Chapter 58: The Second Suspect

The news reached Merrick in the back corridor behind the laundry. He had already grown suspicious when guards started searching everyone. But after overhearing two guards speaking on what really happened, he felt his world tilt.

Wolfsbane. The Hill omega. Levi had been poisoned. He should have been glad, but Merrick felt nothing but terror. He was going to be the first name in every mouth.

The punch, the shouting, and the confession that he had wanted Aaron for years and hated Levi for taking him. If Levi woke and repeated even a fraction of what had been said in that room, the household would not need a lengthy investigation. They would come straight to the omega servant who had already put hands on the victim once.

Merrick had not poisoned anyone.

He turned the fact over with frantic precision. He had not sourced wolfsbane. He had not put it in food or water or air. He did not even know how a person acquired wolfsbane inside a territory this tightly controlled, let alone paid for it. The hatred had been real. The punch had been real. The poison was someone else’s work, and it was going to land on him anyway unless he moved first.

He had two options to save himself. Either silence the omega for good, or find a way to clear his name before it ever got mentioned.

The first option sat in his mind for a single, ugly second. He shoved it aside hard enough that his stomach turned. He wasn’t even sure he had the guts to kill someone, let alone Levi who everybody seemed to watch every single second.

He had to talk, that was his only option now.

The medical wing sat on the wastern side of the main house, quieter than the family corridors, smelling of boiled linen and alcohol. Merrick approached with a stack of towels as a prop and the blank, busy expression of a servant on assignment. The guard at the outer junction glanced at him, registered the linens, and looked away. Luck, or carelessness, or the simple fact that the house was still treating the poisoning as a contained medical event rather than an active hunt. Merrick did not question it. He walked on.

Levi’s room was at the end of a short hall. The door was ajar. No voices came from inside, which meant that Levi was alone. Merrick’s pulse hammered in his throat. He pushed the door open the rest of the way, stepped through, and closed it softly behind him.

Levi was awake.

He lay propped against the pillows, face pale under the spreading bruise Merrick’s own fist had left, eyes already fixed on the door as if he had been waiting for the next disaster to walk through it. When he registered Merrick, the color that remained in his face drained. His hand moved weakly toward the edge of the bed—toward a call bell, or simply away.

"Did you come to finish what you started?"

The question was hoarse and flat with exhausted fear. It hit Merrick harder than the accusation of poisoning itself.

"No." The word came out too fast. He stayed near the door, towels still clutched against his chest like a shield. "I didn’t— I didn’t do this. I didn’t poison you. I don’t even know who did."

Levi’s eyes narrowed, and he glared at the omega with hatred strong enough to kill. He didn’t believe those words, not one bit.

"Get out."

"I need you to listen."

"Guards—"

Merrick moved before the full shout could form. He crossed the room in three unsteady strides and pressed his palm over Levi’s mouth, not hard enough to cut air, but hard enough to stop the sound. Levi’s body jerked. Fresh panic flared in his eyes. Merrick leaned in, speaking low and rapid, the towels fallen forgotten to the floor.

"I’m telling the truth, just listen to me. I know i said that I hated you, I hit you, and said things I shouldn’t have said. But I did not put wolfsbane in your body. I couldn’t have. I haven’t left this castle in five years. I don’t have money. I don’t have contacts outside the servants’ wing. Wolfsbane isn’t something you pick up in a laundry corridor, Levi. It costs a fortune and it comes from people who don’t sell to household omegas with bruised knuckles and no name. Whoever did this either had exclusive access to the poison already inside these walls, or they had the wealth and the reach to bring it in. That is not me. That has never been me."

Levi’s breathing was hot and fast against his palm. For a moment the only sound in the room was the two of them—Merrick’s frantic pulse, and Levi’s strained silence. Slowly, carefully, Merrick lifted his hand.

Levi did not immediately shout.

The fear was still there, bright and undiminished. He wasn’t afraid of Merrick, he could probably take the omega in a fight if he tried. It was just that right now he felt defenseless, and wouldn’t be able to defend himself if attacked.

He had heard what Merrick had to say, and he hated to admit the fact that the omega was correct.

"You’re saying it was someone with money," Levi said. His voice was raw. "Or access."

"I’m saying it wasn’t me." Merrick stepped back, giving space he wasn’t sure would help. "I came here because I knew what it would look like when you woke up. I knew my name would be the first one in the room. I didn’t do it. I don’t know who did. But if you send them to the servants’ quarters looking only for me, the person who actually put that poison in you walks free and tries again."

Levi’s hands had curled in the sheet. The bruise on his face stood out darker in the clinical light. When he spoke again, the words were quieter and more dangerous.

"Flora."

Merrick didn’t confirm or deny. He didn’t have to. He had no idea what business levi and the luna had, and quite frankly he wasn’t interested. He had too much going on already.

Realizing that Merrick was still in the room, Levi dismissed his thoughts and faced the servant.

"Get away from me," Levi said.

"Levi—"

"I don’t trust you." The sentence was flat and final. "I don’t want you near me. You put your hands on me once. And I don’t care if you poisoned me or not, I just don’t want you anywhere near me."

Merrick held his ground for half a second longer.. Then he bent, picked up the fallen towels with unsteady hands, and backed toward the door.

"I didn’t do it," he said once more, because the alternative was silence and silence felt like drowning.

Levi only looked at him, he had nothing more to say to that man.

Levi remained propped against the pillows, now more focused on Flora more than ever. Aside from Merrick, she was probably the only one who had motive to take him out. And unlike Merrick, she had connections that could get her wolfsbane. He had wanted to overlook her before, but now he couldn’t help but feel that this was definitely her handiwork.