[BL]Reborn as the Empire's Most Desired Omega Chapter 97: Love After Death

Trevor didn’t have the ti to say anything. Lucas was already moving, closing that breath of space between them like it had offended him. His hands slid to Trevor’s face, fingers threading through dark hair, and then his mouth was on his. No hesitation. No gentleness. It was hunger dressed as defiance, a kiss that stole breath and dared Trevor to stop him.

And gods, he wanted to give in.

To lose himself in the feel of Lucas—hot, determined, angry in the way only soone who had learned to survive could be. Lucas kissed like he was reclaiming sothing. Like this mont was the only thing keeping the rest of the world from caving in.

He reached up, gently cupping Lucas’s face, thumbs brushing the skin beneath his eyes. Then, softly, he pulled back, just an inch.

Lucas didn’t let go at first. His hands gripped tighter, like he could force ti to stall, like he could use Trevor’s mouth to forget the last ten minutes or ten years.

"I just need—" Lucas started, but Trevor shook his head.

"No." His voice wasn’t harsh, but it cut through the haze. "Not like this."

Lucas stilled.

Not because he wanted to, but because the word "no" landed sharper than anything else tonight. Not cruel. Not cold. Just... firm. A boundary wrapped in care.

He didn’t pull away imdiately. His breath hitched once, like the montum had betrayed him. His fingers were still in Trevor’s hair, still holding on like this was the only place he knew how to breathe. But his expression cracked at the edges. Just barely.

"Trevor—" he began again, voice frayed, but Trevor leaned in and touched their foreheads together.

"I know," Trevor said quietly. "I know what you’re trying to do."

Lucas didn’t answer. His eyes searched Trevor’s like he could find a crack in him too. Sothing to pry open. Sothing to drown in.

"I want you," Trevor continued, voice low and rough, "but I won’t take pieces of you just because you don’t know what else to offer."

Lucas looked away then. Just slightly. The muscles in his jaw went tight. "I’m not trying to buy your comfort with sex."

"I didn’t say you were."

"Then what am I doing, Trevor?"

The words ca out brittle. Frustrated. Like he hated asking the question as much as he hated not knowing the answer.

Trevor’s hands slid down to Lucas’s, untangling their fingers with care, thumbs brushing each knuckle like a promise. "You’re trying to disappear," he said gently. "And I’m here to make sure you don’t."

He had started releasing his pheromones minutes ago—quiet, steady, controlled. Not sharp or territorial. Just warmth. Just comfort. The kind that didn’t demand anything back.

Lucas’s breathing hitched again, but this ti it didn’t rise to panic. It slowed. Caught on sothing steadier. Sothing he didn’t have to brace himself against.

"I didn’t an to—" Lucas started, but the rest of the sentence fell apart in his mouth. His gaze drifted down to where Trevor still held his hands like they were sothing worth saving.

"You don’t have to explain," Trevor murmured, his voice soft as the pheromone-laced air between them. "Your body’s been in survival mode for too long. You don’t owe a reason for why it’s screaming now."

Lucas said nothing, but the line of his shoulders eased slightly, like a string had gone slack in his chest.

The scent in the room was warm now. Subtle and grounding. Trevor’s pheromones weren’t ant to seduce; they were ant to calm him down. And they were working. Slowly, surely, pulling Lucas back into his own skin.

"I’m not trying to run," Lucas muttered eventually, like he needed to clarify it for himself more than for Trevor.

"I know," Trevor said. "But disappearing isn’t just running. Sotis it’s staying still and letting soone else decide what happens next."

Lucas’s throat moved. He looked up at him, eyes sharp and tired and entirely too aware. "I don’t want to be a thing again."

Trevor leaned forward, pressing his lips to Lucas’s temple. A single kiss.

"Then don’t be," he whispered. "You’re not."

Lucas didn’t say anything. He just let himself be pulled into Trevor’s arms, solid, warm, and steady, like the earth itself had hands and decided to hold him for a while. His forehead pressed to Trevor’s collarbone. He was quiet. Too quiet.

And then, barely audible:

"Can I tell you sothing?"

Trevor shifted slightly so he could hear him better, one hand coming up to cradle the back of Lucas’s head.

"You can say anything you want."

Lucas hesitated. Not because he didn’t believe him—but because whatever was caught in his throat wasn’t ant to be spoken, not easily. Not now. Not yet.

"Even if you would think that I’m mad after?" His voice was small, quieter than before, but charged with sothing darker—fear, not of harm, but of rejection. Of disbelief. Of Trevor looking at him differently.

Sothing twisted in Trevor’s chest. Sharp. Familiar. A cold, slow rage that had nothing to do with Lucas and everything to do with the world that had made this oga, his oga, afraid of being heard.

"Especially then," Trevor said, his voice low and fierce with promise. "If you think it might make leave, then that’s the thing I want to hear most."

Lucas was still, tucked close, still breathing in slow, shallow pulls. His fingers curled around the edge of Trevor’s shirt.

"I rember dying," he said at last.

And for a mont, ti stopped.

"I don’t an like taphorically or just in dreams. I rember it. My body. The heat. The silence. The way no one ca. I died alone."

Trevor’s grip on him tightened instinctively, but he didn’t speak.

"I think I ca back. Sohow. I think I was given another chance, and I don’t know why. I don’t know how. But it wasn’t just a nightmare. I’ve lived through all of this already, Trevor. Everything you’ve told tonight? I knew. Not all the nas. Not every detail. But I knew."

His voice broke then—not into sobs, but into a raw honesty that was worse. That cost more.

"I was twenty-five. And I never made it past that. Not really. They sold off before I could fight back. Before I could beco anything at all."

Trevor didn’t say, ’I believe you.’ He didn’t need to.

Because he had already started rocking them both just slightly, the motion steady as the heartbeat Lucas had pressed himself against.

"You don’t sound mad," Trevor said into his hair. "You sound like soone who survived the worst thing imaginable and still found a way to love."

Lucas let out a slow breath, shaky but clearer. "You don’t think I’m cursed? Haunted?"