Chapter 36: The First Son

Kai sat in the chair near the window long, doing nothing but rummaging through his thoughts.

His coat lay discarded over the back of another chair. He had loosened the high collar but had not fully changed. He had told the servants he was not to be disturbed. He needed all the space he could get, and he wasn’t exactly sure how he would deal with anybody at the moment.

Dexter’s words would not leave him.

You’re so busy living the life Father planned... that you can’t see you’re never going to be free. You’re going to spend the rest of your life being the perfect first heir... calling it duty while the parts of you that still want something else slowly go quiet.

Kai had heard variations of the accusation before, usually from Aaron in the middle of some explosion of temper. Coming from Dexter, it had felt different.

It should not have landed so hard. The usual him would have dismissed such words already and carried on with the next task at hand. Yet for some reason, it was all he had been thinking about.

Kai leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and stared at the pattern in the rug without seeing it. He had never pretended the path was easy. From the moment he was old enough to understand the difference between the three of them, the shape of his life had been clear. Kai would be the heir, Liora would stand beside him as Luna. Aaron would serve as the house’s strength. Dexter would become whatever sharp, useful instrument the family required. The Goddess, or fate, or simple biology had arranged their births in an order that left little room for negotiation.

Then Liora died, and that version of the future died with her. What remained was Kai, standing alone under the full weight of expectation, and two younger brothers who still needed the house to remain standing even when its foundations had cracked. Their father had grown harder, and things had simply gotten more difficult after then. Kai had done what the first son was required to do: he had absorbed the weight, and had done his best to keep things as normal as it could be.

What else had there been to do? He could not have set the responsibility aside and gone hunting for the simple pleasure of it, the way he had sometimes wanted to when the maps and ledgers blurred in front of his eyes. He could not have spent afternoons on the quiet, precise work of embroidery when there were border reports to review and succession questions to answer. He could not have taken a week, even two, and simply sat still somewhere the pack could not reach him. The first son did not get to be unreachable. The first son remained available, composed, and useful until the role itself was transferred or ended.

Those were the sacrifices. He had made them without keeping a tally. Most days he did not even experience them as losses, only as the ordinary texture of the life he had been given.

And yet Dexter’s voice kept returning.

At least when I drown, I’ll know I chose the water.

Kai exhaled slowly and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. Dexter simply did not understand.

He was the youngest. He had never been required to hold the entire structure upright while it threatened to list. He could afford the luxury of choosing the water. Kai did not have that option. If he chose the water, the house went with him.

The rationalization was familiar. It had sustained him through worse nights than this one. Today it felt thinner than usual, like a coat worn too long in weather it could no longer fully keep out.

He was tired.

The admission arrived without drama. Physically tired from the successive days of council sessions, political management, and the constant low-grade vigilance required to keep his brothers from open disaster. Emotionally tired in a way that sleep did not touch. The kind of tired that came from carrying a role so completely that putting it down, even for an hour, felt like a failure of character rather than a basic human need.

He would not get a break.

The thought was not bitter, it was simply factual. There would be another meeting. Another report. Another fracture between Aaron and Dexter to manage. Another careful conversation with Flora or her father about timelines and expectations. His work just never ended.

He drew a deeper breath and forced the spiral to slow. Dexter’s words were the complaint of someone who had never had to hold the center. They did not require further examination. What required examination was the border report still waiting on his desk, the message from the northern packs regarding the formal mating schedule, and the question of how to limit further damage from Dexter’s public refusal in the council hall.

Kai straightened in the chair, set his shoulders in the familiar alignment, and began rebuilding the composure he would need when he eventually reopened the door to the rest of the house.

He had not finished the process when the knock came.

Three soft, precise raps.

Kai’s head lifted. He had given clear instructions. Servants did not knock without urgent cause; his brothers usually announced themselves with less courtesy. For a moment he considered ignoring it. Then training overrode preference. He stood, smoothed the front of his shirt, and settled his expression into the controlled neutrality the heir was required to wear.

He crossed the room and opened the door.

Levi stood in the corridor.

The omega looked smaller than he did in memory, dark hair slightly disordered, borrowed clothes neat but impersonal, the claim mark on his throat hidden beneath a high collar.

For a stretched second neither of them spoke, they just stood still glaring at the other with eyes that were exhausted more than physically.

’Is he crazy?’ Kai thought just as he grabbed the omega and shoved him inside before anyone could see. Was he really trying to get himself killed? And above all, what was this omega doing in front of his door?