Chapter 29: The Mother in White

The music carried on—harp strings stitched to piano, soft and courtly, designed to make the air feel safer than it was.

Lucas moved like he belonged to the room now. Not as a guest, not even as a host. As something the room had been built around.

And across the ballroom, two specters in white watched him.

Not ghosts. Not quite.

But something close.

Misty Kilmer stood near the eastern arch, posture elegant in a gown that whispered of old money and older ambition. The white silk clung to her like an apology she never intended to make. Her neckline was modest, her jewelry deliberate, but none of it softened her. She wore the color not in reverence to the occasion but in mockery of it—white for innocence, for purity, for the kind of maternal grace she'd always sold but never owned.

Beside her stood Ophelia. Younger. Sharper. Clothed in a paler echo of the same dress, though where Misty wore her ambition like perfume, Ophelia wore hers like armor. Her hair curled just enough to be soft, her smile just crooked enough to seem shy. But her eyes followed Lucas like a hawk, calculating each gesture, each glance, each moment of distraction.

They had waited.

Watched him circulate. Watched the princes back off. Watched Trevor pulled into another conversation.

Waited for the gap.

"Ophelia," Misty said, her voice just a little too bright, a little too loud to be conversational, "let's remind your brother that he's still part of the family."

It cut through the chamber like silk tearing. Not sharp, not sudden—but unmistakable. Loud enough for nearby guests to pause. Loud enough to wound.

Lucas turned.

His gaze found them—his mother and sister dressed in the palest white, picture-perfect, standing with the stillness of women who believed their narrative mattered more than the truth.

Ophelia smiled on cue, soft and vaguely apologetic, like this wasn't calculated, like this wasn't rehearsed in a sitting room the night before with champagne and strategy.

"Lucas," she said sweetly. "You look…" Her eyes swept him, just once. "Expensive."

Misty took a step forward, arms open, not wide, just enough to feign warmth.

"Darling," she murmured. "You didn't say hello."

Lucas didn't flinch.

Didn't blink.

He looked at them—really looked.

Ophelia, with her perfect hair and softened tone, white gloves a shade too pristine. Misty, with her practiced tilt of the head and her voice honeyed at the edges, was already threading the crowd with the idea of forgiveness.

It wasn't love. It was a performance.

And they wanted an audience.

Not just the crowd that lingered nearby, sipping from crystal and watching with careful eyes, but the press of proximity—the ripple effect of nobles trained to smell blood beneath civility. Misty and Ophelia weren't here for the reunion. They were here to reclaim relevance. And they had waited until the ballroom's attention shifted, until Lucas stood alone with power behind him but not beside him, until the orchestra softened just enough for a single word to ring louder than intended.

"Interesting," Lucas said, his voice quiet—quiet in the way storms gather just before they rip the sky open—and clean enough to slice the moment in two. He did not raise his voice. He didn't need to. "I thought you would have enough courtesy to know the invitation was only extended out of politeness."

The word politeness landed like a slap dressed in silk. Not crude. Not messy. Just final.

A few nearby heads turned with sharper interest now. The ones who knew nuance. The ones who lived off implication.

Ophelia's expression faltered for a breath. A flicker of confusion at not being welcomed, at not being able to play the role she'd practiced—sweet sister, regrettably estranged, here only to mend what never should've broken.

Misty, to her credit, did not lose her smile.

But she stepped closer, white skirts whispering along marble, her tone dipping with feigned concern, the curve of her lips still sculpted to perfection.

"Lucas," Misty said, stepping forward with the confidence of a woman who had rehearsed this moment not once, but dozens of times in front of a mirror, her voice dipped in honey and regret and everything she had never given him. "You may have a new title. A new wardrobe. But I gave you everything that brought you here."

She smiled—careful, luminous, perfectly framed by pearls and the white silk that clung to her like innocence reborn.

"And even with Serathine's protection, you still have to honor the contract."

The room didn't hush, not yet. But something in the air tightened. The way it does before a chandelier falls.

Lucas didn't move.

Didn't blink.

She pivoted, her tone rising half a note, just enough for the nobles nearby to tilt their heads slightly toward the conversation.

"But of course," Misty added, with a smile wide enough to gleam for the cameras, "it was just an engagement promise. That's what I told the media. That's what the legal registry shows. It's a formality—any mother would have done the same. What future does a male omega without a proper mate?"

She placed a hand over her chest. "I never wanted to pressure you. Just… protect you."

Lucas didn't look away. Didn't blink. He simply stood there, the soft lighting of the gala catching on the cool lines of his face and the gleam of a watch that cost more than she'd ever made, honestly. He waited, quiet, while her words sank into the room like perfume thickened with rot.

Then, too calmly:

"Protect me," he echoed, as if the word were foreign. A curiosity. A mistake.

He let the silence stretch. Not long. Just long enough for her to believe she'd gained ground.

"You filed that contract two months after my gender was confirmed the second time," Lucas said. "And three days after a private physician submitted a falsified report calling me 'unfit for academic strain.'"

Misty's smile didn't slip. It fractured—barely. The kind of break only a son could see.

"You filed for emergency medical authority," he continued, "under the clause reserved for orphans and comatose patients. You delayed my registration. You sealed my records. And when I asked why I couldn't leave the estate, why my letters were being returned unread—" Lucas's voice dropped, low and slicing, "—you said I was being difficult."

Misty's fingers twitched at her side. Ophelia shifted, as if to step in, but the air had already locked them both in place.

"I was thirteen," Lucas said. "You knew exactly what you were doing. And now you're standing here dressed in white like a grieving widow trying to rewrite history in front of a ballroom full of witnesses."