Chapter 65: A Demand

A week had passed since the poisoning. Levi had been discharged from the medical wing two days earlier. The residual weakness was still there if he moved too fast, but he could stand, walk, and close his own door. His room looked the same as before, but the guards outside had changed. Aaron’s orders had stuck. The trays came through a short list of hands, and no one who had served the Eastridge rooms came near him.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed when the knock came. A servant he did not know well stood in the doorway, eyes down.

"The Alpha requests a private audience," the servant said. "Now."

Levi was not surprised. He had been waiting for this since the old man walked into the medical room, told him the game was over, and left. A week of silence did not mean the matter had been dropped. It meant the Alpha had been choosing the moment.

Levi stood, smoothed the front of his shirt, and followed.

***

The Alphas study sat deep in the family wing, and it was clearly in a league of its own. Levi had never walked this deep into the family wing before, in fact this was the first time he was seeing these walls. When they reached, the servant pushed the door open and led the way inside.

The Alpha was standing behind the desk, not sitting. He looked at Levi once, then nodded at a chair opposite the desk.

"Sit."

Levi sat, and the old man dismissed the servant with a small movement of his fingers. The door closed, and the room immediately fell into a mood of despair and tension.

"You asked to see me," Levi started, easing off the mood a little.

"Yes." The Alpha remained on his feet, one hand resting on the back of his own chair. "Unfortunately, you have become a problem that can no longer be overlooked. You carry the marks of two of my sons, and that is not something I can ignore very easily."

He turned fully toward Levi, and their eyes met for the first time since he entered. Levi could see the rage and distaste the Alpha had for him in those dull old eyes, but he did not look down, he simply couldn’t afford to look weak at the moment.

"Do you know why you were brought to this house in the first place?" the Alpha asked.

"Payment," Levi said. "For the death of your daughter."

"Yes." The Alpha’s voice stayed level. "You were brought here to settle a debt, not to climb. So explain to me why you are reaching for heights you were never meant to have. Do you believe that two claims on your throat change the reason you walked through these gates? Do you believe marks erase the fact that you arrived as property against a life that cannot be returned?"

Levi held his gaze.

"I hope things change," he said. "It would look bad for people to learn that two of your sons are mated to a slave. That kind of story does not stay inside one territory. You care about the reputation of this house. So do I—for my own reasons."

For the first time, the Alpha smiled. It was thin and did not warm his eyes.

"And what, exactly, are your plans?"

"Plans?" Levi repeated. He kept his hands still on his thighs. "This is not a scheme I invented in a room. I am their mate, they were always going to claim me eventually. That is the natural order of a fated pull, and I did not create it."

The Alpha studied him in silence for a stretch of seconds. The dominance in the room pressed down without theatrics. Levi felt it against his skin, but he did not buckle.

"What do you want?" the Alpha asked at last. "Your freedom? A release from the debt? Shall I open the gates and send you back to the family that gave you away?"

He moved around the end of the desk until he stood closer, looking down at Levi with the full weight of the title behind his eyes.

"I want you away from my sons," he said. "Away from this family."

Levi did not look away, and he wasn’t planning to do so anytime soon.

"I no longer want freedom," he said, unyielding in his stare. "Omegas are never truly free. Not in my family’s house. Not in Eastridge. Not in most of the territories that would take in a discarded debt. Freedom is a word that doesn’t apply to people like me. The moment I step out of here, away from your sons, Elvis or another Alpha is going to want to put their fangs in my throat."

He paused to take a breath, then continued, his voice even.

"I am not greedy. I am not asking for a title or a seat you would never give. I want to be welcomed as part of this family, and not treated as a problem to be starved out of significance. Part of the family. And if I am part of the family, then a threat against me is a threat against the pack."

The Alpha’s expression did not change, but something in the air sharpened.

"Speak plainly."

"I want a certain threat gone," Levi said. "Elvis of Eastridge. He poisoned me. He stood in the medical wing and called it a lesson. He promised the next one would be more severe. And as long as he remains under this roof, the next lesson is only a matter of time. I want him gone by dawn."

There was silence, one that probably lasted longer than it should. Levi could tell the old Alpha was weighing his options, either leave Elvis to get rid of the omega, or risk the possibility of Levi getting a third claim from his first son. Levi could read the old man like a book.

He smiled inwardly, he knew what the old Alpha’s response would be. He had not come into this room to beg for release, he had come to name his price for the stability the Alpha wanted back.

The old man looked at him for a long time. The thin smile had gone. What remained was assessment, cold, precise, and not yet a verdict.

"By dawn," the Alpha repeated.

"By dawn," Levi said.