Chapter 50: Conditions

The silence lasted long enough that the ordinary sounds of the house began to filter back in. Neither brother moved. Aaron remained leaning against the desk, arms crossed, gaze fixed on Kai with the hard, assessing attention he usually reserved for people he was about to hit. Kai sat in the chair as if the wood itself were the only thing still holding his posture upright, and met that gaze without looking away.

Aaron spoke first, realizing that silence wasn’t going to fix any of this, nor would it answer the questions he had.

"Are you being serious?"

"Yes." Kai’s voice had shed the last of its public polish. What remained was quiet and stripped. "This is the only favor I will ask of you. I will not come to you again with something of this nature."

Aaron let out a short, incredulous breath that was almost a laugh and almost a snarl.

"Even if it is the only one, that does not make the request less ridiculous." He pushed off the desk and took a single pace, then another, the movement restless with the effort of not raising his voice. "You want me to stand in front of this house, in front of Dexter, in front of Father when he returns, in front of every servant with eyes and every allied Alpha with an opinion, and say that the second claim on that omega is mine. You want me to carry the jealousy, the consequences, and the permanent fact of it on my name so that yours remains clean enough for Flora and the northern packs. That is not a favor, Kai. That is you handing me the wreckage and asking me to call it mine."

"I understand what I am asking."

"Do you?"

"Yes." Kai’s hands had gone still on the arms of the chair. "And you need to understand what is at risk if I do not. You should know above all others just how many responsibilities I’m shouldering, and what this would cost me. I am not asking you to do this because it is convenient. I am asking because every other path I have examined ends in something worse."

Aaron turned the words over in silence.

He understood the risk. He understood it with the particular clarity of someone who had spent his life watching the house prioritize its own stability over the comfort of any single person inside it. He understood that Kai’s fall would not be private, and that the omega currently sitting in the supervised wing with two completed marks on his throat would absorb the first and hardest of the consequences. He also understood exactly what accepting the request would cost him.

If the second mark became publicly his, he could never place a true claim of his own without exposing the lie. The moment his teeth broke Levi’s skin in earnest, anyone with sense would recognize the difference between a claimed bond and a story told to protect the heir. Aaron would be locked out of the one thing his brothers already possessed. He would be left standing in the aftermath, holding the consequences without ever having been allowed the act itself.

Like always.

The middle son. The one who absorbed impact. The one who made noise so the house would remember he existed, and then got handed the mess when the quieter, more favored pieces moved out of position.

Aaron dragged both hands down his face and exhaled hard through his nose. The anger in his chest had nowhere clean to go. He desperately wanted to laugh at Kai and call him a fool for making that request. This would probably be the first time he wasn’t the prince at the receiving end of scrutiny. For the first time the two golden sons were the ones who broke the rules and had messed up, and he wasn’t a part of it. He wondered what their father would think when he learnt of this.

After going through his thoughts, he dropped his hands and stared at Kai.

"I understand what is at risk," he said. "That does not mean I am going to help you."

Kai’s expression did not change, but something in the set of his shoulders tightened.

Aaron continued, voice low and rough.

"If I take that mark as mine, I lose the ability to ever make one of my own without lighting the entire structure on fire. Dexter already has his claim. You already have yours. What you’re asking me to do is to take the punishment and blame for something I didn’t do, and then get no reward for it. So no. I am not going to smile and absorb this for you simply because you finally found a situation you cannot control alone."

The quiet that followed was heavier than the first.

Kai did not argue. He sat with the refusal as if he had already prepared for it and still had no alternate route to offer.

Aaron walked to the window, braced one hand against the frame, and stared out at the grounds without seeing them. Was he being a complete jerk? He asked himself. He knew that compared to Kai, he had very little to lose. In fact, he doubted anybody would react to the fact that he was the one who had marked Levi, they’d probably consider it something that he was always capable of doing, after all he always broke the rules.

But this was his turn to shine, his turn to prove that he was just as good as his brothers, perhaps even better. They’d walked over him all his life, and this opportunity was finally here to prove that he was also a responsible person. But was this petty reason actually worth ruining his brother? To Aaron, it didn’t.

He turned back to face Kai, his mind now made up.

"I’ll do it."

Kai’s head lifted, his eyes immediately lighting up with hope at the sound of those words.

"But not for free," Aaron said. "And not for the reasons you want. I’ll give you two conditions. You accept both, or you walk out of this room and handle the wreckage yourself."

"Name them." Kai demanded, his desperation almost palpable.

"First." Aaron’s voice flattened into something that left no room for negotiation. "You help me get rid of Elvis. Not a polite political distance, and not a suggestion that he return to Eastridge when it is convenient. I want him out of this territory and away from Levi. You will use whatever authority, pressure, and northern leverage you still possess to make that happen, and you will do it before Father returns and the window closes. I am not going to stand in front of this house and call that second mark mine while the Alpha who already abused him walks these corridors talking about collecting what is his."

Kai’s jaw tightened, getting rid of Elvis was going to be difficult, but it wasn’t an impossible task. "Agreed."

"Second." Aaron held his brother’s gaze and did not blink. "From this moment forward, you smother whatever it is you feel for him. You do not visit his rooms. You do not invent reasons to be in the same corridor. You do not look at him like a man who already knows the taste of the mistake. You want me to carry the public claim so your future with Flora and the alliance survives—then you do your part. If I find out you have gone near him again in private, the agreement ends, and I tell the truth to anyone who will listen. Including Father and Flora."

Kai was silent for a long moment. The cost of the second term showed in the faint tension around his eyes. That condition shouldn’t have bothered him the way it did, but somehow a part of him felt the strong urge to reject it and fight whatever the consequences were. But he wasn’t stupid, and he knew those consequences would overwhelm him.

When he spoke, the word was quiet and absolute.

"Agreed."

Aaron studied him for any trace of hesitation and found only the hard, familiar resolve of a man who had decided what he would pay.

"Then we have an understanding," Aaron said. "The second mark is mine. In every room, in every conversation, in front of Dexter and Father and anyone else who asks. You will back the story without qualification. And you will keep your end of the conditions."

Kai inclined his head once. The gesture carried the weight of a formal seal.

Aaron turned toward the door. His hand settled on the latch, then paused.

"One more thing," he said without looking back. "If Dexter comes for me over this, you do not stand aside and let him. You helped create the board we are standing on, so you do not get to watch the pieces collide from a safe distance."

"I will not stand aside," Kai said.

Aaron opened the door and left afterwards. He felt stupid for agreeing to that request, but a great part of him told him it was probably the right thing to do. After all, he had used that request to potentially get rid of two of the competition. Now all that was left was Dexter, and the consequences of claiming the omega last night.