Chapter 31: Boots

Levi sat on the edge of the bed long after Dexter left and stared at the closed door as if it might reopen and take the order back. Twenty minutes had passed since Dexter gave that order, and now he was here wondering how to slip through corridors he was explicitly forbidden to enter, and present himself at the third prince’s study like a summoned pet.

If he was caught, the Alpha’s would probably kill him. And If he refused, Dexter would come collect him personally, and the fallout would still land on Levi’s head.

He dragged both hands down his face and let out a low, frustrated sound.

"Damn him," he muttered to the empty room. "Damn all three of them. Damn the moon. Damn this entire house."

He stood, paced the short length of the chamber, and kicked the leg of the chair hard enough to send a jolt up his foot. The pain was briefly satisfying. He kicked it again, softer this time, then forced himself to stop and breathe.

Panicking would not open a safe route through the family wing.

He washed his face with cold water, straightened his clothes, and checked the himself in the mirror. He was about to take a stupid risk, yet here he was staring himself in the mirror and trying to convince himself that it wasn’t a stupid one.

After convincing himself in the mirror, Levi finally grew the balls to leave his room and carry out the mission.

The supervised wing was quiet. A single guard at the far end glanced at him, then looked away, apparently deciding a blood-debt omega walking toward the main house was not yet worth a challenge. Levi kept his head down and his steps measured, trying to look like someone running an ordinary errand instead of someone about to commit slow-motion suicide.

The first corridor beyond the supervised section was already more dangerous. Family crests lined the walls. The air carried stronger traces of dominant scents. Levi took two wrong turns, doubled back, and found himself in a narrower passage that smelled of polish and old paper. He had no map and no real plan beyond "don’t get seen by the wrong person."

He failed almost immediately.

A large, solid presence stepped out of a recessed doorway to his left, and Levi walked straight into a wall of heat and muscle and familiar temper.

Aaron.

The second prince caught him by the shoulders before he could stumble back, steadying him with the same effortless strength he had used to carry him out of the great hall. For a second they only stared at each other. Aaron’s dark eyes moved over Levi’s face, then down the corridor behind him, then back again.

"What are you doing on this side of the house?" Aaron’s voice was low, rough from what sounded like too little sleep. "Did you forget the orders, or are you actively trying to get yourself locked up again?"

Levi’s mouth opened, closed, and then a nervous, breathless sound that might have been a chuckle escaped him.

"Dexter," he managed. "He came to my room this morning. He told me to be in his study in one hour. He said if I didn’t come, he’d collect me himself."

Aaron went very still.

The silence stretched long enough for Levi to hear his own pulse in his ears. Then Aaron’s hand closed around his wrist, not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough that there was no possibility of pulling away, and he turned, pulling Levi with him down a different corridor.

"Where are you taking me?" Levi asked, half-trotting to keep up.

"My room," Aaron said without looking back. "I have boots that need cleaning."

Levi nearly tripped. "Boots?"

"Boots."

They moved quickly. Servants stepped aside. A pair of guards glanced at Aaron’s expression and decided not to ask questions. Near the turn that led toward the family wing proper, they passed Merrick. The servant’s eyes locked with Levi’s for a fraction of a second before he dropped his gaze and walked past without slowing.

Aaron did not seem to notice, and Levi had gotten used to not worrying about the looks people gave him within these walls, including Merrick.

His room were larger than Levi last remembered, dark wood and heavy fabrics, the air still carrying the faint residual scent of last night’s exertion. The moment the door closed, Aaron turned the lock with a deliberate click.

Levi stood in the center of the chamber, wrist still tingling from Aaron’s grip, and tried to gather the frayed edges of his composure.

"I don’t clean boots anymore," he said. The words came out thinner than he wanted. "That stopped when—"

"You’re still a blood debt."

Aaron’s voice was quiet, but to the omega that reminder was probably louder than any scream he’d heard.

He had almost forgotten why he was there. For a few days he had begun to feel like something else; a mate, a problem the princes were fighting over. The words blood debt dragged him straight back to the narrow living room, to his father’s flat voice, to the moment he had understood he was the least valuable thing his family had left to offer.

He was still that.

He stared at Aaron for a long second, finally understanding that no matter what drama that was going on around him, he was still a blood debt at the end of the day, and the faster he realized that, the better for him.

"Where are the boots?"

Aaron’s mouth curved—not the sharp, temper-edge smile Levi had seen before, but something cynical and unpredictable.

"You really think I brought you here to clean my boots?"

Levi shrugged, the motion tight. "It’s part of why I’m in this castle."

The silence that followed was thick enough to taste.

Aaron walked toward him without hurry. The space between them closed in three long steps. One warm, calloused hand rose and settled against Levi’s cheek, thumb resting just below the cheekbone, tilting his face up. The muted bond flared, sudden and bright, as if the suppressants had momentarily lost their grip. Aaron’s eyes were dark, intent, stripped of the usual restless anger and replaced by something heavier.

Electricity cracked through the small distance left between them.

Levi’s breath caught. Aaron’s did too. For a single suspended second neither of them moved—both caught on the edge of a decision that had been circling since the night Aaron first carried him out of the great hall.

Then the last of the space disappeared, and their lips found each others.

It landed desperate, mouth against mouth with the full force of everything Aaron had been trying to punch out of himself in the training yard and everything Levi had been trying not to feel under the weight of drugs and orders and other people’s claims. Aaron’s hand slid from Levi’s cheek into his hair, tilting his head further, deepening the kiss until Levi’s back met the wall and a low, helpless sound escaped his throat.

Aaron kissed like a man who had been denied too long and had finally stopped asking permission. Levi’s fingers curled into the front of his shirt, not pushing away, not pulling closer, but simply holding on as the ground tilted.

When they finally broke apart, both of them were breathing hard.

Aaron’s forehead rested against Levi’s for a moment, eyes closed, the hand in his hair still gentle despite the force of the kiss.

Neither of them spoke, neither had anything appropriate to say. Aaron’s mind was running wild, a part trying to stop him, while the other was beckoning him to take the omega to his bed and fuck him senseless. After fighting himself for a minute, he finally opened his eyes, his mind already made up. He would go with the former, it was simply too soon for him to lose himself over this omega.