Chapter 42: Horse Riding

The stables smelled of hay, leather, and warm animal.

Levi stood just inside the wide doors and tried not to look like someone who had spent the last several weeks existing primarily in corridors and supervised rooms. Outside, the morning had opened into clear, pale gold light. The fields stretched away from the mansion in long, uneven waves of green, broken by low stone walls and the darker line of trees in the distance.

Aaron spoke briefly with a stable hand, who glanced once at Levi, decided not to ask questions, and disappeared to fetch tack. A few minutes later two horses were led out, one a tall, dark bay that immediately nudged Aaron’s shoulder with the familiarity of a creature who knew exactly who brought the apples, and a smaller, steadier chestnut with a white blaze down its face.

"This one is for you," Aaron said, running a hand down the chestnut’s neck. "She’s patient. She has to be."

Levi eyed the animal. "That sounds like an insult."

"It’s a warning. Come here."

The next twenty minutes were pure, undignified education.

Aaron showed him how to check the girth, how to hold the reins, how to approach from the correct side so the horse did not decide he was a problem. When it came time to mount, Levi got his foot in the stirrup, pushed up, and somehow ended up halfway over the saddle in a position that had no dignity left in it. The chestnut shifted patiently. Aaron made a sound that was definitely a swallowed laugh and put a firm hand on Levi’s hip, hauling him the rest of the way into place.

"You’re overthinking it," Aaron said. "Stop trying to negotiate with gravity."

"Gravity started it."

"Gravity always wins. Heels down. Sit deeper, not like you’re about to be launched."

Levi adjusted. The saddle felt foreign and a little too high, and he ground looked farther away than it had any right to. Aaron mounted the bay in one smooth motion that made the whole process look insultingly easy, then brought his horse alongside.

"We’ll start slow. She’ll follow him if you don’t do anything dramatic. Which means do not do anything dramatic."

"Whatever do you mean? I am a model of calm."

"You look like you’re calculating the odds of survival."

"I am multitasking." Levi shot back, but the Alpha only smiled.

Aaron clicked his tongue and the bay moved forward. The chestnut followed with a rolling, steady walk that immediately required Levi’s full attention. The first few minutes were a clumsy conversation between his body and the animal’s—too tight in the knees, too tense in the hands, correcting things that did not need correcting. Aaron kept pace beside him, offering short, practical corrections without any hint of frustration

"Loosen the reins. You’re not interrogating her."

"Look where you want to go, not at her ears."

"Breathe. You’re holding your breath like we’re under attack."

Levi exhaled deliberately. The chestnut’s ears flicked back, then forward again. The rhythm of the walk began to make a kind of sense. The walls of the mansion fell behind them by degrees until the sound of the house faded into birdsong, the soft thud of hooves, and the low creak of leather.

They reached a wider track that followed the line of a low wall. Aaron glanced over, assessing.

"Better. You look less like a sack of grain."

"Your praise is overwhelming."

"I can go back to insults if you prefer."

"This is fine."

A genuine, surprised huff of amusement left Aaron. The sound was rough and unguarded. For a while they simply rode, the bay and the chestnut matching paces along the track. The air was cool and clean. Sunlight lay across the fields in broad sheets. Levi felt the constant, low-grade tension that had lived in his shoulders for weeks begin to ease by increments, as if the open space itself were prying it loose.

Aaron slowed them to a halt near a stand of trees where the ground leveled out. He dismounted, then came around to help Levi down. The process was less disastrous than mounting had been, though Levi’s legs wobbled slightly when his boots hit the earth. Aaron’s hand stayed at his elbow a moment longer than strictly required.

"You didn’t fall off," Aaron said. "I’m almost impressed."

"I am a natural. A slow, terrified natural."

They let the horses crop grass. Levi leaned against the low wall, face turned up to the light, and allowed himself the simple novelty of not being inside.

Aaron stood a step away, arms resting on the wall, gaze on the tree line. The restless energy that usually rolled off him had quieted into something more settled. After a stretch of comfortable silence, he spoke without looking over.

"Do you miss your family?"

It was an odd question, one that Levi genuinely hadn’t expected, not from Aaron, and definitely not at a time like this.

Levi did not answer at once. He watched the chestnut’s ears flick at a fly and thought about his answer for a minute more.

"Yes," he said finally. "I do."

Aaron didn’t reply, he could sense the omega still had more than those answers.

"They gave me away." Levi’s voice stayed even, but the words cost something. "Stood in that room and decided I was the one who could be spared. I hated them for it. I still do, some days. But I miss them anyway. I miss the ordinary life. The way the house sounded in the morning, my mother’s voice when she wasn’t crying. Even my brothers being loud and useless. I love them.."

Aaron was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, the usual rough edge had softened.

"Do you want to see them?"

Levi shook his head before the thought had fully finished forming.

"No. Not yet. I haven’t forgiven them. I don’t know if I will. And I’m not ready to stand in front of them and pretend any of this is normal, or fine, or settled. I can miss them and still not want to walk back into that room. Both things are true at the same time."

Aaron nodded once, slowly, as if the answer fit some private understanding of his own. He did not offer empty comfort or a practical solution. He simply stayed where he was, he couldn’t say he understood exactly how Levi felt, but he had a little bit of understanding of what it felt being considered the least valuable in your family.

The silence that followed felt different from the silences inside the mansion. Levi became aware of the small distance between them, and the fact that neither of them was currently performing a role for an audience of servants or political observers.

Aaron turned his head, and Levi met his eyes.

There was a small spark of electricity, one that each of them had felt strongly.

Aaron’s gaze dropped briefly to Levi’s mouth, then returned. There was no sudden collision this time, no one about to interrupt. Aaron lifted a hand and settled it against the side of Levi’s neck, thumb resting just below the jaw, and waited—giving him the half-second required to step away if he wanted to.

Levi did not step away.

The kiss was slower than the one in Aaron’s rooms. Less desperate. It still carried heat, and the rough edge of a man who did not do anything halfway, but it did not feel like a mistake either of them was already preparing to name. Levi’s fingers curled into the front of Aaron’s shirt. Aaron’s hand slid up into his hair, tilting his head to deepen the contact. The horses shifted nearby, unconcerned.

When they finally separated, Aaron’s forehead rested briefly against Levi’s. Both of them were breathing less evenly than before. Neither of them moved to put meaningful distance between their bodies.

"We should head back before someone decides to look for us."

"Probably," Levi agreed, and did not immediately step away.

They stood there a moment longer in the open light, the taste of the kiss still between them, the fields quiet around the small temporary peace they had stolen. Then Aaron squeezed the back of Levi’s neck once, short and certain, and turned to collect the horses.

Levi followed, legs still a little unsteady for reasons that had nothing to do with the ride.