Chapter Nineteen

At times like this, Aksel wished he could get smashingly drunk more easily. But his body processed alcohol too fast. He was on his second bottle of vodka and yet he still felt too damn sober.

The sound of heavy footsteps made him look up. He knew who it was, of course. He'd been able to smell his brother before he even entered the study.

"Why are you drinking in the middle of the day?" Royce said.

Aksel just shrugged. It wasn't as though he could tell his brother the truth.

Heaving a sigh, Royce dropped himself in the opposite chair. "Aksel. Why are you drinking?"

He took another swig from his bottle. "Maybe I'm celebrating my engagement."

"You aren't exactly behaving like a happily engaged man," Royce said flatly. "I still think you rushed into it. And I don't approve your choice, either."

"Dylan is a perfectly fine choice," Aksel said, just as flatly. His lips twisted into a bitter smile. "Young, fertile, socially appropriate."

"I have no issue with the kid. He seems fine. His father is another matter entirely."

"I'm not marrying his father."

Royce pursed his lips. "I don't get along with my father-in-law, either, so I would normally agree, but you don't love the kid."

"You didn't love Haydn when you married him, either."

"No," Royce conceded. "But I also wasn't in love with someone else."

Aksel's hand with the bottle stopped halfway to his mouth. He looked at his brother, who looked back at him steadily.

Aksel set the bottle down.

Silence reigned.

"Dylan knows the truth," Aksel said tersely. "His feelings are engaged elsewhere. We have an understanding."

Royce frowned. "Don't tell me you want a cold, loveless society marriage. You can't want that."

"It doesn't matter what I want," Aksel said. "I'm not getting it." He gulped his drink down, ignoring his brother's gaze on his face.

"Look, I'm not saying I've always approved of your... relationship with Lucien," Royce said, his voice careful. "You know I didn't. I thought you were too pushy with him, too intense, but... But he's old enough now mentally, less vulnerable, to make his own choice—"

"It doesn't matter anymore," Aksel cut him off, not wanting to listen to that. "He rejected me. For all the wrong reasons, but he rejected me. And I can't keep pushing him."

"What reasons?" Royce said.

Aksel hesitated. It wasn't his place to tell his brother something that wasn't his secret, something Lucien clearly found shameful and humiliating, no matter how much Aksel might disagree with him.

But he could use his brother's counsel. Royce's mate, being a male alpha, wasn't able to give him children, either. In fact, thanks to his superior hearing, Aksel had overheard more than a few arguments between them on the subject.

"Does Haydn feel bad about your lack of children? You were fighting over it the other day."

If Royce was confused by the sudden change of subject, he didn't give it away. He grimaced slightly. "He does. I keep telling him it doesn't matter, that we can adopt or have a child through the genetic centers of the Inner Core planets, but… you know it's not the same."

Aksel gave a clipped nod. The practice was very frowned upon on Eila, for a good reason. Adopting or genetically engineering Eilan children in artificial wombs was considered very selfish, because such children couldn't form pack bonds to their parents and siblings and tended to suffer from depression and a severe sense of displacement. It was very rarely done for a reason. It was cruel.

Royce sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "I worry that's why Haydn wants to do the designation reassignment surgery on Calluvia."

Aksel's eyebrows drew together. That was news to him. "Well, if his bigoted bastard of a father didn't change his designation when he was still in the womb, Haydn would have been born an omega."

"Yes," Royce said, but his frown didn't disappear. "I truly don't care that he's an alpha, but I do want children and—" His cheekbones flushed. "You know how it is. You can't help the instinct to want to breed your mate."

Aksel gave a clipped nod.

"But I think Haydn has sensed it and wants to do it just to please me," Royce said, grimacing. "I don't want him to do it for me. I don't want him to be miserable in the long run. I love him too much for that."

Tensing up, Aksel stared at his brother, feeling a strong sense of deja vu.

Royce had expressed exactly the same sentiment Lucien had: that he didn't want his mate to make a choice that would make him miserable in the long run. It was obvious that Royce wanted Haydn to do it, but he felt guilty about it and he had gaslighted himself into thinking that it was wrong to want that, that Haydn couldn't want it for himself, that he must be choosing to do it for Royce's sake, as if Haydn didn't have agency.

I love him too much for that .

Lucien had never said that he loved him, but other than that, his reasoning largely matched Royce's.

And they both were full of shit. Goody-two-shoes obsessed with doing the honorable thing instead of allowing themselves to be happy.

To be fair, he had been guilty of the same. He had been hesitant about pursuing Lucien because he had convinced himself that Lucien should be protected from the scandal. He had stayed away from Lucien in public because he hadn't wanted to give the gossipmongers something else to blame Lucien for. And it had been the same mistake Lucien and Royce were making: doing what they perceived as the honorable thing instead of going after what they both clearly wanted.

"Haydn has a good head on his shoulders," Aksel said, getting to his feet. "He isn't a weak-willed idiot who'd do it just to please you, Royce. If he wants to do it, that means he really wants to do it. Trust him to know what he wants. Don't make the mistake of thinking you know better. It's his body, his life, and his decision. It's not like he's rushing into that decision. He had more than a year to think about it. No offense, but it's hugely offensive that you think you know better. You don't."

And leaving his brother frowning pensively, Aksel walked out of the room.

He had a few things to set right.

***

He found Dylan outside the house. He was seated on a large rock, his knees drawn up to his chest as he stared out at the sea.

Aksel stopped beside him and cleared his throat.

The omega flinched, his sad expression quickly morphing into a neutral, polite mask. "Yes?" he said, all business. "Did you want to discuss our engagement party? My mother wants to invite all her friends, so there will likely be hundreds of guests if you don't put your foot down—"

"I can't marry you."

Dylan blinked. "Oh," he said, studying him. "Did he change his mind?"

"No," Aksel said curtly. "I'm not sure that he'll ever accept me, but I can't marry you. It would hurt him. And I don't want to hurt him even if he'll never be mine."

Dylan's expression softened. "You're a good man. My brother is very lucky."

Aksel almost laughed. "I'll have to convince your brother of that." He heaved a sigh, putting his hands in the pockets of his trousers. "I'm sorry," he said gruffly. "Although we didn't announce the engagement officially, people are already aware of it. I'll take all the blame. You can say you're the one who changed your mind." He smiled crookedly. "Tell people you saw me in a half-shifted form and it disgusted you. They'll eat it up."

Dylan gave a faint smile that didn't reach his eyes. "It doesn't matter. My father's financial troubles mean that I can never marry the person I actually want to marry. If it's not you, it'll likely be..." His expression darkened, his lips thinning. His scent turned bitter with hatred.

"Who?" Aksel said.

Dylan wrapped his arms tighter around his knees. "A certain psychopathic creep obsessed with me," he said tonelessly. "I barely talked Father out of selling me to him—I convinced him I could find someone else to pay his debts—but with you out of the picture, the pickings are slim. Father will have no choice but to accept his help."

"Who are you talking about?" Aksel said, his brows furrowing. No one should be forced to marry someone they hated.

"Regis Everhart," Dylan whispered.

Everhart. The name was definitely familiar. It took Aksel a moment to remember why.

He might have spent most of his adult life on the front lines, but even he had heard of Everhart. The man was obscenely rich, possibly even richer than the Cleghorns. Unlike the Cleghorns' generational wealth, his was self-made, his enormous fortune rumored to have been made through illegal means. He was rumored to be a ruthless bastard without a shred of decency in him. What he wanted, he took.

"Your father can't force you to marry someone you don't want to marry," Aksel said.

Dylan laughed humorlessly. "Spoken like a true alpha. You knotheads could never understand what it's like to be an omega."

"It's not the Dark Ages. Omegas have rights in this country."

"Rights," Dylan said flatly, his lips twisting into a mirthless smile. "Maybe on paper. My family is as traditional as it gets. And as my brother found out, you don't want to make my father angry. If my father hadn't disowned him, everyone would have moved on from that old scandal, Aksel. But our society places too much weight on the opinion of the family alpha. My brother is shunned because my father still shuns him."

Aksel's eyebrows drew together. He'd never thought of it that way, but there was truth in Dylan's words. If Lucien's dickhead of a father publicly accepted him as his son, people would consider the scandal old news.

Maybe that was the solution.

His heart suddenly beating faster, Aksel said, "How large is your father's debt, exactly?"