Chapter 174: Chapter 174: Not an excuse for cruelty [Win-Win]

“Yes,” Lucas said after a moment. “Which means the situation is even worse than the visible version.”

Sebastian gave a faint, humorless laugh. “That is one way to phrase it.”

Because it was.

If Nero’s status were public, then at least the damage would arrive honestly. People would know what they were evaluating. They would factor in the secondary-gender implications, the mating expectations, and the social and biological violence buried inside those arrangements when they involved someone like Nero. The math would still be bad, but at least it would be based on the real shape of the board.

Instead, the board itself was false.

“He is being discussed,” Sebastian said, quieter now, “as a dominant alpha. That is already enough to make every court in range watch him like a strategic asset with a face.” His jaw tightened. “If the truth came out, the scale would change.”

He took another breath, slower this time. “It still doesn’t excuse my cruelty, but he is eighteen, and I’m fairly sure he didn’t take all the variables into consideration. The moment the world finds out that he can change anyone to match him, they would stop at nothing to get rid of me, and I…” He hesitated only briefly. “I don’t want to be an omega.” He looked at Lucas at once, more serious now. “No offense. I mean that for me. Not for what you are. Or Dean.”

Lucas held his gaze for a long moment.

Then his expression eased by a fraction. “I know,” he said.

The simple answer loosened something in Sebastian’s chest that he had not meant to tighten in the first place.

Lucas folded his arms. “You are not insulting omegas. You are saying you do not want your body, your future, and your social position rewritten for a relationship you do not even want.”

“Yes,” Sebastian said immediately, with more force than he intended. He exhaled and lowered his voice. “Yes. Exactly.”

Because that was the center of it, stripped clean.

He did not love Nero.

He cared about him. Had known him for years. Knew his moods, his intelligence, his terrifying patience, the nature of his pride. There was closeness there, yes. Familiarity. Family-friend intimacy so old it had become part of his life.

But romance?

No.

And that was precisely why the whole thing had felt so suffocating once Nero spoke.

“I don’t feel that way about him,” Sebastian said, looking down at the edge of the desk. “There is affection, because of course there is. He has been in my life too long for there not to be. But that’s not the same thing.” His mouth flattened. “I could not change for someone I do not even love that way.”

Lucas watched him carefully. “And you thought a soft refusal would not end it.”

“It wouldn’t have.”

The certainty in his own voice made the room quieter.

Sebastian went on before Lucas could answer. “If I had said no politely, if I had made it about age or timing or rank, Nero would have accepted it on the surface and then returned to it later. He would have waited. He would have watched. He would have decided that the obstacle was temporary and therefore solvable.” A bitter note entered his voice. “I’m still not sure that my words would really stop him.”

A beat of silence fell into the office.

Then Sebastian looked down at the edge of the desk and said, quieter, “He told me never to reach for him again. Because he would take it as permission and do whatever he wanted.”

Lucas went still.

Sebastian let out a low breath and rubbed once at the bridge of his nose. “Those were not the exact words.” His mouth flattened. “But that was the meaning.”

Lucas did not speak immediately.

When he did, his voice had gone very calm. “Tell me the exact words.”

Sebastian was silent for a second too long.

Then, because there was no point softening it now, not after everything else already laid bare between them, he said, “He told me to stay out of his way. Stay out of his head.” He swallowed once. “And that the next time… he might decide to solve the problem himself.”

The room seemed to lose a degree of warmth.

Lucas held his gaze for a long moment, his expression unreadable in the way only truly dangerous calm ever was.

“That,” Lucas said at last, “is not a sentence I enjoy hearing attached to someone I consider family.”

“No,” Sebastian said quietly. “Neither did I.”

Lucas’s brows drew together slightly.

“Was he threatening you?” he asked.

Sebastian exhaled through his nose. “Yes and no.”

Lucas arched a brow.

Sebastian gave a tired, humorless laugh. “I know how that sounds.”

“It sounds like a man trying very hard to explain why a threat did not feel simple.”

“Yes,” Sebastian said. “Because it wasn’t.”

He leaned back in the chair and stared toward the blackened windows, though he wasn’t seeing the glass anymore, but that day.

“He was angry,” Sebastian said after a moment. “Hurt. Humiliated. And for a few seconds…” He stopped, jaw tightening. “For a few seconds, I think he wanted me to understand exactly what he could become if he stopped being civilized.”

Lucas was silent.

Sebastian went on anyway, because that was the truth of it. “I don’t think he intended to drag me into an alcove that night or throw me over his shoulder and start a diplomatic incident before dinner. But I do think he meant what he said in the larger sense.” His gaze lowered. “That if I ever blurred the line again, he would take it seriously. Entirely seriously.”

Lucas remained very still. “Because he assumes,” he said slowly, “that any reach from you after a wound like that could only mean consent.”

“Yes.”

“And because he is not someone who would treat that as hypothetical.”

“No.”

The office fell quiet again.

Sebastian let the silence sit, because there was nothing to add that made it cleaner. Lucas finally asked, “Were you afraid of him?”

Sebastian did not answer at once.

That, too, was an answer.

But after a moment he said, carefully, “In that moment? Yes.”

Lucas’s expression did not change, but his usual calm scent spiked.

Sebastian looked up at him and forced himself to continue before the silence became something larger. “Because for the first time, I was standing in front of someone who had both the will and the ability to make his meaning real if he ever thought the line had moved.”

Lucas listened without interruption.

Sebastian’s mouth flattened. “And because I know him, I believed him.”

Lucas folded his arms. “So your fear was not that he would assault you in a corridor that evening.”

“No.”

“It was that he was telling you, very clearly, that any future ambiguity would be interpreted in the most dangerous direction available.”

“Yes.”

“For fuck’s sake.” Lucas let the curse out.

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