Chapter 33: An Obvious Question

Levi stood outside the study door for a full ten seconds before he lifted his hand to knock.

The corridors had been a quiet nightmare of careful footsteps and held breath. Twice he had frozen in recessed doorways while servants passed. Once a pair of guards had turned the corner ahead of him and he had been forced to double back, heart slamming, certain the next set of footsteps would be an enforcer with orders to drag him in front of the Alpha. By the time the correct door finally appeared, his nerves felt scraped raw.

He knocked once, and Dexter’s voice came softly from the inside.

"Enter."

Levi pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The study was exactly what he had expected and somehow worse for it: high windows, ordered shelves, a wide desk of black wood positioned so that anyone entering stood in the full wash of morning light while the occupant remained half in shadow. Dexter sat behind the desk as if he had been waiting there the entire hour, silver hair neatly tied back, expression serene. A single chair had been placed opposite him, deliberately lower, deliberately less comfortable.

Levi closed the door and did not sit.

Dexter’s pale eyes moved over him in one slow, thorough pass.

The change in the third prince’s attention was immediate and precise. His gaze lingered on Levi’s mouth a fraction too long, then tracked lower as if following a scent trail only he could fully read.

"You’re late," Dexter said mildly.

"The house is large."

"And yet you found your way." Dexter tilted his head a degree. "You also found someone else on the way. My brother’s scent is all over you. And your mouth is swollen."

There was no heat in the observation, no raised voice. Only the quiet, surgical accuracy of someone stating facts that could not be denied.

Levi kept his expression flat. Internally he cursed every choice that had led to Aaron’s hands in his hair and Aaron’s mouth on his.

"I ran into him in a corridor," he said. "He had opinions about me walking the family wing alone. We disagreed. He expressed himself."

"With his mouth—"

"Among other things." Levi interjected swiftly.

A faint flicker of something, amusement or irritation, impossible to separate, touched Dexter’s eyes. He steepled his fingers and regarded Levi over them.

"You’re learning to lie more efficiently. That’s almost impressive. Unfortunately you’re still carrying the evidence on your skin." He paused. "Did you enjoy it?"

Levi’s pulse kicked. What was with this man before him? Regardless, he composed himself and forced his voice to stay even.

"Is that why you ordered me here? To inventory who else has touched me this morning?"

"I’m collecting information. You’re currently my primary source." Dexter’s tone remained conversational, almost polite. "Aaron has always been loud about what he wants. I prefer to know exactly how far that loudness has progressed before I decide what to do about it."

"And if I tell you nothing progressed?"

"Then I will assume you are protecting him, which is its own kind of answer."

The silence that followed was sharp enough to cut. Levi held the third prince’s gaze and refused to fill it. Every instinct he had developed in this house screamed that volunteering information to Dexter was the fastest way to hand him weapons..

Dexter eventually exhaled through his nose, a quiet sound of tempered patience.

"Very well. Keep your secrets for now. They’re written on you clearly enough that words are almost redundant." He gestured to the lower chair. "Sit. The next part of this conversation will take longer."

Levi considered remaining standing out of pure spite. Then he considered how long his legs would hold him after the morning’s successive shocks and sat. The chair was as uncomfortable as it had looked.

Dexter studied him for another long moment, the earlier probing stillness suddenly changing into something more professional.

"I didn’t call you here to discuss Aaron’s lack of self-control," he said. "That was an unexpected variable, not the purpose."

Levi did not ask any questions, he simply waited for Dexter to get to the real talk.

"My father intends to starve the bond out of existence and marry Kai to the Bloodmoon Luna. He also intends to find me a suitable female omega from a politically useful family and pretend the claim I made never happened. Kai is currently cooperating with both plans because he has decided that stability is worth more than whatever the Goddess dropped into our laps." Dexter’s voice stayed soft, almost reflective. "I disagree with their arithmetic."

"I’m aware." Levi replied. Elvis had told him all of this during their little walk, he quite honestly wouldn’t shut up about it.

"Are you?" Dexter’s eyes sharpened. "Then understand the next part clearly. A completed claim is difficult to erase. A completed claim that produces an heir is almost impossible to set aside without open fracture in the house. Children of a fated bond carry weight that politics alone cannot dismiss. Blood recognizes blood, and Packs recognize succession. Even my father would be forced to recalculate if the omega he keeps trying to reduce to a debt payment became the carrier of the next generation of this line."

The air in the study seemed to thin.

Levi’s thoughts stuttered, then rearranged themselves around the shape of what had just been said. He heard the logic, he heard the cold, long-view strategy underneath it, none of it made the words easier to process.

"You’re talking about an heir," Levi said slowly.

"I’m talking about leverage that cannot be chemically suppressed or married away." Dexter leaned forward slightly, elbows on the desk, silver hair catching the light. "I claimed you, that makes our case special, a lot more than it does for Kai and Aaron. But my father and Kai are currently treating both facts as temporary inconveniences. I intend to make them understand just how wrong they are. The most efficient way to do that is to put a child of this claim into the line of succession before they finish writing us out of the future."

Levi’s mouth had gone dry. He stared at Dexter with wide eyes. He understood exactly what the third prince was saying, but just to be certain, he asked the very obvious question.

"You want to get me pregnant."

"Yes."