Page 135 of His Stolen Omega

“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?”