Chapter 47: The Wind Of Change

The breathing had not yet fully settled when Kai moved.

He pushed himself up and off the bed in one abrupt motion, as if the contact itself had become intolerable. Cool air rushed into the space where his body had been. For a moment he simply stood there at the edge of the mattress, bare, shoulders rigid, staring at nothing while the reality of what had just happened dawned on him.

The mark on Levi’s throat was already beginning to darken, and he could feel a sensation that went beyond the ordinary bond while staring at the omega now.

What had he done? What on earth had he done? Kai yelled at himself inwardly. How could he have let himself be seduced by this omega? No, this was definitely a nightmare, it couldn’t be real, there was no way any of this was real. Yet, the doubt, the pain, and this new feeling, they all refused to go away, he wasn’t dreaming at all.

"This was a mistake."

Kai stammered as he slowly backed away from the bed.

Levi pushed up onto his elbows. The sheet was somewhere on the floor. He made no move to retrieve it. His body still hummed with the aftermath, marked and claimed in a way that was no longer only Dexter’s. He watched Kai’s face and saw the exact moment the first heir’s carefully rebuilt walls tried to slam back into place over the wreckage.

"Kai—"

"Do not." Kai’s voice cut across the beginning of the sentence without rising. He bent, gathered his discarded shirt, and pulled it on with short, precise motions that betrayed nothing except the fine tremor in his hands. "Do not speak to me as if this requires discussion. It does not. It was a lapse. A significant one. It will not be repeated."

Levi sat up fully to face the first prince. He kept his tone even, almost gentle, the way he might speak to something cornered and dangerous.

"You’re allowed to want something that isn’t a duty."

Kai laughed once, short and humorless, and reached for his trousers. "Is that the framing you prefer? That this was about want?" He stepped into the clothing, fastened it, and finally looked at Levi directly. The composure had returned, but it sat wrong, too brittle, like ice over water that had already cracked. "You engineered this....you seduced me!"

Although quite a heavy accusation, Levi did not deny it. There was no point. They both knew what he had done, they were both adults, and nobody had been coerced into this. It didn’t matter what Kai called it, seduction or not, he had simply made use of an opportunity, and it had paid off. He felt no guilt whatsoever.

"You came to my room in the dark. You stayed when you could have left. You can call it a mistake if that makes it easier to walk out of here. It doesn’t change what has already happened."

Kai’s hands stilled on the last fastening of his shirt. He hated that the omega was right, accepting the truth made him angrier than anything else at that point. But Levi was right, it didn’t matter what excuse he cooked up, the fact of the matter was that he had marked Levi, and he couldn’t undo that.

"You will say nothing of this to anyone." The order was soft and absolute. "Not to my brothers. Not to the staff. Not to Flora, should she find a way to question you. The mark will be treated as an injury if anyone is careless enough to notice it. You will resume your suppressants without interruption. You will remain in the supervised wing. And you will not attempt to leverage what occurred here into further contact, further claims, or further disruptions of the structure this house requires to function."

He finished dressing in silence. Each piece of clothing restored another layer of the man the territory recognized. When he was done, he stood at the edge of the bed one last time and looked at Levi as if cataloguing a problem that had just become significantly more complicated.

"You have no idea just how much trouble you’ve caused for all of us, Levi Hill."

With that, Kai turned and

He turned and left, not sparing Levi another glance or word.

Levi remained where he was, unmoved by the prince’s words. He definitely didn’t need to say anything to Dexter or Aaron, he was certain they’d definitely felt what just happened. And as for Flora, he’d keep his mouth shut for now, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t shut her down with this night if she ever tried to get too cocky with him. After all, he had received a mark from her lover before she did. And to Levi, that was a pretty big feat.

For a while he simply sat in the center of the disordered bed, naked in the low moonlight, and let the new reality settle across his skin. Pride was not the cleanest word for what moved through him, but it was close enough.

He was, in the oldest and most binding sense the packs recognized, tied to Kai. It didn’t matter how the pack viewed him, or how badly they all tried to deny it, he was now fully mated to the two most influential princes of the pack. That definitely ought to change things for him, even if it was just by a fraction.

He had no idea how Dexter and Aaron would react after learning of what had just happened, but he didn’t really bother himself with that because he already knew they wouldn’t do much. After all, it was Kai who had marked him, not anyone else. He just couldn’t wait to see the looks on their faces in the morning light.

Levi turned his face into the pillow, breathed in the residual scent of the first prince, and allowed himself, only for a moment, the thin, sharp satisfaction of a job well done.

The wind of change was already blowing, and he could feel it against his skin.