Chapter 321: Chapter 321: The Lucas you built
The ride back to the manor passed in a blur of winter light and muted city noise. Lucas sat with the binder balanced on his knees, thumb running along the edge of the photocopied pages. He didn’t open it; he just felt its weight, heavier than it should be, like a stone he’d chosen to pick up. Windstone sat beside him, silent and watchful, his pale-green eyes flicking to the street only when necessary.
By the time the sedan rolled through the gates and up the long drive, dusk was already pressing at the windows. Warm light spilled from the manor’s tall windows, a soft gold against the early evening sky. Lucas drew a slow breath, squared his shoulders, and stepped out when the driver opened the door.
Windstone peeled away toward the security office without being asked, giving Lucas a small nod as he went. Lucas crossed the entrance hall alone, the binder still under his arm. The scent of Trevor hit him first, dark and familiar, before he even saw him.
Trevor was waiting in the sitting room off the main hall, jacket off, sleeves rolled, a glass of something amber in one hand. He looked up at the sound of the door and set the glass aside. "You’re late," he said quietly, violet eyes scanning Lucas’s face as if looking for damage.
"I stayed longer than I planned." Lucas shrugged out of his coat and draped it over the back of a chair, the binder still in his hand. "It wasn’t a trap. Just... a meeting."
Trevor stood, crossing the space between them in two slow steps. "What did he say?"
Lucas hesitated, then held the binder out a little. "He gave me this. Photocopies of a journal... the former Emperor’s. A dominant omega who... remembered five lives." He huffed out a short, disbelieving laugh. "Apparently I’m not unique."
Trevor’s brows drew together, his gaze flicking from Lucas’s face to the binder. "He gave that to you? Caelan is full of surprises."
Lucas shifted the weight of the binder in his hands, eyes dropping to the worn photocopied cover. "He said it might help me understand what I am. That it’s my choice who knows about it." He gave a faint, dry smile. "Apparently even he hasn’t told Sirius or Lucius. Only Serathine."
Trevor reached out, brushing his fingers over the edge of the binder but not taking it from Lucas. "Do you believe him?"
"I... don’t know." Lucas’s shoulders lifted and fell. "It’s a little much to process and I don’t know if I’m ready."
Trevor’s thumb traced the edge of the cover once more before he drew his hand back, giving Lucas the space he seemed to need. "You don’t have to be," he said quietly. "You don’t owe anyone an immediate reaction, not even him."
Lucas gave a faint huff of breath, almost a laugh. "That’s new. In my old life, everyone wanted an immediate reaction. Contracts, signatures, obedience. Now I get photocopied journals and patience." His eyes flicked up to Trevor’s. "It’s disorienting."
"Good." Trevor’s mouth curved, not quite a smile but something gentler. "That means we are doing something right. It means you’re not in that life anymore."
Lucas stared at the binder on his lap, fingers resting lightly on its cover. "I keep thinking I should feel grateful. Or furious. Or something. Mostly I just feel... tired."
"We only have the presentation, and at worst it will take four hours; let’s return to the North after this. Let’s go back home and have you rested," Trevor said, voice low but firm, as if he’d already decided.
Lucas’s fingers stilled on the binder. The thought of leaving the capital, of cold air and distance and the clean quiet of the northern estate, loosened something tight under his ribs. For a heartbeat he let himself picture it: no ceremonies, no staring eyes, no folded notes sliding across tables. Just snow and pine and Trevor’s scent.
"I’d like that," he murmured, surprising himself with how much he meant it. "But first the hall, the handshakes, the oaths. We can’t vanish before we finish what we came for."
Trevor’s mischievous smirk appeared. "Do you want to test that?"
Lucas let out a low sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh, and tipped his head back against the sofa cushion. "Don’t tempt me," he muttered. "If you so much as hint at a door out of this circus, I might actually take it."
Trevor’s smirk softened into something closer to a grin. He leaned an elbow on the back of the sofa, violet eyes glinting. "We could be on the jet by dawn. The security and air clearance would take less than a day even if Caelan is against it."
Lucas turned his head just enough to look at him, green eyes tired but amused. "And undo months of planning? Serathine and Cressida would skin us alive. Besides..." His fingers brushed the edge of the binder again. "I want to walk into that hall on my own terms. Not as someone who ran."
For a moment Trevor studied him, the glint in his eyes dimming into respect. "That’s the Lucas I know," he said quietly.
"That’s the Lucas you helped build," Lucas corrected, a faint smile tugging at his mouth. "Old me would have been halfway to the border by now."
Trevor chuckled under his breath and reached out, catching Lucas’s chin lightly between thumb and forefinger, just enough to tilt his face up. "Old you didn’t have me," he said.
Lucas let the touch linger for a heartbeat before pulling back, his smile crooked. "No, he didn’t."
Trevor dropped his hand and leaned back. "All right," he said. "We’ll do the circus of your presentation, we laugh at the nobles and then I’m stealing you north. No arguments."
Lucas closed the binder and set it carefully on the low table, as though setting down a weight. "Deal," he murmured. "One more show. Then snow and pine."
Trevor reached for his glass again, violet eyes still on him. "One more show," he echoed. "And then home."