Dr. Elaine re-entered a moment later, tablet in hand, her expression gentler now—but her eyes flicked toward the closed door with something unreadable before she turned back to her patient.
Lucas hadn't moved.
He sat where Trevor had left him, posture straight, one hand still curled loosely around the edge of the table. He looked calm. That practiced kind of calm that came not from peace, but from learning to look unbothered long enough to survive being examined.
Elaine stopped a few feet in front of him.
She didn't lift the tablet this time. Just held it by her side.
"Lucas," she said softly, "can I ask you something?"
He glanced up, wary but willing.
"Do you trust Grand Duke Fitzgeralt?"
The question was simple, but Lucas knew there was more to it.
Dr. Elaine wasn't asking if he trusted Trevor as an ally, or a political safeguard. She wasn't asking if the arrangement was working, or if Lucas approved of the title, or the name.
She was asking if he trusted him as a partner. As a man. As someone who might be the only one standing between him and a truth no one else could be allowed to speak aloud.
Lucas let the silence stretch—not out of hesitation, but out of caution. The kind born from a past life, the kind that reminded him just how often trust had been the first step toward betrayal.
And yet…
"Yes," he said at last, his voice quiet. Steady. "I do."
Elaine watched him for a breath longer, then nodded—like that was all she needed.
"All right," she said softly. "Then I'll speak with him. Alone."
"Should I be worried?"
Lucas asked it quietly—not with fear, but with that same exhausted pragmatism that came with surviving too much too young. It wasn't a plea for reassurance. It was a request for facts.
Dr. Elaine didn't sugarcoat her answer.
"No," she said. "There are some things that should be monitored—nothing critical yet, but important. And if you trust him, then he's the right person to help."
Lucas glanced down at the edge of the examination table, fingers curling loosely against the fabric of the robe.
Elaine's tone stayed gentle, but she didn't soften the next part.
"Lady Serathine is an excellent guardian in many ways," she said. "But if you go into heat without warning—if your body triggers faster than we expect—then you'll need someone capable of managing both your care and your reaction."
Lucas looked up, finally understanding where this was going.
"Trevor," he said.
Elaine nodded once.
"He's bonded with you already in the eyes of the court. That gives him authority. But more than that… he's steady. He listens. And I've seen what he's like when you're unconscious—he doesn't leave."
Lucas didn't say anything.
Not because he didn't believe it, but because it was easier not to admit how much that mattered.
Elaine smiled faintly, as if reading the silence for what it was.
"I'll call him in now. Just relax while I speak with him. This next part isn't about what's wrong—it's about keeping you safe."
Lucas gave a small nod, then stood slowly and moved toward the adjacent waiting room, the quiet shift of fabric the only sound he made.
Dr. Elaine watched the door close behind him and exited into the hallway to find the Grand Duke.
Trevor was standing at the end of the hall when Dr. Elaine found him—arms crossed, posture casual, but his eyes kept drifting back toward the door Lucas had disappeared behind.
"Lord Fitzgeralt," she said quietly. "May I speak with you for a moment? In private."
Trevor's gaze sharpened instantly.
He nodded once and followed her down the corridor, through a side door marked Staff Only. It led to a small consultation room—nothing grand, just a clean table, two chairs, and a screen that flickered to life as the door sealed behind them.
Elaine didn't sit.
She handed him the tablet directly.
"This is not part of the official report."
Trevor took it.
Read the first line.
Then read it again.
Secondary classification markers: Dominant-structured development detected. Subject registered Omega, but current hormonal and glandular activity deviates from standard omega profiles. Projected shift path—dominant expression pending.
Trevor's fingers tightened on the tablet, his knuckles whitening from the sheer force.
"You're telling me," he said, voice low and sharp, "that Lucas is a dominant omega?"
Dr. Elaine didn't flinch.
"Yes."
She let the word stand without sugarcoating the truth.
Trevor didn't speak, not right away. The silence stretched—dense, almost suffocating. Not because he didn't understand, but because he understood too well.
Dominant omegas and dominant alphas were rare. Exceptionally so. A fluke of genetics, whispered about in closed circles and classified documents. Most noble lines could go generations without producing one. Trevor was already considered an outlier—the only known dominant alpha of his generation. It was a trait he'd been told to manage, to suppress, to work around.
Because dominants didn't bond easily.
And they didn't reproduce without a dominant partner omega or dominant alpha woman.
He'd come to terms with that fact long ago: that whatever legacy he left behind, it wouldn't be carried in a bloodline. That his strength, his influence, his name—none of it would pass to a child with his eyes.
But now...
Now, Lucas.
Lucas, who had been drugged into silence. Sold before he'd awakened. Suppressed until he forgot what his own body felt like.
Now Lucas was waking.
And if the markers were right—if the shift continued—then he wasn't just a rare case.
He was compatible.
He could carry children. His children.
Trevor stared at the tablet again.
It felt heavier now.
"What's the likelihood?" he asked. "That this shift completes."
Elaine tapped the chart. "Barring new suppression or extreme trauma, almost guaranteed. The structuring is already rebalancing. And it's progressing fast."
Trevor exhaled slowly, as if dragging air into lungs that had forgotten how to breathe.
"He doesn't know."
"No," Elaine said. "And I didn't tell him. I asked if he trusted you. He said yes."
Trevor's jaw clenched.
Because Lucas did trust him. Trusted him enough to be here. To let him into rooms no one else had entered. To sit beside him in public without bracing for attack.
And now that trust was a kind of war.
Trevor looked up.
"I want this file scrubbed. All of it. Not sealed—destroyed. If anyone's going to know, they'll learn it from me. Not through a stolen scan."
"I've already wiped the server cache," Elaine said quietly. "The original is on this tablet only. And I won't keep a copy."
He nodded once, controlled.