functional enough to break them properly."

Dexter’s soft huff of amusement followed him as he turned away.

Aaron had taken only a few steps back toward the main corridor when a different set of footsteps sounded at the far end of the hall, unhurried, and far too familiar.

Both princes froze the moment they caught sight of their brother.

Kai stood at the junction where the supervised wing met the family corridors, fully dressed despite the hour, expression unreadable. His gaze moved from Aaron to Dexter to the closed door of Levi’s room and back again. The temperature in the hallway seemed to drop.

"Explain," Kai said quietly, "why both of you are standing outside the omega’s door when Father’s orders were explicit."