Chapter 53: Instincts

Chapter 53: Chapter 53: Instincts

Nero let his head fall against the padded edge of the sunken bathtub, hot water shifting around his chest before lapping softly against the black stone.

Steam had gathered across the mirrors and turned the bathroom beyond the tub into blurred shapes of silver and amber, while the wide window overlooking the forest had darkened into little more than a reflection of the room, rain running down the glass in thin streams that caught the light before disappearing into the night.

He had watched Sebastian eat.

He had watched him shower once the physicians finally allowed it without supervision, then change into his own clothes after the luggage arrived from Palatine, dark trousers and a deep green shirt replacing everything Nero had lent him over the previous days.

Nero had disliked that more than was reasonable.

His clothes had looked better on Sebastian.

More importantly, there had been something satisfying about seeing Sebastian wrapped in things that belonged to him, small domestic proof that he was here, inside Nero’s villa, sleeping beneath Nero’s roof and carrying Nero’s scent, whether Sebastian approved of the implication or not.

Then Sebastian’s luggage had arrived and taken that away.

A ridiculous thing to resent.

Nero resented it anyway.

He closed his eyes.

Sebastian had lied about the memory.

Not completely.

That would have been easier.

There had been a royal youth gathering when Nero was twelve and Sebastian nineteen, and Nero remembered it exceptionally well, partly because Dax had arranged the entire event in Saha for the specific pleasure of humiliating Caelan on Sahan soil while remaining perfectly polite about it.

But it had been summer. Blisteringly hot summer.

Not winter and not Palatine.

Sebastian had gotten two details wrong that Nero could not imagine him genuinely confusing.

He remembered too much.

Sebastian could recall the placement of doors in buildings he had entered once, political conversations from years ago, names that everyone else had forgotten, and the exact wording of insults people wished he had forgotten.

He did not casually move an entire royal gathering across countries and seasons.

Nero slid lower into the water until the heat reached the base of his throat.

Either Sebastian had mixed two memories together... or he had remembered something that had never happened.

Something from somewhere else.

The possibility had been sitting beneath Nero’s thoughts since the observation room, quiet only because he had forced it to remain there.

He knew about the visions.

Arion had told him after he and Dean spoke to Sebastian years ago, when Nero was still young enough that everyone around him occasionally made the mistake of believing information could be given to him without consequence.

Different futures. Different versions of them.

Nero and Sebastian were dying, in every one the seers had seen, their deaths tied to disasters large enough that Sebastian had apparently decided avoiding Nero was less painful than gambling with whatever catastrophe waited for them together.

Nero had promised Arion he would never tell Sebastian that he knew.

He had kept that promise.

He had even respected Sebastian’s silence.

That achievement deserved far more admiration than anyone had given him.

Nero opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling.

He understood why Sebastian was afraid.

He simply did not agree that fear entitled fate to win.

If some other Nero had failed, that was unfortunate for him.

If another Sebastian had died, Nero would mourn him in principle.

Neither had anything to do with this one.

This Sebastian was alive.

He was inside Nero’s home.

His body was already changing beneath Nero’s pheromones, restructuring toward a siren-type dominant omega like Lucas because an enigma could force biology to reconsider rules everyone else treated as permanent.

That alone should have been enough proof.

Things changed. Bodies changed. Destiny could damn well learn.

Nero lifted one arm from the water and dragged wet fingers through his hair, pushing the long white-blond strands away from his face.

His enigma instincts had become unbearable over the last several days.

At first, it had only wanted Sebastian close.

That was familiar.

Nero had lived with that hunger since adolescence and learned to wear it elegantly.

Then Sebastian had collapsed. Coughed blood into Nero’s shirt. Nearly died while every machine around him insisted he should have been stable.

After that, the instinct had changed.

It no longer wanted closeness.

It wanted certainty.

Every small refusal from Sebastian seemed to tighten something beneath Nero’s ribs.

A separate room.

A phone Nero could not control.

A closed door.

A hand withdrawn.

A simple no.

Nero could smile through all of them, could tease and negotiate, and could pretend that patience remained an infinite resource, while somewhere underneath, something enormous and ancient pressed harder against the inside of his skin.

He was beginning to feel like a beautifully dressed explosive.

Sebastian had no idea how carefully everyone around him was currently handling the fuse.

Perhaps Hale did.

Hale usually knew.

Nero turned his head toward the tablet resting on the dry ledge beside the tub.

There was one person who might give him what he wanted.

No one knew she existed.

Dax could probably uncover her eventually, because Dax could uncover almost anything once he knew what he was looking for, but that was the point.

He did not know.

Years ago, she had come to Nero herself.

Terrified, exhausted, and running from what remained of the old religious networks beyond Saha’s borders, where people like her were kept under control because visions became useful when priests could decide which ruler was allowed to hear them.

Saha had been different.

Dax had eradicated the old church inside the kingdom years before and replaced its influence with institutions and people he trusted, leaving no religious authority powerful enough to claim ownership over someone simply because she could see things other people could not.

She had expected Nero to send her into royal custody.

Instead, he had hidden her from everyone.

A quiet residence under another name, private protection financed through accounts nobody would trace to her unless they already knew who she was, and guards who believed they were protecting a politically sensitive civilian.

Only Hale knew what she truly was.

Hale would take that knowledge to his grave before reporting something Nero had explicitly decided his father did not need to know.

Nero trusted very few people that completely.

He reached for the tablet.

Water streamed from his forearm onto the stone as the screen awakened beneath his thumb.

The seer did not see one future.

That was what made her useful.

She saw categories.

Likely outcomes.

Divergent paths.

Events that became possible only after another event occurred.

Points where futures narrowed.

And, more rarely, things that refused to change no matter what preceded them.

Nero wanted every one.

He wanted to put himself and Sebastian in front of her and ask exactly how many endings existed.

Then he wanted to find the ones he disliked.

One by one.

And kill them.

The thought soothed him so immediately that Nero went still.

That was probably not a good sign.

He did not care.

His thumb hovered above the hidden contact.

He could ask whether Sebastian survived the transition.

Whether they married.

Whether Sebastian stayed.

Whether there was some specific mistake Nero had to avoid.

He could ask what took Sebastian away from him and remove it before it ever had the opportunity.

If someone told him Sebastian could only live by leaving him, Nero did not know what he would do.

That uncertainty disturbed him more than the visions.

Because the correct answer should have been obvious.

Let Sebastian leave.

Let him live.

Nero stared at the dark name on the screen and felt something inside him bare its teeth at the thought.

No.

He could find another way.

There was always another way.

If the universe demanded Sebastian’s freedom as payment for his survival, Nero would bargain until the universe regretted speaking to him.

If it demanded blood, he had plenty. If it demanded a crown, Saha could have another king. If it demanded Nero’s heart... His breathing slowed.

He had seen that image before through Sebastian’s fear without ever being told its exact shape.

His own heart in Sebastian’s hands.

Nero almost smiled.

Fine.

He would give him that too.