Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 56786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Not that Lucien remembered that night well. All he could remember was the heat, and the gnawing, bottomless need. By the time he came to his senses days later, Aksel was already gone, shipped off by Royce to the army—leaving a gaping hole in Lucien’s life.
Only with Aksel gone had Lucien realized how frighteningly empty his life was without him. Without Aksel, he was nothing. He’d had no friends, not even casual acquaintances, nothing to look forward to. It seemed he’d been mistaken to think that he’d picked himself up after his first disastrous heat. His entire self had simply been built around Aksel ever since he was fourteen, with the younger boy serving as his emotional anchor. It was soul-crushing to realize that without that anchor, his life had absolutely no meaning or purpose.
Thankfully, after watching Lucien wander around the house like a listless ghost for months, Royce had enrolled him in school. Lucien had been upset and angry at first—he had no desire to be the laughingstock of his much younger classmates—but eventually, he’d come to realize that Royce had been right and had become grateful to him for his high-handedness. It was nice to talk to people, nice to have some goals in life, however small and meaningless. Nice to think about something other than the boy his life no longer revolved around.
After getting his degree, Lucien had even started teaching online courses to poor students who couldn’t afford to attend college. They weren’t very popular, and they didn’t pay well, but he liked that his students didn’t know or care who he was. He liked the feeling of independence and accomplishment his small earnings gave him. He didn’t really need the money, but the mere fact that he had an independent source of income made him feel more confident and self-assured. Less like a useless dependent. Almost like a real adult.
He only wished he knew how to be a happy adult.
Acquaintances and students still didn’t fill the hole in his life left by Aksel. Lucien told himself it was a good thing, that he had simply grown up and didn’t want or need that kind of intense, codependent relationship with anyone, but there was a part of him that still felt eternally cold, as if he were just drifting through his life.
They hadn’t communicated since that night at all. Royce had flat-out forbidden it, forcing Lucien to change his phone number. He’d been furious with Aksel for “preying on a vulnerable omega with Lucien’s history,” and refused to listen to Lucien’s attempts to defend him. Lucien was the older one, shouldn’t the responsibility lie with him? Royce scoffed when Lucien tried to argue that.
Your biological age doesn’t matter, Royce had said, his lips twisting unhappily. You don’t have the life experience of someone your age. You’re little more than an adolescent yourself, Lucien. Aksel should have known better, given your history.
Given your history.
Right.
Lucien hated how everyone still treated him as if he were some fragile, traumatized flower, whose opinions couldn’t be valid just because of what had happened to him. He hated being defined by what had happened to him. Utterly loathed it. But the only person who had treated him normally was gone, and he might never return.
Aksel might never return.
No matter what Royce said, deep down, Lucien had known it was his fault. He shouldn’t have forgotten to take his suppressants. He should have been the one to set clear boundaries between him and Aksel. He should have been the one to recognize the signs of his approaching heat. He should have been the one to recognize that Aksel was going into a rut. He should have been the one to stop him, before it had gone too far. He would have been the one at fault if Aksel had been killed in the war.
But Aksel hadn’t been killed.
And he was coming back.
He was coming back.
And no matter what the rational part of him said, Lucien’s foolish, needy heart suddenly beat faster.
***
When an excited maid came to tell him that Aksel had just arrived home, Lucien smiled, thanked her, and stayed in his room.
It was the hardest thing he’d done in his life, when all he wanted was to run downstairs.
But Royce had advised him against being there when Aksel arrived. Royce wanted to speak to Aksel first, to make sure Aksel didn’t hold any grudges and had moved on from his fixation on Lucien.
“It’s too risky,” Royce had said with a grimace. “Mother will be there, and it would be better if she isn’t present in case of any… you know.”
Wincing, Lucien had agreed. Vagrippa resented him for his part in Aksel’s abrupt departure as it was, even though she didn’t know how far things had gone. All Royce had told her was that Aksel’s presentation had been kick-started by Lucien’s heat pheromones. Vagrippa still didn’t know that Royce had barely stopped them from having sex. Lucien was sure she would have made his life a living hell had she ever found out the full truth. If she was angry with her own eldest son for his high-handed decision, she would be beyond furious were she ever to find out that Royce had shipped Aksel off to the army because he’d caught him on the verge of fucking Lucien through his heat. She would, no doubt, see it as proof of Lucien grooming Aksel or something equally as nauseating.