Chapter 28: A Skipped Routine

The rest of the afternoon passed in a state of careful, almost painful awareness.

Merrick moved through his remaining duties with the same outward efficiency he had perfected over five years, but every action felt slightly tilted, as if the decision he had made in the washroom had shifted the entire flow of his day. He restocked linens in the east wing, carried messages between senior servants, helped clear the last of the formal dining settings after a small afternoon meeting of advisors. None of it required thought, which was fortunate, because most of his thoughts remained fixed on the small sealed vial that would be waiting for him at the evening distribution.

He had never skipped a dose.

Not once. Not even during the early months when the suppressants had made him nauseous and hollow, and so emotionally flattened that entire days passed without him even realizing. The drugs were part of the architecture of survival here, especially for an omega like him. They kept him scentless, unremarkable, safe from the kind of attention that could destroy a captured omega in a house full of dominant wolves. They had also, he was beginning to understand, kept something else locked down so thoroughly that he had almost forgotten the true size of it.

As the light in the high windows began to soften toward evening, the familiar internal reminder arrived: it was time.

The distribution point for household suppressants was a small, windowless room near the servants’ quarters. A senior attendant tracked compliance with a ledger and a tray of measured vials. Most of the suppressed staff arrived in a quiet line, swallowed their dose without comment, and left. Merrick had been part of that line for five years.

Tonight he walked past the door without slowing.

His heart beat once, hard. No one called after him, no one really had to. It was crucial for omegas to take the suppressants, but there wasn’t a death law against not taking it. All that was required was for them to carry out their duties without causing any drama, with or without suppressants.

The omission was so simple it felt almost unreal, just a change in direction at the end of a corridor, yet it felt like he had just committed murder. He continued toward the narrow room he shared with two other male servants, collected his evening wash water, and closed the door behind him with hands that were not entirely steady.

The first hour felt ordinary.

He washed up, folded the few garments he owned, and sat on the edge of his low cot and listened to the muffled sounds of the house settling into its night rhythms. The absence of the familiar chemical bitterness on his tongue was noticeable only because he was searching for it. His body, trained by years of routine, kept waiting for the normal numbing feeling it got everyday, but this time it did not come.

By the second hour a low restlessness had begun to move under Merrick’s skin. Nothing dramatic. Just a faint, persistent awareness of his own pulse, of the air moving in and out of his lungs, and the way the rough blanket felt against his bare arms. Scents that usually registered as distant information now arrived slightly sharper. He found himself turning his head toward the door more often than necessary, tracking footsteps that would normally have been background noise.

And underneath it all, like a current that had been dammed for years and had finally found a crack, the wanting began to rise.

It was not new. He had carried it for a long time. The particular attention he paid when Aaron’s name was spoken, the way his gaze found the second prince across training yards and formal halls, the quiet ache that followed the sight of him standing alone after some explosion of temper. The suppressants had never erased the feeling entirely. They had only kept it small, manageable, and sealed enough that it could not demand action.

Without the evening dose, the seal was thinning.

Merrick lay back on the cot and stared at the low ceiling. He tried to think practically. One missed dose would not restore a full scent. It would not undo five years of suppression in a single night. The changes would be gradual, cumulative, only dangerous if he continued. He could resume the regimen tomorrow and no one would be the wiser. The smart path was still available, but even then Merrick knew he would not take it.

Sometime near the middle of the night, restlessness drove him out of the small room.

The servants’ corridors were dim and mostly empty at this hour. He told himself he was only walking to clear the uncomfortable energy under his skin. His feet, less interested in useful lies, carried him along a familiar indirect route that passed near one of the side exits to the main training yards.

He almost turned back, but his nostrils betrayed him. Without the suppressants, his senses were a bit sharper, and regardless of the distance, he had been able to smell the second prince..

The second prince was in the yard—alone, from the sound of it, he was probably training or blowing off steam. Merrick stopped in the shadow of the arched exit, far enough back that he would not be easily seen, close enough that the cool night air carried the heat and exertion and unmistakable dominant signature of the man he had watched in silence for years.

Aaron worked the post with the focused violence of someone trying to exhaust a thought he could not otherwise get rid of. Shirt discarded. Dark hair damp with effort. The lines of his back and shoulders moved with the same restless power Merrick had catalogued from doorways and the far sides of rooms. Every strike landed hard enough to send a dull vibration through the packed earth.

Merrick’s newly unshielded awareness drank the details in with an intensity that bordered on painful.

This was what the suppressants had been holding back, not only scent, but the full force of a wanting that had nowhere to go. Standing in the dark watching Aaron fight his own ghosts, Merrick felt the years of careful invisibility press against the sharper thing now waking under his ribs. The jealousy toward Levi, the anger at the imbalance of status, all of it suddenly felt connected to this single, impossible fact: he had spent five years making himself small in a house that contained the one person he had ever wanted to be seen by.

Aaron stopped.

For a moment the second prince simply stood there, breath rough, one hand braced against the scarred post, head slightly bowed as if the fight had not quite emptied whatever he needed it to. Then he straightened, rolled his shoulders, and turned just enough that the moonlight caught the hard line of his profile.

Merrick stepped back into deeper shadow on pure instinct.

He did not think he had been noticed. Aaron gave no sign of it. After another moment the second prince collected his discarded shirt, dragged it over his head with the impatient motion of a man who had not finished being angry, and headed toward the family wing entrance with long, restless strides.

Merrick remained in the archway until his own pulse slowed. When he could no longer sense or smell the second prince anymore, he decided it was time he headed back to his room.

Inside his small room again, he sat on the edge of the cot and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.

He wasn’t sure he could keep doing this. Perhaps it was best he kept taking the suppressants, that way he wouldn’t have to deal with all these painful emotions he was feeling right now.

Merrick lowered his hands and stared at the dark.

Tomorrow he would have to choose again, resume the regimen and force everything back into its previous small container, or continue this slow, dangerous return to a version of himself that could no longer pretend indifference.

He already knew, with a clarity that frightened him, which choice the waking feeling preferred.