Chapter 356: Chapter 356: Lies
A week later, the manor was still. Too still.
Lucas stood in his office, coffee cooling between his hands, the wide windows open to the morning light. From here, he could see the gardens stretching in perfect symmetry, hedges trimmed, gravel paths raked smooth, and staff moving with quiet precision as though the world outside the estate had never touched this place. Beyond the walls, the city’s skyline glinted faintly, steel and glass caught by the sun.
Everything looked in order. Controlled to the point of absurd that defined Trevor.
Except him.
He lifted the mug halfway to his mouth and stopped, staring into the dark liquid instead. A bitter laugh caught in his throat, unvoiced. Coffee had become his constant, his small anchor, but not even the heat in his palms chased off the whisper gnawing at the back of his mind.
What if it hadn’t worked?
The thought had circled him all week, patient as a wolf. Trevor never pressed. Windstone, infuriatingly, already had preparations lined up as if inevitability was carved into stone. But Lucas knew better than anyone that inevitability was a lie.
He leaned one shoulder against the cool frame of the window, eyes narrowing on the neat rows of lavender blooming near the fountain. All the order in the world couldn’t change biology. Couldn’t undo what had been done to him.
What if his body failed again?
What if this life, like the last, left him empty-handed? Velloran’s voice still ghosted his memories, harsh, accusing, the cruel way he’d said ’you’re broken, Lucas. An omega who can’t conceive isn’t an omega at all.’ Each word had cut deeper than any blade, searing into him until even now, even free, even loved, they still whispered in the dark corners of his mind.
Lucas closed his eyes, the heat of the mug seeping into his chest like a shield he didn’t quite believe in. He wanted to tell himself that this was different. That Trevor wasn’t Velloran, that this wasn’t cruelty disguised as expectation. That this time, he’d chosen.
And yet...
The silence of the office pressed against him. His fingers tightened around the ceramic.
’What if I can’t give him a child? What if I can’t give myself one?’
A muscle jumped in his jaw, green eyes opening again to watch the staff move through the gardens like small, ordered figures. None of them carried the weight of what was done to him... No, he hoped no one would ever have to carry it.
For a moment, he almost wished he could trade places with them, one of the gardeners trimming hedges into crisp lines, one of the maids carrying fresh linens across the courtyard. Anything but this. Anything to stop being heir and husband and omega all at once. Anything to stop the gnawing certainty that, in the end, it would still be his fault.
The thought sat heavy in his chest, colder than the coffee cooling in his hands.
But then he breathed, slow and shallow, and the cedar reached him. Just a steady undertone that lived in the walls of the manor now, braided with his own honey-sweet scent. And under it, deep and thrumming, the hum of their bond, an invisible tether that never let him fall too far.
It reminded him of Trevor’s touch, firm and grounding, and of the man’s voice when he’d said, "I’ll prove it again, as many times as you want." It reminded him that for all his doubts, Trevor had never once looked at him with disappointment, never once measured his worth by what his body could or could not give.
Lucas set the mug down on the sill, letting his fingers rest against the cool glass instead. His reflection stared back at him: tired, green-eyed, marked by cedar at his nape. A man who had been broken once and remade in fire. A man still learning how to believe that love was not conditional.
He exhaled, tension bleeding from his shoulders one thread at a time. Whatever the appointment said, whatever the blood tests or scans revealed, Trevor would be there. And that bond, that cedar warmth woven through his bones, was proof enough that he wasn’t alone.
Not anymore.
The door clicked softly behind him, and Lucas didn’t need to turn to know who it was. The cedar sharpened instantly, filling the room with the kind of calm that only ever came from one person.
"You’re brooding," Trevor said simply. His voice was low, steady, and maddeningly perceptive.
Lucas didn’t move from the window, fingers still pressed to the glass. "Just thinking."
Trevor crossed the room, footsteps measured against the polished floor, and came to stand behind him. His reflection joined Lucas’s in the window: taller, broad-shouldered, with a violet gaze cutting straight through the green. "You’re not thinking," he murmured. "You’re trying to convince yourself of a lie."
Lucas huffed, the sound caught somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. "Maybe the lie is easier than the truth."
A warm hand closed over his wrist, pulling it gently away from the glass. Trevor turned him until they were face-to-face, until there was no avoiding the bond thrumming between them. "Lucas," he said, voice softer now, "whatever happens in that appointment, it will never be your fault. Not then, not now, not ever."
The words hit harder than Lucas wanted to admit. He swallowed, green eyes glinting, searching Trevor’s face for any crack, any hesitation. But there was none, only the calm, unflinching certainty he had come to depend on.
Trevor’s thumb brushed over the edge of his bond mark, slow and deliberate. "I chose you. Not an heir, not a body, heck, not even a future. You. That’s all I’ll ever need."
Something inside Lucas unclenched at that, the gnawing voice in his head quieting beneath the weight of cedar and truth. His lips curved faintly, crooked and tired but real. "You always know what to say."
Trevor leaned down, brushing a kiss across his temple. "No," he murmured. "I just refuse to let you lie to yourself."