Chapter 61: Early Return

The Alpha came back a day early. No one saw it coming. The message hit the main gate at midday, and by the time the first servant finished running the length of the hall, the whole house was already moving. Guards changed posts. Senior staff left their work where it sat. The princes were called in from whatever they were doing, and the tension on the house seemed to triple.

He had heard about the second claim while he was still on the road. Someone had sent word. The poisoning news reached him at the gate, fresh and ugly. Two problems tied to the same omega, waiting for him the moment he stepped back onto his own land. He did not shout. He did not throw anything. He walked into the house with a face that gave nothing away, and everyone who saw him understood that the calm was not the same thing as peace.

They gave him the reports in short pieces. The second mark was Aaron’s, and the physicians said the omega had taken enough wolfsbane to die if help had come even a little later. He was stable now, but still recovering.

The Alpha asked where the omega was, and after getting his answer, he marched straight to the medical wing.

***

Levi was awake when the door opened.

He thought it would be a nurse, a prince, or a guard checking the room again. The man who stepped inside was none of those. The Alpha of the territory stood in the doorway in travel clothes, dust still on his boots, eyes flat and tired and fixed on the bed like he had already decided what he was looking at.

Levi tried to sit up. His body was still heavy from the poison. His arms shook, but he persisted, after all this was his father in law. He forced his shoulders off the pillows and opened his mouth to greet him the way anyone under this roof was supposed to greet the head of the house.

"Save your words." The older man shunned before Levi could manage to get a single word out.

The Alpha closed the door and walked to the foot of the bed. He did not sit down. He did not look around the room, he simply stared at Levi and nothing else, rage and bitterness swirling deep inside of him.

He hated that this omega was becoming more than what he was supposed to, none of his other hostages had ever put his household through this much strain. And the wolfsbane, he was cautious and understood the possibilities that came with this single poisoning. He had learnt that the culprit hadn’t been caught yet, and that made him uneasy. But that wasn’t why he was here, he had come here to make sure this omega understood his place.

"I know the game you’re playing," he said. "The claims. The way you keep finding space to move every time this house tries to hold you in one place. I’ll give you credit for one thing. You’ve gotten farther than most people would have in your position."

Levi did not speak, he honestly didn’t even know what to say to those words.

"But it ends here." The Alpha’s voice stayed level. It did not need to get louder. "You will not keep pushing. You will not keep pulling my sons into fights with each other or with the arrangements that keep this territory standing. You came here as a blood debt. That is still what you are.."

Levi held his eyes.

He did not look down at the sheets. He did not nod. He did not argue back. He simply stared at the older man with the same flat attention he was being given.The silence went on long enough to become its own answer, and he was certain the Alpha was smart enough to understand what that meant.

The Alpha scoffed, irritated by the lack of emotion the omega showed. Two of his sons had marked this boy, and he was sure the omega understood he could no longer be treated as an ordinary servant. However, he was not about to help feed that narrative.

"You’ve learned the wrong things from this place," he said. Then he turned and left.

The door shut. His footsteps moved away down the hall, and the medical room went quiet again. Levi could hear his own breathing. He could hear the distant noise of the house still turning itself over around the Alpha’s early return. He let his head fall back against the pillows and stared at the ceiling until the worst of the shaking in his hands settled.

Levi closed his eyes for a moment, hoping to get some rest and forget everything that had just happened. When he opened them, the door was moving again.

Aaron came in.

He looked like a man who had been pulled from one hard talk into another without time to breathe. His eyes went to Levi first, then to the door the Alpha had used, then back to Levi.

"What did he say to you?"

Levi shook his head once.

"Nothing that matters."

"Levi."

"It’s nothing." His voice was still rough from the poison and the earlier shouting. "He knows about the second claim, he simply came to tell me to know my place. That was the whole visit."

Aaron stood at the side of the bed. His jaw was tight. The restless energy that usually rolled off him was still there, pushed down hard under the weight of the day.

Levi watched him for a few seconds, and decided that it was the time to tell the truth. With the Alpha back, perhaps he’d ask Elvis to leave with immediate effect upon learning the truth.

"I know who poisoned me."

Aaron went still, and the air in the room changed in a second.

"Who?"

Levi did not look away.

"Elvis."

Aaron did not answer at once. His face moved through several things in a short span, shock first, then anger, then the colder look of a man already sorting out ways to dismember his enemy.

"You’re sure," Aaron said. It was not really a question.

"He came here himself." Levi’s voice stayed steady even though his body did not feel steady. "He stood at the end of this bed and told me he came to watch me suffer the consequences. He said this was a lesson, and said the next one would be more severe. Then he walked out."

Aaron’s hands curled into fists at his sides.

"When did this happen?"

"Before your father got here. Not long before."

"And you’re only telling me now."

"I was waiting for someone who would actually hear it." Levi kept his eyes on Aaron’s.

Aaron turned away from the bed. He walked two steps toward the wall, stopped, and stood there with his back partly to Levi. The muscle in his jaw worked. When he turned around again, the heat in his eyes had gone flat and dangerous.

"Does anyone else know?"

"Not yet. I told you first."

Aaron nodded once. He went to the door, pulled it open, and spoke to the guard in the hall in a low, tight voice. The guard answered and left at a run. Aaron shut the door and came back to the bed.

"You’re not staying in this room alone," he said. "Not while he’s still on the grounds. I’ll put real guards on the door. And I’m going to find him."

"Your father just told me the game is over," Levi said. "If you go after a visiting Alpha with nothing but my word—"

"Then I’ll get more than your word." Aaron leaned down, one hand on the edge of the mattress, close enough that Levi could feel the full force of his attention. "You almost died on the floor of that room, and he had the audacity to walk in here after that fact and call this just a lesson. I don’t care what pack he rides for. I don’t care what kind of political mess it starts. He does not get to keep walking these halls like he still owns a piece of you."

Levi didn’t say anything in response to those words, he already knew Aaron would get angry, and that was exactly why he had been the best person to tell first. Kai and Dexter would probably try to take a more soft and political approach, but Aaron always brought the fight. And right now, Levi needed that fight more than anything, after all he was at war with Elvis.

Aaron pushed off the mattress and straightened, but Aaron stopped him before he could make another move.

"Rest," he said. "Do not open this door for anyone who isn’t me, Dexter, or Kai. I’ll be back."

With that he turned and headed for the door.

Levi stared at the closed door for a long time after the footsteps faded. He couldn’t help but feel like things were going to change dramatically after today, and he wasn’t even sure if he was ready for that change.