Chapter 54: Confrontation

The news reached Merrick in the servants’ corridor, delivered with the same flat efficiency as a laundry list.

Levi Hill had been marked again, and the second claim belonged to the second prince.

For a moment Merrick stood very still with an armful of folded linens The senior maid who had spoken was already moving on, voice lowered into the particular tone the household used for scandals that were not yet allowed to be called scandals. Two other servants exchanged glances and said nothing. The corridor continued its ordinary morning traffic around him as if the information had not just removed the floor.

Aaron.

The name landed harder the second time. Merrick’s hands tightened on the linens until the fabric creased. Had he heard correctly? Or were those maids just spewing nonsense? It couldn’t be right, there was no way Aaron could have marked that omega, not with the orders from the Alpha.

Not when he had skipped the doses so he might be noticed. Not when he was risking his life by still skipping the doses despite orders and warnings.

Something in Merrick’s vision narrowed.

He set the linens down on the nearest side table without checking whether they belonged there. He turned. His feet carried him toward the supervised wing before the rest of his mind had finished assembling a reason.

When he reached the door, he stood outside it for a moment, as if deciding if he should enter or not. Before he could convince himself not to do so, he pushed the door open without knocking.

The door to Levi’s room gave under his hand. He stepped inside and shut it hard enough that the sound cracked through the space like a thrown plate.

Levi stood near the foot of the bed, half-turned, already dressed, and feeling pretty proud of himself now. He looked up to see Merrick walking towards him, clearly surprised by the young man’s expression and entrance.

"Merrick? Is something—"

Merrick’s fist connected with his face before the question finished.

The impact was ugly and inexpert and deeply satisfying for one pure, white-hot second. Levi went backward, shoulder hitting the bedpost, hand flying up to his nose as blood started immediately. The sound he made was more shock than pain. Merrick stood over him with his own knuckles stinging and the roar in his chest only louder for having been given somewhere to go.

"Why is it always you?"

The words tore out of him raw. He did not recognize his own voice. Five years of careful silence and correct posture had not prepared him for the way the sentence left his mouth.

Levi stared up at him over his bloodied hand, eyes wide, still trying to catch up to the fact that the punch had come from him. Merrick. The quiet one.

"Merrick—"

"Why is everyone drawn to you?" Merrick’s breath was coming too fast. His eyes burned. He hated the heat in them almost as much as he hated the omega on the floor. "You arrive as a debt. You take up space you were never supposed to have. And suddenly the entire house orbits you. Dexter. The first prince. Aaron." The name broke on the way out. "I have wanted him for years. Years. I have stood in doorways and corridors and the edges of rooms and watched him and made myself small enough that no one would notice an omega servant looking where he should not look. He never saw me. Not once. And you—you shoe out of nowhere and get his claim."

Blood ran between Levi’s fingers. He pushed himself into a more upright position against the bedpost, free hand braced on the floor, and still had the gall to look as if he wanted to understand.

"I didn’t—"

"Do not." Merrick’s hands were shaking. He curled them into fists to make them stop and felt the sting in his knuckles where they had split against Levi’s face. "Do not tell me you didn’t ask for it. I know exactly what people like you are capable of. You just want power and position, you don’t care about Aaron!"

Levi although in pain was more moved by the confession he was hearing. It all made sense to him now why Merrick had changed. And was he also dodging his suppressants so he could seduce Aaron with his scent? It seemed like it. Levi really had no inclination to explain himself, in fact he felt like Merrick was utterly foolish to come to his room and spew those words. Regardless, he understood what years of longing and obsession could do to someone.

"I hate you," Merrick continued. The sentence came out lower, rougher, and more honest than anything he had allowed himself to say since the night his pack’s lines broke and this house took him in as spoils. "I hate you for existing in front of him. I hate you for the way he looks at you. I will not forgive you for stealing the man I love. Do you understand me? I will not forgive it."

Levi shifted as if he might stand. His voice, when it came, was thick with blood and careful in a way that only made Merrick angrier.

"Calm down, Merrick. Perhaps we should talk things out—"

"I have nothing to discuss with you."

Merrick stepped forward and shoved him back when Levi tried to rise—hands against shoulders, a full, untidy push that put Levi on the floor again and left Merrick standing over him breathing like he had run the length of the family wing.

"I do not care about your explanations. I do not care about what you have to say. I cared about one thing in this house. One! And you took it without ever once looking in my direction to see what you were walking across."

His eyes were streaming now. He could feel the wetness on his face and hated every fraction of it. The second missed suppressant dose had left him without armor; every emotion arrived at full size and refused to be folded back into the quiet, functional shape he had lived inside for half a decade. He wanted to hit Levi again. He wanted to put his hands around his own throat and silence the sounds coming out of it. He wanted Aaron to walk through the door and look at him, even if the looking came with the same dismissal as the morning in the bedroom.

Mostly he wanted the world to stop arranging itself around Levi Hill.

"Stay away from him," Merrick said, and the order was pathetic even as he gave it—an omega servant with no rank, no claim, and a bleeding set of knuckles, issuing demands to the person the entire bloodline had decided to orbit. "I do not care what marks you wear. I do not care what deals you have made. You have taken enough."

Now Levi wanted to laugh. Was Merrick really hearing himself? Aaron was his mate, he couldn’t stay away even if he wanted to, and he definitely wasn’t going to do so because Merrick asked him to. Now he wanted to advise the omega, tell him it was best he stopped daydreaming. But Merrick did not let him speak.

He turned hard, wrenched the door open, and walked out into the corridor with his face wet and his hand throbbing and the full, undiluted hatred sitting in his chest like a live coal. He did not look back. He did not close the door gently. He moved through the supervised wing with the blank, rapid stride of someone who would break apart completely if they slowed down for even a single step.

Only when he reached the turn toward the servants’ quarters did the sound finally escape him, a single, rough, involuntary noise that belonged to no version of the competent, invisible Merrick this household had spent five years training into existence.

He put his split knuckles against the cold stone wall, pressed his forehead to the back of his hand, and stood there shaking and sobbing.