The doors opened before the car fully stopped. Servants were already preparing to make sure that their mistress's needs were fulfilled without any inconvenience.
Lucas stepped out slowly, the soles of his shoes meeting white stone too clean to belong to a place meant for living. The estate stood ahead, glass and carved limestone columns softened by creeping ivy and perfectly trimmed hedges that lined the walk like obedient courtiers.
It looked less like a home and more like a curated performance.
One where no one forgot their role.
Inside, the light shifted. Warm, quiet. The air was cool, lightly perfumed with jasmine and something older—waxed wood, perhaps, or the sterile sharpness of money well spent and rarely questioned.
It reminded him of Count Velloran's estate.
Count Velloran.
When had he started to think of him by title and not name?
Christian Velloran.
A name that made his chest tighten in pain and panic—an old reaction, instinctive, one his body remembered before his mind caught up.
'Will I meet that man again?'
The thought wasn't dramatic.
It was quiet. Frightening in its simplicity.
And it made him shiver, despite the warm breath of spring that seeped in through the polished windows.
He had once waited hours for Christian to come home.
Had once dressed carefully, practiced his tone, and softened his words, hoping to be enough—beautiful enough, obedient enough, useful enough—to be wanted again.
And now, years later but somehow younger, the idea of seeing that man again felt like standing on the edge of a ruined house, still smelling the smoke.
Would Christian even recognize him?
No.
'Does he remember too?'
Lucas's fingers curled slightly at his sides.
What were the chances?
This wasn't a dream. Not a fantasy stitched together by a dying mind. Everything felt too solid, too sharp, too exact in its cruelty. He remembered every moment before the end. Every breath of fever. Every hour of silence. Every time he was told to try harder, it was like his body was a puzzle to be solved by other hands.
And now… he was seventeen again. Here. In this room. With skin untouched, with wrists unscarred, with breath in his chest that didn't come from gasping for air between sobs.
So what if he wasn't the only one?
What if Christian Velloran woke up one morning in that same silk-lined hell, memory intact, face in his hands, realizing what he'd done?
What if he hadn't?
Lucas felt his stomach twist. Cold and hollow.
Because if Christian remembered and did nothing—that would be worse than death.
Lucas followed two steps behind as Serathine handed off her coat without breaking stride. Not a word exchanged. Her staff knew better than to speak unless prompted.
She turned right, not toward the drawing room, but toward a hall that curved slightly—long and lined with black-and-gold paintings that whispered more about conquest than sentiment.
When they reached the second room on the left, she opened the door herself.
"This will do."
Her voice broke through his spiral like cold water to the face.
Lucas blinked, startled by how far his mind had wandered.
The room was large, understated in the way only wealth could afford. Cream walls, carved moldings, a fire already burning low in the hearth. The curtains were open, letting in late spring light. Everything smelled faintly of clean linen and money.
Too polished. Too untouched.
She stepped aside.
"You'll stay here until I decide otherwise," she said. "There are clothes in the wardrobe. If they don't fit, someone will adjust them."
"Why would I live with you? You didn't tell me what you want from me."
That earned a faint laugh—quiet, graceful, the kind of sound only women like her could afford to make.
"You can say I like playing dress-up," she replied, "or that I hate your mother enough to make her squirm. Both would be true."
Lucas didn't flinch. But he didn't smile, either.
"She'll ask to return me," he said. "I'm not mature enough to make any decision. She'll twist that."
"No," Serathine said calmly, smoothing a crease from her glove. "Because I already told you. The Emperor wants you here."
That silenced him.
For a moment.
"He didn't want me for seventeen years," Lucas said, his voice low. "Now suddenly he does?"
"He doesn't want you," Serathine corrected gently. "He wants Misty to shut her mouth and stop dragging your name through corridors she doesn't belong in. You being here is a quiet solution."
Lucas let that settle.
A solution. Not a son. Not a mistake to mend. Just another chess piece repositioned with subtlety and silk.
'But why now? What did change from before?'
He turned toward the window again, but the glass offered no answers. Only the reflection of a boy who looked too clean to be real.
Nothing had changed. That was the problem.
Misty was still Misty. The Emperor still didn't speak his name. The court still whispered around him, not about him. So why this now? Why Serathine? Why the car, the room, the new clothes in a wardrobe he didn't ask for?
Something shifted.
And he wasn't the one moving the board.
He stepped back from the window, heart tight, mind racing in slow, careful spirals. The kind of spirals he used to get lost in when waiting behind closed doors for Christian Velloran to call him forward.
"The palace will host the ball for your coming of age," Serathine said smoothly, as if she'd been speaking the entire time. "Well—no. I will host it. As I have the intention of adopting you."
Lucas froze.
Her voice, her presence, her sudden nearness—it was too much, too fast, like stepping into sunlight after a storm and realizing you forgot how to see.
She reached out and placed one hand over his shoulder.
Light.
Poised.
Perfectly controlled.
"I've lived alone in this mansion long enough."