Chapter 31
“You removed it yourself,” Elm stated a few hours later, lying on his back on the work table where they’d relocated at some point, Levi’s knot still locking them together. “I didn’t break any rules.”
Since he was going to have to do away with the bunny tail eventually, Levi wasn’t annoyed, though he had to admit he would miss seeing it.
Good thing he’d taken plenty of photos over the course of the week as keepsakes.
He chuckled and twitched his hips, jostling himself within the omega, causing Elm to gasp. “Had enough of the tail?”
Elm stared up at him. “Don’t you dare put it back.”
“The game has grown stale.” He nuzzled his jaw and then pressed his lips against the omega’s pulse point. “Once my knot goes down, I’ll carry you to our bedroom.”
“You want to keep going?”
“I plan on staying inside you all night.”
“Or…” Elm cleared his throat and looked away, “you could let me go outside?”
Levi tensed. “No.”
“Please, I just want some fresh air.”
“Open a window.”
“Alpha.” He tightened his legs around Levi’s waist. “I won’t go anywhere. I’ll stay with you the entire time.”
“It’s freezing out there,” he reminded.
“I’m fine with the cold.”
“You’re allergic.”
Elm pursed his lips. “I’ve been meaning to ask, where did you get that info from? You should check your sources, alpha.”
“Are you saying it isn’t true?”
“Of course not, otherwise I wouldn’t—” the omega cut himself off abruptly, smartly refraining from bringing up how he’d escaped before.
Levi had specifically chosen a place deep in the mountains surrounded by snow because of that bit of information.
Pike had played him.
Mentioning the Runner here, now, was out of the question, so Levi picked up on the important part of the conversation instead.
“You would need clothes, and you haven’t earned those yet.” He’d only just gotten back inside of his omega. The last thing he was willing to do was provide clothing to make it even more difficult to keep doing so.
“Just to the hot spring then?” Elm pleaded. “Come on. The moment you claimed me, my system regulated. There’s no fear of the weather triggering me or anything like that.”
“No, only make you sick.” Levi searched his eyes. “You knew you’d regulated?”
“Kind of hard not to notice my skin no longer felt like it was buzzing.” He smiled, clearly sensing he was going to get his way. “You can carry me in and carry me out. I won’t put a single foot on the ground. Hmm?”
His omega was fitted with a tracker now. There was no real reason not to allow him outside, if only for a little while. Especially not since Levi wouldn’t be letting him out of his sight.
The idea of holding him, of having Elm cling to him to shield himself from the cold was also appealing.
“You’ll sculpt something for me,” Levi said. “Something impressive enough to rival the Rabbit God.”
“No use in owning the artist if you can’t use him to create art?” Elm laughed before Levi could worry if those words were spoken bitterly. “It’s a deal.”
His knot subsided soon after, and Levi stood, helping the omega up before sweeping him off his feet.
“Do you want to clean up first?” Elm asked, but he shook his head.
It was already late in the afternoon. If his omega wanted to go outside, they needed to do it now, before the sun completely set and temperatures dropped even more.
Levi calculated that they could spend around an hour in the hot spring, then come back in with plenty of time for him to prepare dinner.
“What are you thinking about?” The omega held on tightly as they descended the stairs.
“Do you feel like steak or pizza?” He set him down briefly in front of the side entrance, grabbing his fur coat off the rack and slipping it on before picking Elm back up.
“I’m fine with either.” Elm pressed on the handle, opening the doors for them.
Levi hummed. “Steak pizza then?”
“Sure.” A gust of wind battered against them and the omega curled into him and the warmth of the coat. “Shit.”
“I warned you.” Picking up the pace, he lowered Elm’s feet into the water and then chucked the jacket off to the side before hurrying into the pool. Levi led him to the other side, to the same bench they usually sat on, and then settled the omega first before sitting down next to him. “Better?”
“Yeah.” Elm was submerged up to his neck, eyes closed as he focused on the warmth seeping into his bones to chase the cold away.
“Worth it?”
He made a big show of inhaling and then grinned. “Absolutely.”
“What’s so great about icy air?”
“You can’t keep me locked up here forever, Levi.” Elm nudged his shoulder against his when he tensed. “Relax. I wasn’t implying I would try to leave.”
“You’ve tried already.”
“Yeah, and look how well that worked out for me?” He sobered some. “I’m not willing to spend the rest of my life like a prisoner. I want to build with you, not be trapped in your fortress and hidden away.”
“Careful, omega,” Levi warned, sensing where this was going and not wanting to ruin the moment. “Just like you, there are some things I’m not ready to hear.” He found Elm’s hand underwater and laced their fingers. “Give me time.”
“Remember the first time we were in here?”
“Is this your cute way of asking to drink?” Levi drawled.
Elm grinned.
“You can have a single glass of wine with dinner. One.”
“You’re so strict.”
“It isn’t good for your health.”
“What kind of criminal overlord says no to putting someone in a compromising position?”
“I’ve proven I can take advantage of you just fine without getting you drunk.”
Elm rested his head back against smooth stone, staring up at the sky. “The first time we were here,” he repeated, “I asked when this was going to end.”
He’d questioned Levi about the experiments, specifically.
“Did you already know then?” his tone lacked accusation, but Levi searched for the trap anyway. “Were you already planning on claiming me?”
“Do you want me to lie, treasure?”
The omega hesitated, actually considering the offer. “No. I always want you to be honest with me. Even if it’s upsetting.”
“Is being bound to me that big of a disappointment?”
“I’m not disappointed,” Elm surprised him by admitting.
“But this isn’t how I pictured it happening.
This isn’t how anyone imagines finding their life partner.
It doesn’t help that you’re my brother’s enemy.
I know you’re not ready to talk about it, but we will have to.
Keeping me here, keeping him and I apart, that’s not a viable long-term plan, Levi. ”
“There’s nothing I can’t achieve if I put my mind to it,” he disagreed. “The marks on your body are proof of that.”
“When did you know?”
“For certain? When I found you nesting.”
The omega snorted. “Pretty sure you were pissed about that.”
“Very,” he confirmed. “But you tricking one of my best and taking out an entire building of my people? That was bravery.”
“That was instinct.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. If it’d been merely instinct at play, you never would have done any of that.
You may be a dominant omega, but you’d experienced my pheromones already.
Your preprogramed nature as omega should have driven you to please me, yet even knowing I would be angry, you knocked out Fiora and tried to escape. ”
“I didn’t get very far.” Elm thought on it then asked, “Was that part instinct?”
“Are you asking if your subconscious recognized your alpha before you did?”
“I’m asking if we really were inevitable,” he corrected. “You said as much. Is that true?”
“Perhaps.” It wasn’t a question either of them would ever be able to answer.
“Then, by that logic, it would be because I’m omega now. If I were still beta, I never would have been locked up. I never would have gotten away. And I never would have nested and appealed to your alpha side.”
Levi did enjoy watching him nest. Liked knowing the omega was as obsessed with him in those moments as Levi was with him every other. Nesting with his clothing meant the omega felt safest with him. Felt cared for. The fact that Elm had done that even after spending weeks in a cage in the basement…
“If you’re asking if I would have kept you alive and spent time with you,” he began, “then the answer is probably no. Even if Baal stopped me from shooting you that day at the warehouse, citing your usefulness as Kian’s brother, I most likely would have handed you off to him and Koah.
But if you’d been a born omega, I can’t say that wouldn’t also be the situation.
I was fascinated initially because you’re synthetic. I never hid that.
“However,” he continued, hating how tense the omega had gotten at his side, “if, for some reason, I had decided to handle you myself, in either situation, then…I would have still chosen you. We would have still ended up here. The moment I discovered you were the elusive artist I’d been searching for I would have coveted you. ”
“Just because of that?” it was clear Elm didn’t believe him.
“Was any of my assessment of the Rabbit God incorrect?” Now that he knew the omega so personally, he already knew that it wasn’t, but he asked anyway to make a point.
“You really think you’d want me based solely off of that? Off of one statue and your interpretation of it? Most people would have just seen a man in a rabbit mask and called it a day.”
“I’m not most people.”
“No,” he exhaled, “you aren’t. You’re the type of person who would see something seemingly impossible and want to own it.
A dominant of our species isn’t supposed to be able to be created in a lab.
I’m an anomaly. How is it any different from any of the one-of-a-kind fancy art pieces that decorate your home? ”
“You’re doubting me.”
“I’m trying to understand,” Elm insisted. “You never gave me a chance, Levi. Give me one now. Tell me what you’re feeling. Tell me you won’t regret this in a month, or next year, or five years from now. Tell me—”
“I won’t ever hurt you,” he said softly.
The omega met his gaze and held it. “If you keep me trapped, you will be hurting me.”
“If we leave now, I don’t trust you won’t try to get away again. I can’t risk that. I can’t lose you.”
“Because of the bites?”
Elm still believed this was all primal urges, but he was also too caught up in his anxieties to note how he was only cherry picking the worst aspects of that.
If this were about instinct alone, the bites would be reason enough to trust every word Levi said, because no alpha would ever reject their chosen mate.
This was the result of the past week leaving him to his own thoughts.
Elm had concluded what was between them had to fall into a category, and he was desperately pleading with Levi to help him sort it into the right one.
He was doing a great job keeping his worry locked down, speaking casually, remaining outwardly calm, but Levi could see through the facade.
Despite everything, how they got here, the issues between the White Frost and the Eumia, the omega wanted it to be real.
He wanted this to be the Leviathan and Elm Erskine, not alpha and omega.
Wanted to be special because he was himself, and not due to a forced synthetic proclivity he’d had no choice in and no control over.
“I’ve never felt contentment the way I do here, with you,” Levi divulged.
“If the rest of my days are filled with cooking your meals, watching you read or sculpt, listening to stories of when you and Sky broke into your teacher’s desk in middle school...
I could die happy. I don’t like people, Elm.
I don’t even like spending time with those closest to me.
The ones I consider friends. You calm the voice in my head that says the world will end if I lose control.
Yes, you’re rare and one of a kind, but not because you’re a synthetic dominant omega.
It’s because you’ve done the unthinkable.
You’ve tamed the Leviathan of the White Frost.”
He would do anything for his omega.
Even let him leave the lodge.
Just…not yet. He wasn’t ready. Didn’t trust himself enough not to control or harm Elm out of jealousy, fear, or anger if they left now. For both of their sakes, Levi needed to be more confident before then. Needed to feel assured Elm wouldn’t try running if they returned to civilization.
The omega stared at him for a lengthy moment, and then he lifted their hands out of the water and turned Levi’s arm. His lips brushed against his pulse point, the corner of his mouth tipping upward when Levi frowned.
“What are you doing?” Levi’s brow furrowed even more when the omega got off the bench and moved to stand in front of him.
Elm brought his arms up, linking his hands behind Levi’s neck. “I’m going to kiss you.”
“Why?”
He chuckled and moved in closer, bumping against Levi’s knees until he parted his thighs for him. “To see how it feels.”
Elm was surprisingly careful at first, lowering his lips to Levi’s slowly, as if giving him the chance to turn away. When that didn’t happen, he grew bolder, tracing the seam of his mouth with the tip of his tongue before pressing in once he was allowed entrance.
He explored the cavern of Levi’s mouth, fingers clinging to his skull, breaths quickening with each passing second.
By now, he was familiar enough with Levi’s body to know where to lick and how hard to nibble on his lips, and the moment he made him gasp, Elm took it a step further and climbed into his lap.
The omega found Levi’s hard cock beneath the water and resituated himself over him, lining him up with his entrance. Without breaking the kiss, he lowered, moaning as he took Levi’s length into his tight body.
The squeeze and friction were incredible, and it took every bit of self-control for Levi not to slam the omega down on him and start rutting. Since Elm wanted to take control here, he’d let him.
Water splashed as Elm moved over him, knees pressed to either side of Levi’s hips, using the stone bench for leverage so he could lift and lower himself more steadily. He ground down on him and sucked on Levi’s tongue, confidence growing as lust took hold of both of their senses.
“Say that you love me again,” Elm implored.
“I love you.” He didn’t expect for the younger man to say it back. Not yet. That was fine. For now, his omega could be greedy. “I love you in ways I didn’t think were possible.”
“I’m your omega.”
“Yes.” Levi purred for him.
“You’re my alpha.”
“I am.”
“Okay.”
Levi pulled his head back when Elm tried to kiss him again, but didn’t stop him from riding him. “Okay?”
Elm hummed. “Okay.”
How very like his treasure to boil something so important down to just a single word and mean it. His acceptance truly knew no bounds.
Levi brought their lips together in an almost chaste kiss. “Okay.”
Elm bottomed out over him, then adjusted, clinging with his arms and legs. “Take me to bed, alpha.”
Standing in one swift move, he carried the younger man out of the spring, barely feeling the cold as his bare feet walked across icy stone, the warmth of the moment more than enough to keep the inferno burning within him.