Chapter 103: ONE HUNDRED AND THREE

NICHOLAS’S POV

I found Adrian in the gym but he wasn’t working out this time. He was sitting on one of the benches with his elbows resting on his knees, staring down at the floor like he had completely forgotten that he was supposed to be doing anything else.

I slowed down when I noticed him because this was unlike him. He was the one who always had a plan. Who made sure that everything was working according to plan regardless of what happened. Seeing him sitting there without doing anything made me wonder just how badly everything with his father had affected him.

I walked closer and stopped a few feet away. "Are you okay?" I asked, and when Adrian lifted his head to look at me, I added, "You’ve been in here for a while. You look like you’re thinking about something."

Adrian rubbed both hands over his face before leaning back against the wall. "I don’t know. My father," he finally admitted, his voice quieter than usual. "That’s what I’ve been thinking about."

I sat beside him, leaving enough space between us. Adrian stared ahead for several seconds before continuing, and when he did, all I heard in his voice was disappointment. Like he couldn’t believe this was happening.

"Do you know what makes this difficult?" he asked, looking down at his hands. "It’s not just that he tried to have you killed. It’s everything that came before it. My father spent our entire lives making us believe he was a righteous man. He taught us that your word meant something, that family was supposed to protect one another, that you didn’t turn your back on people simply because they were inconvenient. He trained us himself, you know? He taught us how to defend ourselves, how to think before making decisions, how to take responsibility for the people around us. We grew up believing every lesson he gave us because he was our father."

He paused and swallowed. "And then we lost our mother, and he became even more important to us because he was the only parent we had left. We leaned on him and we trusted him. I trusted him more than I probably should have because I thought there was no reason not to. We spent years trying to make him proud, and now I’m sitting here wondering how much of that man was ever real."

I didn’t know what to say to that.

Adrian had spent his entire life believing his father was someone worth looking up to. Now he was being forced to question memories that had once been some of the safest parts of his childhood. I understood why he was struggling with it, but guilt still crawled into my chest.

"I’m sorry," I said quietly.

Adrian’s head snapped toward me and I immediately knew I’d said the wrong thing.

"No," he said firmly.

I frowned. "I just—"

"Don’t." Adrian stood up and turned toward me, his frustration becoming obvious. "Nicholas, seriously, don’t do that."

I stared at him, confused.

"You’ve apologized so many times that I’ve lost count," he continued, running a hand through his hair. "You apologize when you’re frightened. You apologize when something happens to you. You apologize when someone else makes a bad decision. You apologize when we’re angry. You apologize when we’re worried. And now you’re sitting here listening to me talk about my father and somehow you’re apologising again like this is your fault too."

I lowered my eyes. "I didn’t mean—"

"That’s exactly what I mean." Adrian pointed toward me, his expression tightening. "You always say you didn’t mean it, but you keep doing it. Stop."

I swallowed. "I’m sorry."

Adrian closed his eyes and for a moment, neither of us spoke. Then he let out a long breath and looked at me again. "See? You just did it again."

"I can’t help it," I admitted, my voice smaller than I wanted it to be. "It’s just how I am."

"No. It’s how you’ve been taught to see yourself." He snapped.

That made me look at him.

Adrian folded his arms. "You think being an Omega automatically puts you beneath everyone else. You think you have to apologize for taking up space, for needing protection, for making mistakes, for being afraid. You’ve convinced yourself that because you’re an Omega, you’re somehow less valuable than everybody around you."

I didn’t answer because he was right.

I’d spent so long believing it that sometimes I didn’t even realize when I was doing it anymore. Apologizing had become automatic. If someone was angry, I assumed I had caused it. If something went wrong, I wondered what I had done. If someone protected me, I felt guilty because somewhere in my head I’d decided that needing protection made me weak.

Adrian stepped closer. "You’re not low, Nicholas," he said firmly. "You’re a person. That’s it. You’re a person before you’re anything else. Omega, Beta, Alpha, none of that changes the fact that you’re human. You don’t owe anyone an apology simply because you exist."

I looked away."I don’t know how to stop thinking like that."

"Well, learn." His answer was blunt, but there was no cruelty behind it. "And the first thing you’re going to do is stop treating yourself like you’re fragile."

I looked back at him.

Adrian nodded toward the equipment around us. "That’s why we’re going to train."

"Train?"

"Self-defense." He walked toward the center of the gym. "If you’re going to keep finding yourself in situations where people want to hurt you, then I’m going to make sure you know what to do when nobody is around to save you."

I hesitated before standing.

Adrian noticed. "What?"

"I’ve never really trained properly." I admitted and I looked at him skeptically. "You know I might be terrible at this."

"Then you’ll be terrible until you get better. That’s how training works."

Typical. That was probably the most Adrian answer he could have given.

He started with the basics— How to keep my balance. How to position my feet. How to keep my hands up without locking my elbows. How to move backward without crossing my legs. He corrected me every time I made a mistake, sometimes stopping me completely so he could demonstrate what I was doing wrong.

And I wasn’t gonna lie. This was hard.

My feet felt awkward, and I kept forgetting where I was supposed to place them. When Adrian told me to move, I moved too quickly. When he told me to stay still, I became stiff. More than once, I nearly lost my balance, but Adrian didn’t laugh, he simply made me do it again.

"Again," he said after I messed up the same movement for the third time.

I exhaled. "I’ve done that already."

"And you did it wrong already. Again." His voice was hard.

I tried again and this time, I got it right.

Adrian nodded once. "Better."

Hours passed and I was already beginning to get the hang of it.

"You can’t freeze," he said while demonstrating another movement. "Fear is going to happen. You can’t control that. What you can control is what you do after you feel it."

I nodded and tried again. This time, when Adrian reached for me, I reacted instinctively and moved the way he’d taught me.

He stopped and I stared at him, then he raised an eyebrow. "That was actually good."

A small smile appeared on my face. "Really?"

"Don’t get excited. Do it again."

I rolled my eyes and stepped back into position.

By the time we moved on to the next exercise, my arms were aching and sweat had soaked through my shirt, but I didn’t want to stop. There was something about learning that I could actually defend myself that made me want to keep going. For so long, I’d been the person everyone had to rescue. I’d been the person hiding, running, waiting for someone stronger to arrive.

But perhaps I could fight for myself.

"You’ve got more determination than I expected," he said as I got back into position.

"I thought you said I was terrible." I joked.

"You were." He almost smiled. "You’re improving."

I pushed myself harder. Adrian eventually had to step back when I rushed toward him during one of the exercises. "Enough," he said.

Sweat covered my body, and I was breathing heavily. "I can continue."

"No. You’ve spent years thinking you’re weak," he continued. "Now you’ve discovered you aren’t, and you’re trying to prove it to yourself in one afternoon. You don’t have to."

I wiped my face with the towel and breathed heavily. "I just want to be able to protect myself."

"It doesn’t take a day, Nicholas."

I looked down at myself and realized just how exhausted I actually was.

Adrian checked the time and shook his head. "We’ve been here for hours." He picked up his water bottle and tossed it toward me. "Drink."

I caught it and took several long sips.

Fuck, this felt good.

Adrian walked toward the door before stopping and looking back at me. "Come on."

"Where?"

"Dinner." He told me.

I frowned. "I’m not hungry."

He turned on his heels and walked back to me, towering over me. Then suddenly he leaned down and pressed his lips to mine. "Don’t make me repeat myself," He muttered as he pulled away. "Dinner. Now.