Chapter 78: Resolve

Aaron did not go to the training yard. He went to the old east gallery—the long, unused stretch of corridor that looked over the inner courtyard and saw almost no traffic before midday. He stopped at the far window, braced both hands against the stone sill, and let the full force of the morning land on him without witnesses.

He was done.

Done covering for Kai’s perfect image. Done absorbing Dexter’s schemes and then being told to stay quiet for the good of the house. Done walking into every mess his brothers created and walking out looking like the problem because he was the one who raised his voice or threw the first punch. Every time he protected them, the story somehow turned him into the unstable middle son who could not control his temper. Every time he swallowed the damage, they moved on and left him standing in the wreckage with the blame still stuck to his skin.

Not this time. He wasn’t going to sit still and let this one happen because he had gotten used to it.

Footsteps approached behind him—lighter than a guard’s, familiar enough that the bond in his chest recognized them before his mind did.

Levi.

Aaron turned.

Whatever Levi had expected to find, blind rage, pacing, the start of another explosion, it was not what stood in front of him. Aaron’s face was set. The temper was still there, banked and dangerous, but underneath it ran a resolve so complete it made the air feel colder. Levi stopped a few paces away, and for the first time since the medical wing Aaron saw real uncertainty cross the omega’s expression.

"Aaron—"

"I want to mark you."

The words came out flat and certain. No preamble, and no negotiation.

Levi stared at him. "What?"

"Right now." Aaron stepped away from the window. "I’m done waiting. I’m done protecting other people’s secrets while they use me as the convenient villain. I want my claim on you where everyone can see it."

"Have you forgotten about Kai?" Levi’s voice was careful, almost cautious. "His mark is already—"

"Kai can deal with his own problems." Aaron’s eyes did not waver. "I am finished covering for him. Finished covering for Dexter. Finished being the one who stays quiet so the house can keep pretending the first heir is perfect and the third is only playing games. If they want me to be the bad person they have always been ready to call me, then that is exactly what they are going to get."

Levi took a breath, he understood Aaron’s point, but he felt like he was doing this out of rage. He didn’t want to do something he’d regret after two hours of anger. "His wedding is in a week. Do you really want to do this to your brother?"

Aaron’s mouth tightened, he considered Levi’s words, but made up his mind instantly.

"I am not the one who told my brother to lose his self-control and claim you while he already had someone waiting for him. He made that choice himself, so he can live with the consequences. I am done carrying them for him."

Levi looked at him for a long moment. The arguments that should have come—politics, Flora, the northern guests, the old Alpha—rose and fell away behind his eyes. Something in Aaron’s face left no room for them. The resolve was not a mood. It was a decision that had already finished forming.

Levi did not step back.

Aaron closed the distance, caught Levi by the waist, and kissed him with none of the careful restraint of the soft days in the new rooms. This was claim and hunger and the need to put something permanent on the only person in the house who had not treated him like a problem to be managed. Levi made a sound against his mouth and answered it, fingers curling into the front of Aaron’s shirt hard enough to pull the fabric tight.

They did not make it far. Aaron backed him into the nearest recessed archway, out of the direct line of the gallery windows, and pressed him there. Hands found the hem of Levi’s shirt and pushed it up; Levi lifted his arms and let it go. Skin met skin. Aaron’s mouth moved to the unmarked side of Levi’s throat, and bit down gently, not breaking skin yet, just holding the promise there until Levi’s breath stuttered.

"Here," Aaron said against his pulse. "Where it belongs."

Levi’s answer was to drag him back into another kiss, deeper, open, the last of the morning’s exhaustion burning off under the heat of contact. Aaron’s hands mapped the line of his spine, the curve of his hip, the places he had touched before in anger or urgency and now touched with the deliberate intent of a man who was not leaving this corridor without finishing what he had started.

Clothes followed the shirt to the floor in a rough, impatient sequence. Aaron lifted him; Levi’s legs locked around his waist. The stone of the arch was cool against Levi’s back. Aaron’s body was not. When he pushed inside it was slow only for the first breath, giving Levi time to adjust, then deeper, surer, the rhythm building as if every frustrated year of being the overlooked brother and every hour of the previous night had narrowed to this single point of contact.

Levi held on.

Fingers in Aaron’s hair. Mouth against his shoulder. The bond that had always pulled between them flared bright and demanding. Aaron’s thrusts grew harder, more focused, each one driving a low sound from Levi’s throat that the empty gallery swallowed without echo. Sweat slicked the places where their skin met.

"Aaron—"

"I know." Aaron’s voice was rough against his ear. "I’ve got you."

The release hit Levi first, sharp and full-body, his head tipping back against the stone. Aaron followed with a broken sound, hips stuttering, and in the same breath his canines sank into the side of Levi’s throat.

The claim lit through both of them like a second climax.

Pain and pleasure braided together. Aaron held the bite until the worst of the shaking passed, then licked the wound once, careful, almost reverent, before resting his forehead against Levi’s.

They stayed like that, joined and breathing hard, while the morning continued beyond the gallery as if nothing in the house had changed.

Everything had.

Aaron eased back enough to look at the fresh mark—his mark—already darkening on Levi’s skin opposite the older ones. His thumb brushed the edge of it once. When he spoke, the resolve was still there, quieter now but no less absolute.

"I should have done this a long time ago."

Levi’s fingers stayed in his hair. His body still hummed with the aftershock. He did not argue or say anything, he didn’t need to and honestly had nothing to say. All he could think of was the pleasure, and what the problems that would come afterwards.