Chapter 359: Chapter 359: Ice cream and happiness
By the time Trevor eased him out of the clinic room and down the polished hallways, Lucas’s eyes still burned, but the tears had slowed to damp tracks on his cheeks. He hated the rawness of it, hated the way his body felt lighter and heavier all at once, as though crying had taken something out of him and given something back in the same breath. Trevor didn’t let him walk alone, his hand not once left Lucas’s, the cedar threaded through every step like invisible armor.
The car ride back was quieter than the first. Lucas sat leaning into Trevor this time, the side of his face against the alpha’s shoulder, not caring about the wrinkle in his jacket or the weight of his damp lashes. Trevor said nothing, didn’t press, and didn’t fill the silence. He only breathed slow and steady, letting Lucas match him, until the knot in his chest loosened enough that the trembling in his hands stilled.
When they returned to the manor, Windstone was waiting as though the world had been moving on its usual clock while theirs had fractured. His bow was rigid, but his pale green eyes softened faintly when they flicked over Lucas’s drawn face. "The sitting room is ready," he said, and led them inside.
The room was a cocoon of soft light, curtains drawn against the afternoon sun, a fire already kindling low in the grate despite the warmth of the season. Lucas sank onto the couch without protest, Trevor sitting close enough that their knees touched.
Windstone vanished for all of three minutes before returning with a tray, two crystal bowls, silver spoons, and ice cream scooped in perfect rounds. One bowl was crowned with pale vanilla, the other dark chocolate streaked with caramel.
Lucas blinked at it, startled out of his haze. "Ice cream?"
Windstone set the tray on the low table, straightening with his usual dignity. "I’m aware of your... preference, but today you can choose. I will take it as emergency sugar."
The laugh broke out of him before he could stop it, shaky but real, a sound that startled even himself. Windstone inclined his head as if he’d accomplished something he planned for, then retreated with the same dignity, leaving the two of them alone in the hush of the sitting room.
Lucas curled into the corner of the couch, spoon in hand, staring down at the pale crown of vanilla as though it held answers no monitor ever could. His shoulders eased, the raw edges of grief dulling into something gentler.
Pure and complete happiness. Faint, almost foreign, but creeping in all the same.
It settled in his chest like warmth after frost, this fragile knowledge that he could carry the child he had once believed lost to him forever. That it wasn’t only his, but theirs. Theirs to want, theirs to guard, theirs to hope for.
He dug the spoon into the ice cream and took a bite, cold and sweet and sharp against his tongue. He smiled into it, surprised by the simple pleasure. "He’s right, you know," he said softly, looking at Trevor from under damp lashes. "Sugar is medicine."
Trevor had barely touched his bowl, but his gaze was steady, violet eyes intent on him rather than the dessert. "If it keeps you smiling like that," he said, quiet but fierce, "I’ll buy every sweet in the country."
Lucas’s chest tightened again, but this time it wasn’t grief, it was the fragile, dizzy ache of joy. He set the spoon down and leaned into Trevor, letting his head rest against his shoulder, fingers brushing unconsciously over his own abdomen.
For the first time since stepping into the clinic, he didn’t feel broken or like he was waiting to break. He felt... whole. And though the future was uncertain, with risk and fear still circling like shadows, he could finally believe in the possibility of more.
Their child. Their family.
He closed his eyes, letting the warmth spread through him, and whispered almost to himself, "I didn’t think I’d ever get this."
Trevor’s arm tightened around him, voice low against his hair. "And now you have it. We have it."
And for once, Lucas let himself believe it.
—
By the time the fire had dwindled to embers, Lucas was asleep. The empty bowl sat forgotten on the low table, a silver spoon balanced delicately inside it, half-melted vanilla pooling at the bottom. Trevor brushed a strand of hair from Lucas’s face, careful not to wake him. His omega’s breathing was even, the faintest smile still touching his mouth.
He stood slowly, easing out from under Lucas’s head, arranging a cushion where his shoulder had been. The cedar in the air had softened, fading to a whisper, but he left enough for Lucas to feel it even in sleep, a promise that he was near and that nothing would touch him while Trevor drew breath.
For a long moment he simply watched him. The soft light turned the room into something almost holy, too gentle for the kind of thoughts running through his head.
The faint rise and fall of his omega’s chest, the small crease at the corner of his eye that deepened when he dreamed. Peaceful, for once. Happier.
Two months ago, he’d thought the half-formed memories flickering at the edge of his mind were tricks of exhaustion, fragments of another life bleeding into this one. But they weren’t. Not anymore. The image that haunted him, the warmth of a tiny hand curled around his finger, Lucas’s laughter soft in a sunlit room, it hadn’t been a dream.
Lucas had been pregnant before. They’d had a child.
Benedict.
The name surfaced like a bruise. He didn’t eliminate the threat he was and that didn’t sit well with him. He wanted the certainty that nobody would ever touch his omega... his family. His real family was forming, not the mother and brothers that only wanted money from him.
Even thinking the name sent a low current of anger through him. In those fractured recollections, Benedict’s presence had felt corrosive, like smoke seeping through the cracks of everything they’d built. Trevor didn’t know what he wanted then, or what he’d taken from them, but he knew the feeling of threat, of something unfinished.
And now, whispers placed him in Rohan.
Trevor exhaled, jaw tightening as he turned from the window. Windstone was already there in the doorway, quiet as ever, hands clasped neatly behind his back.
"Send a coded message to the Rohan branch," Trevor said, voice low and controlled. "Fitzgeralt agents only, no intermediaries and no third-party channels this time. I want confirmation of every rumor that mentions Benedict. Every movement. Every name he’s used."
Windstone inclined his head. "Understood. I’ll have it dispatched within the hour."
"Good," Trevor murmured, gaze drifting back to Lucas, curled on the couch, face soft, peaceful, and unguarded. "And Windstone, keep this discreet. Not even Serathine hears about it until I say so."
"Of course, my lord."
When the butler left, Trevor lingered a moment longer, the only sound the faint tick of the mantel clock. The air still carried Lucas’s scent mixed with the cedar, warm, domestic, undeservedly gentle after years of war, loss, and lies.
Trevor’s eyes darkened. ’He won’t touch us again.’ Not in this life.
He turned, pulling his phone from his pocket, already composing the first encrypted directive. By dawn, Fitzgeralt agents would be moving through Rohan’s underbelly, listening for the name that had followed them across lifetimes.
Benedict.
And this time, Trevor would find him first.