Chapter 6: Claimed Again
The silence of the linen closet was a phantom limb long after they left it. The walk to the royal apartments was a gauntlet of bowed heads and averted eyes, every courtier a mask of perfect obedience. The king’s declaration in the hall had been a decree written in stone, and now the castle moved to obey. But beneath the compliance, Barnaby could feel the watchfulness, the calculation. A united front, Leo had said. Barnaby clung to the phrase, to the solid, relentless presence of the lion beside him.
They didn’t speak. The bond was a live wire, humming with Leo’s simmering fury and a brittle, protective energy that felt like a cage around Barnaby. His own emotions were a tangled knot—dread, a shocking thrill from being claimed so publicly, and a sharp, aching loneliness whenever he thought of his parents’ faces. They had sold him, and he had become something they could no longer afford.
The doors to the royal bedchamber were black oak, banded in iron. Leo shoved them open with a force that made the hinges protest.
The room was a beautiful mausoleum. Vast, cold, dominated by a canopied bed that looked better suited for state funerals than rest. Crimson velvet drapes hung motionless. The air smelled of sandalwood and neglect. A massive, carved stone hearth held only ashes.
Leo released Barnaby’s arm the second the doors clicked shut. He paced away, a restless predator in a space too small to contain his energy. The performance was over, and what was left beneath was raw, exposed nerve.
“They’ll try to get to you through your parents,” Leo said, his back turned. He ran a hand through his mane, the gesture frustrated. “Offers. Threats. Promises to ‘extricate’ you from this… situation.”
“They put me in this situation,” Barnaby said, his voice small in the enormous room. He wrapped his arms around his belly, a self-soothing gesture. The kits were quiet, maybe sensing the storm in their other father.
“I know.” Leo turned, his eyes glowing in the dim light. “That doesn’t make them immune to manipulation. Or greed.” He began to unbutton his jacket, his movements sharp. “You’ll need guards. Not just for ceremony. Around the clock.”
The reality of it settled like a physical weight. “I’m a prisoner.”
“You’re a target,” Leo corrected, tossing the jacket over a chair. The bandages across his back were stark white against his skin. “There’s a difference. One has bars. The other has… proximity to me.” He said it like it was a poison. Like his protection was a burden he was forcing on Barnaby.
Frustration, sharp and sudden, cut through Barnaby’s fear. “Stop.”
Leo froze. “What?”
“Stop trying to be the only hard thing in the room,” Barnaby said, dropping his arms. His heart hammered against his ribs. “I get it. You’re the savage king. You have to be. But in here… you just told a room full of people I have authority. So talk to me. Not at me.”
A muscle ticked in Leo’s jaw. For a long moment, Barnaby thought he’d gone too far. That the mask would slam down, hard and final.
Then Leo’s shoulders dropped, just a fraction. “They’ll say the kits aren’t mine. That you tricked the bond. That a rabbit’s scent is too weak, too easily fabricated.” He walked to the dead hearth, bracing his hands on the mantel, staring into the ashes. “They’ll use it to delegitimize everything. To challenge my judgement. My sanity.”
Barnaby took a tentative step forward. The marble floor was icy underfoot. “But they are yours.”
“I know that!” The roar was sudden, explosive, bouncing off the stone walls. Leo whirled, his eyes blazing. “I feel it in my blood, Bunby. Every time one of them moves, it’s like a echo in my own muscles. But proving that to a court that runs on perception and power?” He laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. “The word of a king against the word of his enemies only works if the king is untouchable. And now…” He gestured vaguely at Barnaby, at the bond, at the entire unprecedented mess. “Now I have a vulnerability they can see. And smell.”
He was across the room in three long strides. The scent of him—anger and sandalwood and raw, wounded pride—enveloped Barnaby. Leo’s hands came up, not to strike, but to frame Barnaby’s face, his thumbs pressing against the hinge of his jaw. His touch was hot, almost painful.
“They saw me choose you,” Leo growled, his voice low and guttural. “They saw me break protocol for you. They saw me claim you. In their eyes, that’s a lapse. A weakness to be exploited. And they will exploit it by coming for you.”
Barnaby stared up into the wildfire of his eyes. He was terrified. But deeper than the fear, kindled by the stark honesty in Leo’s face, was a spark of defiance. “So what do we do?”
A flicker of something passed through Leo’s gaze. Surprise, maybe. Respect. His eyes dropped to Barnaby’s mouth, then to the line of his throat, to the marking bite he’d given him in the conservatory. His scent changed, shifting, deepening. The anger was still there, but it was merging with something else, something possessive and primal.
“We make the vulnerability a fortress,” Leo murmured.
His hands slid from Barnaby’s face to the shoulders of the borrowed crimson tunic. With one swift, brutal motion, he grabbed the fabric and ripped. The sound was shockingly loud in the quiet room. Cool air washed over Barnaby’s skin, raising goosebumps.
“No more politics,” Leo breathed, his lips hovering over the bonding mark on Barnaby’s gland. His breath was searing. “No more games.”
He bit down.
It wasn’t like the first time. That had been a claiming, a brand. This was a reinforcement. A searing, sharp pain that shot straight down Barnaby’s spine, coalescing in a white-hot burst between his legs. He cried out, a sharp, involuntary sound, his hands flying up to clutch at Leo’s bare shoulders. His claws, usually so careful, pricked the skin.
His cock hardened instantly, achingly, trapped against the fabric of his trousers. His pregnant belly, round and full between them, quivered with the shock of it, with the sudden, overwhelming cascade of sensation and scent.
Leo released the gland, laving the throbbing skin with his tongue. A low, continuous growl vibrated from his chest into Barnaby’s bones. He backed Barnaby up, step by step, until his legs hit the edge of the vast bed. Barnaby fell onto the velvet coverlet, the world a blur of crimson and gold and Leo’s overwhelming presence.
Leo followed him down, a wall of heat and muscle, careful even in his ferocity to avoid putting weight on Barnaby’s stomach. He kissed him, and it was nothing like the tentative touch in the rain. This was consumption. It was a battle for air, tongue and teeth and a desperation that tasted like shared defiance.
Barnaby surrendered to it. He gave back as good as he got, tangling his hands in Leo’s mane, pulling him closer. This was something he could understand. This was a truth the court couldn’t twist. The proof was in the way their bodies fit, in the way Leo’s growl hitched when Barnaby rocked up against him, in the frantic scramble to push fabric out of the way.
When Leo entered him, it was with a single, deep thrust that made Barnaby see stars. It was different, now. The bond was open, a floodgate. Every sensation was doubled, reflected, amplified. Barnaby could feel his own tight heat around Leo, and he could feel the overwhelming, velvet-clasped sensation of being buried deep. He could feel the kits, not distressed but curiously attuned to the rhythm, to the pulse of the bond strengthening with every pounding heartbeat.
Leo’s movements were relentless, a physical manifesto. Mine. Here. Real. Each thrust drove the point home, past fear, past politics, into a raw, shared truth. Barnaby clung to him, legs wrapped around his hips, meeting every snap of his pelvis with a ragged gasp. He was babbling, a stream of “yes” and “Leo” and half-formed pleas.
He came first, shockingly fast, his back arching off the bed as pleasure tore through him, white and blinding. Through the bond, he felt the echo of his own climax slam into Leo, tipping him over the edge. Leo’s roar was muffled against Barnaby’s neck, his body locking, pouring heat deep inside as his teeth found the mark one more time, not biting, just holding.
They collapsed into the wreckage of the coverlet, a tangle of limbs and spent breath. The only sound was the rasp of their lungs, the slow settling of the dust they’d kicked up.
Slowly, the world seeped back in. The high, shadowed ceiling. The cold air on sweat-slicked skin. The profound, aching soreness between Barnaby’s legs.
Leo shifted, rolling to his side, pulling Barnaby with him so they lay facing each other. He didn’t speak. His thumb traced the fresh bruise forming around Bonding Mark, his expression unreadable in the gloom.
Barnaby’s belly gave a pronounced, rolling kick. Then another. A whole symphony of movement.
Leo’s hand instinctively dropped to cover the swell. He went very still.
Barnaby watched his face. Saw the anger drain away, replaced by a focus so absolute it was like watching him discover a new world. The kits tumbled and pressed, little feet and elbows mapping their confines.
“That one,” Leo whispered, his voice ragged. “That’s… strong. An alpha. I can feel it.”
“There are six,” Barnaby said softly.
Leo’s eyes flicked to his, wide. “Six?”
“Three like you. Three like me.” He guided Leo’s hand lower, to the left. “Two lion alphas. One lion omega, here.” He moved the hand. “Two rabbit omegas. And a rabbit alpha, right… there.”
As if on cue, the kit—the rabbit alpha—gave a firm, insistent push against Leo’s palm.
Leo’s breath caught. He looked from his hand to Barnaby’s face, his golden eyes shimmering with an emotion too vast to name. The savage king was gone. In his place was a man undone by the simple, impossible geography of life growing under his hand.
“A rabbit alpha,” he repeated, awe in his tone.
“You’re disappointed.”
“No.” The answer was immediate, fierce. He leaned in, until their foreheads touched. “No, Bunby. I’m… humbled.” He swallowed hard. “All this time, I thought fate had played the cruelest joke. A political marriage. A bonded rabbit. A litter I had to claim.”
His thumb stroked over the spot where the tiny alpha had kicked.
“This isn’t a joke,” he said, the words a soft rumble against Barnaby’s lips. “This is a revelation.”
Outside, the first sliver of dawn began to bleed around the edges of the heavy drapes, turning the room from black to the dim grey of a world about to be defined. The ceremony was a few hours away. The court was waiting. The enemies were plotting.
But here, in the rumpled dark, with the scent of their joining thick in the air and the proof of their future dancing under his hand, Leo found Barnaby’s mouth again. This kiss was different. Slow. Certain.
It felt like the first move in a new kind of war.