Chapter 113: The Other Reason

Chapter 113: Chapter 113: The Other Reason

Lucas arrived alone.

Sebastian had specifically asked for that, which was probably why his father entered the private sitting room already suspicious.

He had removed his formal jacket and changed into a softer dark green shirt, blond hair still brushed neatly back from his face, though several strands had escaped near his temple after what had apparently become an unnecessarily long conference call. The door closed behind him, and his green eyes went immediately to Sebastian.

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

Lucas stopped.

Sebastian sighed. "That sounded worse than I intended."

"It usually does when someone asks me to come alone and then begins with nothing happened."

Sebastian gestured toward the sofa.

Lucas sat, though his attention did not leave him.

Nero had been summoned by Dax less than half an hour earlier to establish Saha’s position before tomorrow’s meeting with Sirius and Zion, and Sebastian knew this was probably the cleanest opportunity he would get.

If he delayed now, he would find another reason tomorrow.

Then another.

He sat opposite Lucas and rested his forearms against his thighs.

"I need to tell you something I should have told you years ago."

Lucas’s expression changed immediately.

Sebastian raised one hand.

"I’m healthy. This is not another medical confession."

"That qualification is doing very little to improve the opening."

Sebastian almost smiled.

"You know why I refused Nero initially."

Lucas leaned back slightly. "I know several reasons."

"The obvious ones."

"He was eighteen."

"Yes."

That had been enough by itself.

Nero had grown up around Dean, around their homes and family gatherings, close enough that Sebastian had known him long before there was anything remotely romantic to consider. By the time Nero made his intentions impossible to misunderstand, Sebastian had been twenty-five and painfully aware of what the outside world could make of the situation regardless of who had pursued whom.

"I knew what people would say if I accepted him then," Sebastian continued. "It wouldn’t have mattered that everyone around us knew I hadn’t encouraged him. There would always have been someone willing to claim I had."

Lucas’s mouth tightened.

"I remember."

"And there was Fitzgeralt."

That required even less explanation after the meeting they had just finished.

Dean moving toward Alamina had already pushed one son of Fitzgeralt beneath foreign imperial authority. Sebastian accepting Nero would have placed the other beside the future ruler of Saha, leaving Trevor’s military grand duchy caught between two external thrones and generations of constitutional anxiety.

Lucas sighed.

"That part has aged beautifully."

"It certainly has."

For a moment, the humor softened the room.

Then Sebastian looked down at his hands.

"The problem is those reasons stopped being enough."

Lucas went still.

Sebastian could feel the question before it came.

"So what happened?"

He looked back at his father.

"Five years ago, Dean asked me to have dinner with him alone."

Lucas frowned.

"Arion was there."

"That already violates the definition of alone."

"That was approximately my reaction."

The faint amusement disappeared quickly.

"They had just returned from their honeymoon. Dean had information from the temple."

Lucas’s entire posture changed.

Sebastian noticed.

The temple and visions carried a different weight for Lucas than they did for most people.

"What information?"

"Possible futures."

Lucas said nothing.

Sebastian continued before he could reconsider.

"About Nero and me."

His father’s fingers tightened slowly against his knee.

"The visionaries had seen several variations. They weren’t consistent enough to know what caused what, but there were disasters attached to them. Roslew fell in some. Infected beasts broke through. Command structures failed."

Lucas’s face had become very still.

"And you?"

Sebastian held his gaze.

"I became a dominant omega."

Silence.

Lucas stared at him.

Sebastian let the meaning settle before adding the part that mattered most now.

"Siren profile."

Lucas inhaled. It was barely audible, but Sebastian heard it.

"Like me?"

"Similar enough that the temple connected it to the same general category of phenomena. Rebirth. Timeline changes. Memories crossing lives. They didn’t understand exactly how it worked."

Lucas’s eyes narrowed.

"And Nero caused the change."

"Yes. An enigma bond."

That revelation would have sounded impossible five years ago.

Today Sebastian’s body was already doing it.

The irony was almost offensive.

Lucas looked toward the windows for several seconds before asking, "Dean knew all of this?"

"He and Arion knew what the temple had told them."

"And you decided we didn’t need to?"

Sebastian had expected that.

"No."

Lucas turned back sharply.

Sebastian continued before the hurt could become anger.

"The information was useless at the time. Nobody knew whether the visions were warnings, possibilities, memories, or frightened people filling gaps between fragments. Nothing had happened to me. Nero was nowhere near me. There was no secondary-gender change."

"You thought telling us would accomplish nothing except make us afraid."

"Yes."

Lucas stared at him.

Sebastian’s mouth twisted faintly.

"I know. I decided for you."

"You seem remarkably practiced at admitting that."

"I have received criticism."

"From Trevor?"

Sebastian paused.

Lucas saw it.

His expression sharpened.

"Trevor knows."

"Yes."

"How long?"

"Not five years."

"That was very specific."

Sebastian sighed.

"I told him when I returned to Palatine, and the situation with Nero started becoming impossible to ignore."

Lucas looked toward the ceiling for a moment.

Sebastian waited for the explosion.

It did not come.

When Lucas looked back, there was hurt in his face, but also reluctant understanding.

"You told him first because you thought he would listen before panicking."

Sebastian did not insult him by lying.

"Yes."

Lucas nodded once.

"I hate that this is a reasonable assessment of me."

"You love aggressively."

"That is a flattering description."

"I worked on it."

Lucas almost smiled before his expression sobered.

"You said the visions weren’t enough to know what they meant."

"They weren’t."

"Were?"

Sebastian’s fingers curled together.

"Three years ago, I started dreaming." He exhaled before Lucas could interrupt, forcing himself past the instinct to soften what came next. "And I’m not stupid enough to believe it was an innocent coincidence. Dean had already told me what the temple saw. I knew what could happen, I knew I was the one who would become a dominant omega with a siren profile, and then I started remembering lives that had never happened."

Lucas’s eyes had gone glassy, but he remained silent.

Sebastian looked down at his hands.

"I wanted you and Father to be happy after everything the two of you had already survived. I was arrogant enough to believe I could manage it without Nero, and stubborn enough to convince myself that keeping him away was somehow protecting everyone."

Lucas lowered his gaze.

That movement hurt more than anger.

Sebastian knew his father too well. Lucas was already moving backward through years of conversations, searching for moments he should have noticed, places where he might have intervened, something he could blame himself for because accepting that Sebastian had deliberately hidden the burden from him was harder.

"Dad."

Lucas shook his head faintly.

"I should have known."

"No."

"I knew you were avoiding him. I knew there was more than politics and the age difference, and I still—"

Sebastian stood before Lucas could finish.