[BL]Reborn as the Empire's Most Desired Omega Chapter 322: Ghosts

Steam curled up from the bath, fogging the edges of the mirror and blurring the brass fixtures into soft shapes. Lucas lay back against the cool porcelain, shoulders sliding a little deeper beneath the water until it lapped at his collarbones. The binder sat on the closed toilet lid within reach, a pale grey block against the white tile. He hadn’t opened it yet.

He stared at the ceiling while the heat seeped into his muscles. The sound of the water moving around him was steady, almost hypnotic, but his mind kept circling back to the photocopied pages. Would reading them help him understand what he was, or just make the noise in his head louder? Would it give him a map or another labyrinth?

His eyes closed. The conservatory ca back first , the faint citrus sll of damp leaves, Trevor’s hand warm at the small of his back, and the amber-trapped butterfly. He rembered the jolt of recognition he couldn’t explain, the way the glass roof had looked like sothing out of a dream he hadn’t told anyone about. He’d written it off at the ti as déjà vu, a trick of nerves.

Now, with Caelan’s green eyes still lingering in his mind, he wasn’t sure. Maybe he really had lived before. Maybe he had only seen it. Maybe the lives he rembered weren’t full lives but echoes, pieces of soone else’s mory pressed into his own. The difference mattered; it was the difference between being cursed and being chosen, between madness and a strange kind of inheritance.

He let his head tip back, wet hair slicking to the porcelain. "Five lives," he murmured to the empty room. "And I can’t even figure out one."

His fingers drifted along the edge of the tub, restless. The binder stayed where it was, closed and silent, waiting. Sowhere beyond the bathroom door he could hear the muffled sounds of the manor: a door closing, Windstone’s low voice with a guard, and the clink of glass in the kitchen. Life was going on, as if he hadn’t just been handed proof that his mories were more than trauma.

Lucas drew a long breath and slid under the water to his chin, eyes opening to the distorted ceiling above. He’d read the journal soon. Just not tonight.

—

The cell slled faintly of disinfectant and old stone, a combination Trevor had always found more honest than the perfu of courtrooms. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, violet eyes fixed on the man slumped against the bolted-down chair. The alpha’s hoodie was cut away, leaving his bandaged shoulder bare; sweat slicked his hair to his forehead, his scent a muddled mix of pain and residual pheromones.

He had talked. Everything. Nas, dates, the thin thread of orders he thought he’d been following. "Christian Velloran sent ," he’d rasped before they’d even started. The line had sounded rehearsed and desperate. And then the gaps had appeared: no rendezvous point, no extraction plan, no paynt on delivery, just the single instruction to "take the man."

Trevor’s mouth tightened, the only crack in his composure. Christian might be reckless, but he wasn’t stupid enough to mount a grab like that in the capital without an escape path.

He let the silence stretch, the weight of his gaze as heavy as an execution blade. The alpha squird under it, fingers twitching against the cuffs bolted to the table. He’d already told them everything he knew; now he was just waiting for permission to be forgotten.

Trevor’s mind drifted back to Alan, the one asset who had lived long enough under Benedict’s thumb to speak. Days of slow, careful breaking, peeling back layers of conditioning until Alan had finally whispered it: Benedict’s ability wasn’t subtle manipulation or blackmail, but mind control.

The heavy door swung shut behind him with a muted thud, the lock clicking into place like the punctuation at the end of a sentence. The corridor outside was narrow and dimly lit, the sll of damp stone and disinfectant following him as he walked. Trevor rolled his shoulders once beneath his black shirt, the motion more a release of disgust than fatigue.

He hated work done badly. A botched abduction in the middle of the capital, a disposable pawn with no plan to get out, a na dropped like bait. Christian’s na, no less. Whoever had set this up either thought Trevor was a fool, or they wanted him to see the thread and pull it.

His thumb hovered over his phone screen as he scrolled to the security feed of the holding cell. The alpha was hunched now, cuffed and silent, the painkiller beginning to dull his flinch. Useless for the mont. Trevor slid the device back into his pocket.

Windstone’s voice drifted low from a side room, coordinating the night’s security rotations. Sowhere in the manor above them, Lucas was probably still in the bath, binder untouched, his head full of ghosts. Trevor forced his thoughts back to the present. Benedict, he thought. He sure as hell isn’t subtle, but he is clever. Conditioning pawns and sending them to die. He is testing the edges of our periter.

"Deal with him silently..." Trevor had already told the two guards stationed outside the door. Now, as one of them approached and Trevor stopped a mont, his fingers tightening on the phone. "And send another gift for our friend Benedict. He seed to really like the other one."

The operative nodded once and lted back into the shadows.

Trevor started up the stairs toward the ground floor, his pace asured. He would call in the next favor quietly, moving the board one piece at a ti. If Benedict wanted to play in the capital, he would find out what it felt like to be cornered here.

By the ti Trevor reached the top of the steps, the scent of polished wood and dark roast was already replacing the stink of stone. He drew a slow breath and squared his shoulders. Upstairs, Lucas would be waiting with the weight of a photocopied journal in his hands. Trevor intended to make sure nothing else reached him before he was ready.