Chapter 12
“I can have them brought to the Wardrobe,” Oberon said through the earbud attachment in Levi’s left ear. “I’ll need a week or two.”
“Fine.” The omega stirred against his chest, and Levi tightened his arms around him, letting out a soothing purr that had the younger man settling again.
“Where are you?” Oberon must have heard the water splashing.
After a while on the couch, Levi had relocated him and the omega to the bathroom. They were in the clawfoot tub, lounging with the omega resting against him and between his legs. Levi had made a couple of calls already, with Oberon being his last before he called it a night.
“Bathing.”
“…Alone?”
“No.” Levi ran his fingers through the omega’s dark hair, brushing strands off his face so he could see him better.
“There’s something you’re keeping from me, isn’t there?” Oberon asked.
“Yes.”
“Planning on telling me any time soon?”
“Perhaps.” He might need to speak to Fenrir after all, which wouldn’t be possible without reading Oberon in to the situation.
“Does whatever it is have something to do with why you’re asking me to round up dominant omegas?”
“Goodbye, Purse.” Levi ended the call before Oberon could say anything more, setting the earbud on a small shelf within reach. It barely caused any movement at all, but it was apparently enough to wake the sleeping omega.
The man jerked in Levi’s hold, and he hushed him, holding him close. “Relax. You’re fine.”
“What the hell are you doing?” Despite the accusative note in his tone, the omega didn’t raise his voice. He turned his head about, taking in the master bathroom before noting that he was naked.
They both were.
“Your temperature started to fluctuate,” Levi explained. “This was the best way to steady you.”
“And the reason you also have to be in here with me?”
He could easily give the omega pheromones without, that was true. “I want to be.”
The omega tried pulling away again, and Levi allowed him to partially sit up before tightening the arm he had wrapped around the younger man’s waist. When that gave enough space between them for Levi’s cock to bump against his lower back, the omega froze.
“You’re fine,” Levi repeated.
“You’re hard.”
“I won’t do anything about it. Breathe. My rut isn’t due for months yet. There’s no need to worry.”
“I just woke up naked in a tub with a dominant alpha who’s been holding me captive for months,” he snapped. “This is definitely cause for worry. I don’t know who you’re trying to kid here, but we both know you don’t need to be in rut to fuck, Leviathan.”
“Levi.” He wanted to hear the omega say it. Liked the idea of being called more intimately. Yesterday, that would have bothered him, but today…He was coming around to it. Being honest with himself, so to speak. “Call me Levi.”
“No. Let me up.”
“Alpha then.”
“I’d rather not call you anything at all.”
“Those are your only two choices.”
“Or what?” He glared over his shoulder at Levi. “You’ll do something about that hard-on after all?”
Levi sighed. “I don’t need to threaten to fuck you to get you in line, omega. I have no interest in using sex as a weapon.”
“Says the guy who—”
“Helped you through your heats,” he stopped him. “If you recall, the one time I did as you wished, you suffered the more for it.”
The omega turned away.
“Sex with anyone other than your claimed mate outside of heat could be detrimental to your recovery,” Levi informed him. “I wouldn’t put you at risk like that. Not after all the effort I’ve put into stabilizing you.”
“Fiora tell you that?”
“She didn’t have to. It’s fairly obvious.”
The omega tensed. “If you’re thinking about pimping me out and trying to make me accept some alpha in the name of experimentation, think again.”
“I promised I wouldn’t let anyone touch you, remember?
” Levi had meant it then, and his conviction on that matter was even stronger now.
“According to the past research we were able to collect, you should be close to stabilization anyway. The toys during your next few heats, if there’s more than one, should be more than enough. ”
“So long as you’re there pumping me full of your pheromones,” he said.
“You sound upset.”
“It’s not like we like each other.” The omega ran a hand over his face. “I doubt you’d be happy if our roles were reversed. Hell, you’re probably already annoyed that you have to haul me around like this.”
“It was bothersome before,” Levi agreed. “But not anymore. I was pissed to see what you’d done to my men, but also impressed. An omega as powerful as you are is an asset.”
“Just to be clear, I will never join the White Frost.”
“Never is a long time, and mutual pheromone addiction is to be considered.”
“You said this weird attachment could be broken?” the omega sounded hopeful.
“I’m already working toward it. I’ll subject myself to dominant omega pheromones from someone else. Bathing in them for twenty-four hours should be enough, since there’s no bond between us and we haven’t fucked, as you’ve so eloquently put it.”
The omega grew more nervous. “Where would that leave me?”
“Things wouldn’t change for you. I’ll still help you.”
“You’re helping yourself.”
“I’m helping us both.” The omega didn’t want to live like this either. “I’ll help you regain control of your body. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“And then?”
“I was planning on killing you,” he said, releasing calming pheromones when the omega’s panic spiked. “Past tense. As of an hour ago, I’ve decided against it.”
“I’m just supposed to believe you?”
“That’s your prerogative.”
“If you changed your mind once, you can do it again.”
“Let’s say I have leverage this time. Something to help motivate you to stay in line.”
“What?”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow. For tonight, calm down, omega. Nothing is going to happen to you.” Levi eased him back, glad when the omega only put up a little resistance before he was resting against his chest once more, his head tucked beneath Levi’s chin.
They lay like that for a lengthy moment, the omega lost in thought, Levi content to just hold him and wait.
“What’s playing?” The omega glanced up at a speaker set into the ceiling. Classical music drifted from it, the volume set low.
“Hor’ Ent Thirty,” Levi said. “Not a fan?”
“I don’t really know classical music.” He lifted his arm from the water and pointed at a statue set in the corner by the entrance. “I can tell you about that though.”
“Can you?”
“The Ice God,” the omega began. “Sculpted seventy-two years ago by Market Sang, over the course of three days, after the birth of his first and only child. He’d hoped for a boy, one with the power and grace of a dragon.
When he ended up with a daughter, he disappeared into his studio and created the Ice God, supposedly as a gift.
He claimed he intended for it to watch over her. ”
Levi was taken aback. He’d expected the other man to mention it was a dragon, or maybe know the name and little else. “Are you a fan of Market Sang’s work?”
“Not particularly,” he said. “I find him kind of sexist. Like, because she was a girl, his daughter couldn’t defend herself? She needed a statue to provide things like power and grace? Yikes.”
“Yet you know a lot about this particular statue.”
“I did study fine arts,” the omega replied, giving a shrug. “And I like dragons.”
“You’re an artist?”
The omega leaned to the side so he could turn and look at him. “Seriously? You didn’t even know that much about me?”
He had not.
“I have a life on Glyph, Levi,” he growled. “I’m a person. With my own interests, and feelings, and loved ones. I run an art studio with my best friend and have dinner with my parents once a month. I like pop rock music, and action movies, and animals—”
“Do you like rabbits?”
He frowned. “What? Yeah. Who doesn’t?” A gasp slipped past his full lips. “Why are you getting bigger down there?!”
This time, when he pulled away, Levi let him go, watching as the omega scrambled out of the tub.
“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Elm stood there dripping all over the floor, his hands covering his dick, as if Levi hadn’t already seen it a million times.
“No one ever talks to me like that.” It was a bit cliché, but he kind of liked it. Liked seeing the omega all flustered and twitchy. Disappointedly, keeping him that way wasn’t conducive to healing.
“What are you doing?”
“Hush.” Levi closed his eyes and focused. The second he pictured his father, his cock went limp.
“Holy shit. How’d you do that?”
Not bothering to answer, Levi stood and stepped out of the bath, reaching for one of the white towels he’d left folded on the sink.
He shook it out and then wrapped it around the omega’s shoulders, drying his arms. The second he swept a corner over the man’s left nipple, however, the omega retreated.
“I can do it myself,” he insisted, and Levi opted to let him, letting go and picking up the other towel.
Levi dried himself off, watching as the omega rushed to do the job, seemingly eager to cover himself and tie the material around his waist. He chuckled, smiling when that earned him a glare.
Not many people dared to look at him like that either.
“The white sweatpants to the left are yours,” Levi said almost laughing again when the omega scrambled into them. He pulled on his own pair and then captured his wrist, leading them back into the bedroom with little resistance.
Until he shoved the omega onto the bed and picked up the handcuffs he’d prepared earlier.
“Hell no.” The omega tried to move away, but Levi overpowered him, snapping the cuffs around first one wrist, then the other.
“Do you think I’d trust you without any sort of restrictions?
” Levi asked, tapping the shiny silver metal.
“There’s a tracking device built in. The staff have been ordered to remain outside, but the perimeter is heavily guarded.
They’ve been instructed to shoot upon sight, so even if you somehow make it past me and out of this room, you won’t get more than a step out the front door. ”
The omega scoffed. “Going to kill your precious test subject, just like that?”
“Tranquilizer guns exist, treasure.” It was a slip of the tongue, and they both bristled, Levi breaking out of it first. “Climb over to the other side and get under the covers.”
“You already put me to sleep.” The omega did as he was told despite his words. “Also, I’d rather go back to the cell than share a bed with you.”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Tonight I want to monitor you. You used a lot of energy today. Some of my people had welts on their skin from your pheromone lashings.”
The omega rolled onto his side, his back to Levi, and curled in on himself slightly. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Undoubtably.” Levi stared at him. “You’re too soft for Kian’s world.”
“That’s what he always told me.”
“You sound annoyed. Do you not agree?”
“I can fight.”
“Can you?” While he was sure the man had some training, he doubted it was much. Probably just the basics to ensure he could keep himself out of regular trouble. Levi didn’t have siblings of his own, but he imagined if he were Kian, he would have insisted on it.
“I’m pretty decent with a bow and arrow too.”
Levi had heard Kian’s Possessio was a national champion at archery. “Do you and Sky shoot together?”
“Sometimes. I got into it first. But he’s better than me.”
“What about art? What medium do you use?” Levi was admittedly fascinated by that aspect, but he tried to keep his interest to himself. Once the omega was asleep, perhaps he’d look over that file Baal had put together weeks ago.
“Guess.”
Considering his knowledge of the Ice God and the callouses Levi had noted on his hands…
“You sculpt?”
“Yeah.” The omega exhaled slowly. “What are we doing, Levi?”
“I believe it’s called chatting.”
“Okay. But why?”
“Why not?”
“We aren’t friends.”
“No, we aren’t.”
“You said…you think of me as an omega.”
“You are an omega.”
“Before I was just a test subject.”
Levi slid in closer and draped an arm over the man’s waist, but he didn’t pull him in. They’d both been relatively calm, and he hadn’t had to use his pheromones to influence the other man’s mood. He’d like to keep that up for a bit longer. “Speak plainly. What are you trying to ask me?”
“Is this the difference in your head? Now that I’m a person and not a thing, you’ll talk to me? Bath me? And?”
“You’ll be allowed more liberties,” he offered.
“I literally tried to escape.”
“Yes, and if you’d waited just a couple of days more, you probably would have. You overestimated yourself though.”
“I’m not safe around other people right now,” he seemed to resign himself to that. “I need you to fix me, but that doesn’t mean I like you, and it doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying to get away.”
Levi chuckled. “You really shouldn’t be telling me your master plan, omega. All you’re doing is alerting me that the second you’re stable, I’ll need to find a way to lock you up more thoroughly.”
He turned his head, catching his eye. “Thought you were going to kill me?”
“I’m positive I mentioned that was no longer on the table.”
“Then what? You can’t actually be planning on keeping me? There’s nothing you can promise that will make me betray my brother. I won’t join you. Ever.”
“We’ll see.” Levi still wasn’t sure if that was even what he meant. But it was best not to dwell on the unknown for the time being. No matter what came next, he really had decided to keep the omega alive, in what way, and with what title, he didn’t know.
But he was confident he’d figure it out.
Levi always puzzled through any given situation and came out on top.
This would be no different.
“Sleep,” he suggested. “You’ll be angry with me again tomorrow.”
“I’m angry with you now,” the omega drawled, but he settled in. He didn’t last a full minute before he added in a quieter voice, “Can you do that thing you did earlier?”
“What?”
“I can’t fall asleep. I’m too wired. You smell good but you’re also scary and I can’t stop picturing that sea snake you have between your legs.”
It wasn’t often someone shocked him into total stupefaction, but Levi found himself staring at the back of the omega’s head, mind blanking as he struggled to process. “Did you just…?”
“Sorry,” the omega sounded an awful lot like he was rolling his eyes, though Levi couldn’t see it with him facing away, “would you prefer sea dragon, Leviathan?”
“That’s…” He cleared his throat.
“Hold up, are you flustered?” The omega tried to turn, but Levi cinched his arm around his waist and pressed up against him, keeping him in place.
“Sleep.” He let out waves of coaxing pheromones, the type that could help slip him into unconsciousness, growling a little when the omega laughed at him.
“Coward.”
Levi put him to bed.
And spent an hour debating whether or not the omega’s comments about his dick were meant to be an insult…or a thinly veiled compliment.