Chapter 38
“Talk to me, treasure,” Levi urged the moment the doors to the master bedroom closed shut behind the doctor and Wook.
They’d gone straight to Frost Palace, and directly up the winding staircase to the large room on the second level.
Levi was seated on the edge of a king-sized bed.
He’d been watching Elm almost unblinkingly since they’d come in here, even when his wounds had been restitched and covered with second-skin—a medical seal that would boost fast healing.
The doctor had mentioned he’d be fine by morning so long as he didn’t remove the skin-bandage, then had been ushered out the door by Wook, who’d sealed Elm and the alpha inside.
Elm kept his spot by the window a little longer, giving himself a chance to decide not to go through with the plan he’d come up with on the drive over. But he had to know the truth, and even though Levi had supposedly never lied to him before, he was struggling with trust right now.
“You were quiet the whole way here,” Levi said. “Open up for me.”
“Okay.” Elm pulled the sweater over his head and dropped it to the white carpet, then reached for the button of his pants, hastening his movements when the alpha frowned displeasingly at him.
“Stop.” Levi tried scooting back when Elm approached, hissing when he was straddled and shoved onto his back.
“Fuck me,” Elm demanded, already undoing Levi’s pants. He pulled his cock free and began stroking it to life, pouring seductive pheromones out in the process. Slick pooled between his ass cheeks as he watched the alpha’s impressive member harden in his grasp.
“Omega, stop. Slow down.” Levi’s hands found Elm’s hips, but before he could push him away, Elm shifted forward and notched his thick cockhead into his rim.
Elm hissed as he lowered himself, unprepared for the massive stretch even though he’d taken the alpha hundreds of times by this point.
His eyes squeezed shut, but he refused to stop, slowly sucking in inch after inch until he’d finally bottomed out over him.
His head tipped back and he gasped at the too full feeling, rocking some in an attempt to adjust to the girth.
“What are you doing?” Levi asked, his pupils blown now that he was every bit as turned on as Elm was.
“My alpha.” He started moving over him, planting his hands on the Leviathan’s chest, careful to avoid the bandages. Elm rode him forcefully, the mattress squeaking beneath their combined weight.
Any other occasion, he’d be fine with making this last, but that wasn’t the goal here.
He wasn’t doing this to come, he was doing it to corner the alpha into honesty.
Levi always struggled to maintain that frosty composure of his when pushed to his limits, and sexual frustration was the key to shoving him off that ledge.
“Touch me.” Elm moaned when Levi’s fist found his dick and began to pump him. He didn’t hold back, making as much sound as he wanted as he took pleasure from the alpha’s body, knowing Levi got off even more listening to him.
With pheromones as high as theirs were, Elm found himself nearing release in no time, pushing off the alpha’s chest and back onto his haunches for one final plunge. He cried out as the orgasm swept through him, dick squirting over Levi’s hand and across his abs.
Elm was still leaking everywhere when he came back to himself, scrambling off the alpha and out of his hold faster than Levi could process. He backed away, shaking his head when Levi sat up and made to come after him.
The alpha growled but remained on the bed, cock red and glistening with Elm’s slick, heavy and hard between his muscular thighs.
“Was that better?” Elm asked, forcing himself to smirk mockingly when the alpha frowned. “Better than the time you fucked Shiloh Sobu?”
“Omega.”
“You should have just said you had a thing for Kian’s brothers in the first place,” he said. “He’s got a sister to. Want me to introduce you?”
“Get back here, omega,” Levi commanded, but Elm stood his ground.
“Conditioning me to want you I could accept,” he confessed, “because I could see the same thing happening to you. Every time you visited me when I was still in the cage, your eyes said as much.”
Levi’s confusion returned.
“It doesn’t matter to me how we got here, Levi.”
“What does?”
Elm bared his teeth. “That you put your cock in Shiloh. That you kept it from me. That I’m now doubting—”
The alpha sprang for him, snatching him off his feet and hauling him back to bed. Levi tossed him down onto his back, shoved his thighs apart, and angled his hips upward to receive him.
The air was punched out of Elm’s lungs as he was impaled, Levi’s thrusts ruthless and punishing.
He picked up where Elm had left off, fucking him with a ferocious intent, silver eyes glowing as he stared down at Elm and pumped him full of cock and seductive pheromones, ensuring that Elm’s body responded accordingly.
Elm writhed as his dick lengthened between them, the smell of a fresh wave of slick filling the air as he produced more to help ease the way for the alpha’s intrusion.
Levi came first, driving himself in deep enough Elm saw stars, warmth gushing against his insides, momentarily blinding Elm to the real threat.
The knot.
He whined when it appeared, stretching him and forcing its way inside, locking them in place.
The alpha’s true intention became apparent then, and Elm glared up at him.
Levi hushed him, brushing tears from the corner of his eyes, even when Elm tried to turn his face away. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here.”
“I’m not!” He totally was.
This wasn’t going to plan. He’d wanted to make Levi lose his composure, not the other way around!
“You’re scared I’ll confirm whatever horrible nonsense your brother fed you,” Levi said, “but I won’t.
Treasure, breathe. Breathe for me. There you go.
Just like that. I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you.
We’ll stay like this until the knot goes down, and if we haven’t finished this conversation when it does, I’ll bed you properly and knot you again so we can. ”
“You don’t need to knot to have a conversation,” Elm argued.
“No, but clearly you do. It’s comforting, isn’t it?”
“Being trapped on your dick?” he sneered. “Absolutely not.”
“I’ve never held anyone like this before you,” Levi told him patiently. “Never wanted to keep anyone close. What did Kian say to upset you, treasure? Tell me.”
Elm tore his gaze off of him and stared stubbornly up at the ceiling. “You wanted Shiloh. You got stuck with me.”
Levi scowled. “Listen closely, omega. I have never once, not for even a passing second, had any interest in Shiloh Sobu.”
“But you fucked him.”
“There was never any intimacy between that omega and I.”
“Kian said you openly seduced him.”
“And you believe that?” Levi captured his chin and tipped his head back so their eyes met. There was a glimmer of hurt in his gaze, but his voice was steady when he repeated the question. “Elm. Do you believe that?”
He swallowed and searched his expression closely. “I…Tell me what really happened.”
The alpha paused. “You know, don’t you?”
“I want to be sure. I need to know it’s not just wishful thinking on my part.
” He needed Levi to say it without having to be led to that conclusion.
It was the only way Elm could convince himself this was real.
That his theory was true and not just pathetic delusion brought on by the bond they shared.
The Leviathan exhaled. “I was careless,” he began, and had to feel the way Elm tensed beneath him.
“My enemies managed to drug my wine at an event. When I woke up, I was somewhere else, already in the throes of my mating period. It was intense, brought me back to my teen years. When they tossed the omega into the room with me, I was too far gone to the primal urge to breed to even consider resisting. I didn’t care who it was.
Barely even glimpsed their face. I just rolled them onto their stomach and began to rut. ”
“Did you knot?”
“I honestly can’t remember. Perhaps? Time was a blur.
The next thing I recall with any sort of clarity, Baal and Koah were breaking into the room.
Our people were under heavy fire in the building and they had to drag me out.
I tried to bring the omega—not because I wanted him, but because my alpha side understood that was no place for anyone to be—but there wasn’t any time, and Baal already had his hands full with me fighting him off while in a rut haze. ”
The two of them had been through something truly horrendous that day.
No wonder Sky had spent so much extra time with Shiloh, even months after the event had happened. Elm couldn’t even begin to imagine the trauma that could form from something like that.
Breeding dens were disgusting. Illegal for multiple reasons. If Levi and Shiloh had been forced together, there was a one hundred percent chance they had been watched by an audience during. A chance they may have even been filmed in the act.
“I only found out the omega was Shiloh weeks later,” Levi continued.
“By then, the Eumia had rescued him and dismantled the organization responsible. The White Frost helped, but not openly. I thought it best not to get involved. Would have preferred for Shiloh and Kian to never find out my identity.”
It had to be a blow to his pride. The Leviathan, one of the scariest alphas in existence, reduced to a breeding machine and filthy entertainment.
“You never considering reaching out to him?” Elm couldn’t help but ask. “Not once? The men who took me—”
“Apparently, Shiloh was attacked months prior to your disappearance. Rumor spread on both of our planets that I might have been responsible for it. The ones who took you bought into the story. They must have believed I wanted him, despite my never having said so to anyone. He wasn’t a person to me in that room, Elm.
He wasn’t real. He was an object. And I wasn’t myself. I wasn’t me.”