Chapter 33: He Was Already Here

They paused just inside the doorway.

All three of them.

As if the sight demanded silence.

And what they saw wasn't chaos.

It was Trevor—still on the floor, still holding Lucas against his chest, still wrapped around him like he'd been planted there. Lucas, unmoving, face pressed to the collar of Trevor's shirt, one hand twisted in fabric like muscle memory hadn't caught up to the safety yet.

No one spoke.

Not immediately.

But Trevor could feel it—the shift in the room, the weight of lineage and power gathering like storm pressure behind every breath they didn't take.

Lucius stepped forward first.

His voice was low. Clipped. Controlled.

"Is he conscious?"

"No," Trevor said. "But he's breathing."

Lucius's eyes flicked down. One second. Then back up.

To Sirius.

Who still hadn't moved.

Who looked at the boy in Trevor's arms like someone seeing a fallen empire for the first time—recognizing not weakness, but cost.

Serathine's voice cut in next. Sharper. Colder.

"Who?"

Trevor didn't look away.

"Velloran."

Silence.

But it wasn't still.

Lucius inhaled. Sirius exhaled. Serathine didn't move at all—but her hands, clasped neatly in front of her, tightened just enough for her knuckles to pale.

When she spoke, her voice was composed—measured, layered with the elegance expected of a duchess trained in war salons and succession negotiations.

But the hatred laced beneath it was unmistakable.

"He was one of the houses invited," she said, evenly, every syllable wrapped in silk that had begun to burn. "His secretary announced that something intervened and it wouldn't be possible for him to participate. I assumed it was a retreat. Not a trap."

Her eyes didn't leave the boy on the floor.

Didn't stray to Lucius or Sirius.

As if looking at Lucas was the only thing keeping her fury from igniting the entire room.

"Do you understand what that means?" she asked softly. "He never came through the front. He was already here."

Trevor's grip around Lucas tightened by a breath.

Lucius's voice followed, low and dangerous; the sharpness returned to it now like a blade finally drawn.

"So someone in this house gave him passage. Covered his arrival. Hid his presence."

"No."

Serathine's gaze finally lifted to meet his.

"Several."

The word dropped like a stone into water—ripples of implication cutting through the air, touching every name not yet spoken aloud.

"I will make sure to destroy every one of them," she said, and there was no grandeur in it. No performance. Just the flat certainty of a woman who had built empires by knowing exactly how to unmake them.

Trevor didn't move.

Sirius didn't speak.

Lucius's jaw flexed once, but he gave no protest—because he knew better than to stop her now. They all did.

Serathine straightened her gloves, slowly, as if patience were a blade she was sharpening against her palm.

"I want lists about today's events," she said to her secretary over the phone. "Schedules. Entry logs. Garden routes. Who was missing. Who was late. I want every quiet conversation in the east wing traced and every unopened bottle in the cellar accounted for."

She turned her head, just slightly, to Lucius.

"You'll handle the palace end. Clean it without leaving blood for the tabloids to sniff."

Then, to Sirius, eyes steady:

"And you will make it clear, without saying a word, that the next man who tries to use my ward as a political weapon will be buried with the pen he signs it with."

Sirius's mouth twitched. Just slightly.

Approval. Maybe even amusement.

But behind it, steel.

Trevor finally shifted his hold—carefully, slowly rising to his feet with Lucas still in his arms, limbs light now from exhaustion instead of shock. The scent of calm still clung to the space around them, but it was fading, replaced by the static weight of justice beginning to take shape.

Serathine turned to him last.

Her voice gentled—only slightly.

"Take him to the west wing. His chambers have been prepared. He won't be disturbed."

Trevor nodded once.

"Call a physician you trust," he said.

"You'll have him within the hour."

They held each other's gaze for a breath longer—one soldier to another.

Then Trevor left the marble and light behind, carrying Lucas into the quiet that came after the reckoning.

—

Lucas stirred before he woke.

Not with movement, but with awareness—the slow, sinking kind that starts in the skin. A breath caught in unfamiliar linen. A pulse tapping out of rhythm. A wrongness too quiet to name.

The room was warm.

That was the first lie.

Warm and still, the air was scented with citrus peel and pressed lavender, the kind used in estates that cared more for impression than comfort. The sheets were silk—real silk, the kind that whispered when touched, cool against his spine and too smooth to trust.

His eyes opened.

And the ceiling above him was white-veined stone—arched and perfect.

A chandelier glowed with soft light.

Lucas didn't breathe.

His fingers moved slowly across the sheet.

He knew the thread count.

He knew the exact feel of the monogrammed embroidery at the corner, where the crest had once made his stomach churn every time a maid smoothed it.

No.

He turned his head.

The walls were pale green.

The curtains were heavy damask, drawn back by silver tassels.

A bowl of sugared fruit sat beside the bed on a tray that had never been meant to be eaten from—just admired.

'No.'

Panic began to seep into his bones.

Not the sharp, electric kind—but the slow, syrup-thick dread that settled behind the ribs, that crept into the throat and made even blinking feel dangerous.

Because he knew this room.

Velloran estate.

His mouth opened—but no sound came.

His heart picked up pace, wild now, and he pushed against the mattress as if rising would break the illusion, as if distance might undo whatever had brought him back here.

Then—softly, too softly—

A voice.

That voice.

"Well, you really like giving me headaches, don't you?"

Lucas froze.

The air inside him vanished.

"I mean, honestly," the voice continued, amused, lazy, and fond in that way that had once made Lucas feel safe before it made him sick. "Did you think I would let you die?"

Christian.