[BL]Reborn as the Empire's Most Desired Omega Chapter 154: The circling wolves

The chamber was quiet in the way that only old, thick walls could provide, shielding them from wind, distant footsteps, and the shifting bones of the house itself. A single lamp burned on the nightstand, casting honeyed light across the edge of the bed, where Lucas sat with his legs tucked beneath him and the tablet balanced against one thigh.

The comforter was pulled over his knees, the scent of warm soap still lingering on his skin. He’d taken a bath an hour ago, and his hair was mostly dry, with a slight curl around the edges. A bowl of ice cream sat on the nightstand beside him, slowly lting in the room’s faint heat, half-finished because he’d beco distracted while rereading the notes he’d made in the early months after waking up in this life.

The mories weren’t perfect. So were blurry at the edges, like frost on glass, while others were far too sharp, fragnts of pain, loneliness, and quiet resignation. Nevertheless, they were his. He’d written them in the dead of night, when his hands were too trembling to sleep. When breathing felt like an accusation. When rembering was the only power he had left. And the most recent notes in the peace Trevor and his new ho have brought him.

The door to the adjoining bath opened with a soft creak, and Lucas glanced up.

Trevor stepped out barefoot, towel slung low around his hips, droplets of water trailing down his chest in lazy rivulets. His hair was damp and swept back with only his fingers, and he was, for lack of a better word, sinful. The kind of vision bards would have wept over centuries ago, and Lucas would have mocked them for.

But there was no arrogance in his posture. Just the sa Trevor, steady and quiet, holding a shirt loosely in one hand and sothing unreadable in his eyes.

"Are you still writing?" He asked casually, while tossing the shirt on a nearby chaise to retrieve sothing from the walk-in dresser.

"Sotis, I’m just trying to get them organized. Didn’t you read those?"

Trevor glanced over his shoulder, one brow lifting as he disappeared briefly into the walk-in. A rustle of fabric, the soft scrape of wood against hangers, and then—

"No." His voice was clear, even in its quiet. "I didn’t."

Lucas blinked, caught off guard by the simplicity of the answer. He shifted on the bed, the tablet now resting against his thigh and the backlight casting faint shadows over his knuckles.

Trevor reappeared monts later, fully dressed in loose dark trousers with rolled sleeves and no shoes. He moved slowly across the room and sat on the edge of the bed, close enough to cause the mattress to dip but not close enough to see what was on the tablet screen.

"I thought you did," Lucas said, finally, his tone unreadable.

"I didn’t need to," Trevor replied, his gaze steady. "You never locked it, but you never offered either. So I waited."

Lucas stared down at his tablet, then at the man beside him. "That’s stupidly noble."

Trevor huffed a small laugh. "I get accused of worse."

A silence settled between them, gentle, not heavy. Lucas’s thumb traced the edge of the screen, the half-written mory glowing faintly. His lips parted, then closed again. When he finally spoke, it wasn’t with hesitation, but sothing far quieter.

"Do you want to read them?"

Trevor didn’t answer imdiately. His gaze dropped to Lucas’s hands, the way they fidgeted despite the calm face he wore.

"I want to know you," he said simply. "And if that ans reading your pain backward, then yes. But only if you want to."

Lucas took another look at the tablet, which was half journal and half battlefield, and exhaled slowly. Then, with a slight nod, he turned it and handed it to Trevor.

"I don’t want to explain anything."

"You won’t have to," Trevor said as he began to read.

—

Trevor sat there, unmoving, the soft glow of the tablet illuminating the sharp line of his jaw and the faint crease between his brows. Lucas lay curled beside him, already asleep, his breath shallow in the quiet of the room, his body betraying the strain of travel, the tension from Dax’s gas, and the undeniable pull of the heat drawing closer with every hour. Even in sleep, his face reflected a sense of restraint, as if his body had yet to believe it was safe to rest completely.

Trevor’s hand remained buried in Lucas’s hair, fingers lightly combing through the soft strands. That contact helped him feel grounded. A connection to the present, to the fact that Lucas was alive, warm, and safe in their bed.

He didn’t look at the screen. Not yet.

The words were waiting, so jagged, others raw, a map of a life Lucas should never have had. Trevor could see the end of one sentence, which started with pain and ended with nothing. His jaw tightened.

He wasn’t ready.

Not because he was afraid of what he’d find. But because he knew. I knew that every line written with that asured, restrained hand would be a reopened wound. Trevor, for all his calm and command, had never been taught the art of watching soone he cared about bleed in ink.

He sighed, wishing, for a brief mont, that ti could bend. That he could carve out a peaceful corner of the world for Lucas to exist without having to pay the price in blood and mory. Where their mornings were not defined by how many political fires were raging or how many old ghosts were clawing their way back through the walls.

But their enemies weren’t waiting.

Jason Luna began to move just a few hours after their departure from Saha—too eager, too confident for soone pretending patience. Trevor had received the update mid-flight and again shortly after dinner: forged credentials were already circulating, there were attempts to infiltrate the regional office at the border under the guise of a trade audit, and a flurry of encrypted ssages were being sent through dead lines.

As if Trevor hadn’t anticipated it. As if his systems didn’t flag Jason’s na before the ink on the first forged seal was dry.

Trevor glanced at the secure folder on his tablet where Windstone’s brief report still pulsed in red. It could wait until morning.

Then ca Serathine’s ssage, forwarded with her usual impeccable timing and sharpened flair.

Christian Velloran, that wretched shade of courtly self-righteousness, had inford the judicial committee that he was calling for capital punishnt in Misty Kilr’s case. Not just for Lucas’ personal cris, but in a broad effort to criminalize all binding contracts ford through private dical manipulation. He portrayed it as reform. As an act of justice.

Trevor almost laughed.

Trevor reached for the tablet, which was still resting on the edge of the bed, exactly where Lucas had left it. The screen ca to life with a soft glow of recognition; no passcode was required, because Lucas hadn’t bothered locking it. Because he didn’t believe he needed to.

That trust had its own kind of weight.

He opened the first file, hesitating for a mont before tapping into the folder labeled simply: The First Life.