Page 111 of His Stolen Omega

Must be, since Elm didn’t seem to notice when he arrived, too busy checking himself out in the mirror. His eyes had filled with something Levi couldn’t place when he touched the bites, but when he finally spotted the tattoo, his horror and confusion had been apparent.

Now he was staring at Levi with that same expression.

But that was fine.

Levi could still work with that.

The fact that Elm was present and alive was all that mattered. The rest would come.

The omega stayed rooted to the spot, refusing to follow the order and vacate the bathroom. He was going to have to, but Levi allowed him the minor defiance for now, knowing how out of sorts he still was.

Elm didn’t seem to trust the silence, however. Didn’t seem to trust Levi’s intentions. “Are you mad?”

“Livid,” Levi confirmed. There was no reason to sugarcoat anything or to lie. He wasn’t the one in the wrong here.

“I’m angry too, for the record,” Elm said.

He didn’t sound angry. He sounded defeated.

Levi knew better than to buy into it.

The thing about his omega was he could roll with the punches for a long time until he finally snapped. He was wary and gauging the situation right now, waiting to see how Levi would express his fury. Once he was certain he wouldn’t be physically harmed, he wouldn’t minimize himself. Would lash out with his tongue.

The omega could be clever with his words.

It was one of the things Levi appreciated most about him.

“Noted,” Levi replied.

“You don’t care.”

“I don’t think it’s pertinent to our current predicament,” he corrected.

Elm nibbled on his bottom lip, a bad habit Levi had been considering undoing. “Move away from the door and I’ll come out.”

He shook his head in the negative. “It doesn’t work that way, omega.”

After weighing his odds and seemingly coming to the conclusion this wasn’t a battle worth fighting, Elm took a step toward the wall, reaching for one of the towels hanging there.

“No.” Levi held his ground when the omega froze.

“I’m naked,” Elm pointed out.

“Get used to it.”

He bristled. “You can’t mean—”

“No more privileges,” he stated. “You lost those. You want clothing? You’ll have to earn them back.”

“You can’t be serious?”

“Have I ever told you something I didn’t mean?” Since the omega was so hellbent on having this conversation in the bathroom of all places, Levi got comfortable, propping a shoulder against the doorframe. “You aren’t the first in my family to try and escape their fate. My mother tried once. Before I was born. From what I’m told, she didn’t make it more than a couple of blocks before my father found her. Do you know what she got for her efforts?”

Elm noticeably swallowed.

“Her Achilles tendons were cut.” Levi had only ever known her to have a slight limp. “My father ensured she could never run from him again.”

“You promised you wouldn’t hurt me,” the omega’s voice was soft, fear palpable.