The dining room was quiet.
Not in the formal, silverware-polished kind of way. Not in the way noble houses often held silence like a statement. This quiet was different.
It was personal.
The long table had been set for two instead of the usual three. Serathine was out—some social function with ambassadors and heirs she pretended not to loathe. The staff, as always, kept their presence minimal, leaving the air scented faintly with lemon and wine.
Lucas sat near the far end, posture straight, hands resting lightly against the edge of his plate. He hadn't touched much of the food—soft, braised vegetables and a protein glaze he usually liked. But his appetite was fragile tonight.
Across from him, Trevor cut into his meal with measured ease. His jacket was off, sleeves rolled back just past his forearms, collar slightly undone. He looked every inch the composed noble.
Which meant something was wrong.
Lucas tilted his head slightly, studying him between sips of water.
"You're doing that thing again," he said after a moment.
Trevor didn't look up. "Which thing?"
"The thing where you're trying too hard to look like nothing's wrong."
Trevor's knife paused. Briefly.
"You are more observant than most of the palace staff," he said. "Indeed, there is something we have to talk about."
He placed his cutlery down on the napkin beside his plate with deliberate care, every motion precise—controlled, like someone stalling not out of fear, but out of respect for the weight of what needed to be said.
"I've spoken with Dr. Elaine."
Lucas's expression didn't change, but his hand moved—slow, smooth—as he reached for his glass of water.
"I understand if you're uncomfortable dealing with me while in heat," he said evenly. "You don't have to do anything about it. She asked me if I trust you."
Trevor chuckled—low, warm, almost amused. He leaned back in his chair with a casual grace that didn't match the sharpness in his eyes.
His gaze didn't leave Lucas.
"That would've been easy," he said. "It's not just that."
Lucas lowered his glass slightly, brows tightening. "Then what?"
Trevor tilted his head slightly, resting his arm along the chair's edge. The candlelight caught the violet in his eyes—burnished, too calm.
"Do you know what a dominant second gender is?"
"I do," Lucas said carefully. "Serathine told me you're a dominant alpha. That your compatibility is rare."
Trevor nodded once. "It is. My bloodline doesn't pair easily. Most alphas like me can't reproduce. Not without a biological match that's equally rare."
Lucas blinked once. "Another dominant."
"Yes."
The word landed between them like a quiet shift in gravity.
Trevor was looking at him—not the way he usually did, not the way nobles did when pretending to care. This was different. There was weight in it. Recognition. Restraint.
Lucas's spine straightened slightly.
"You think I'm a dominant?"
Trevor didn't hesitate. "I don't think it. I'm sure. And Dr. Elaine is too."
Lucas stared at him. "How is that even possible?"
"Blame genetics," Trevor said with a grim edge. "Or the fact that no one ever let your body finish developing the way it was meant to."
Lucas scoffed softly. Bitter. "Of course."
Then, more sharply: "And what's next? Warnings that not only Misty wants me back, but that every dominant alpha without a pair on the continent does?"
Lucas exhaled, sharp. "And what are you going to do?"
Trevor leaned back in his chair again, slower this time—unfolding his words with the same care he used when drawing a blade, sharp but deliberate.
"Well," he said, "my offer stands."
Lucas's brows furrowed.
"I will be your shield. And my name, too."
There was no arrogance in his tone. No performance. Just quiet certainty from someone who had spent a lifetime offering protection only when it meant something.
"But," Trevor continued, "I don't want a contract relationship."
Lucas blinked.
Trevor's voice was steady. Unapologetic.
"I want a real one."
Silence settled like snowfall.
Lucas didn't respond immediately. The words struck something in him that felt like too much and too fast all at once. Because it wasn't the offer that shocked him, but the lack of condition. The space to refuse it. The freedom in it.
"You can refuse me," Trevor added, as if sensing the pressure building behind his silence. "I'm not going to force you to do anything. Not with a bond. Not with a title. Not even with a name."
Lucas stared at him.
Not because he doubted it, but because he didn't.
And that that was worse than all the lies he'd grown used to. Because sincerity required a response. And right now, Lucas didn't have one.
"I don't know what I want," he admitted quietly.
"That is normal," Trevor replied, his tone impossibly steady, the kind of calm that only ever came from people who had already made their decision and had no intention of taking it back. "I am fully capable of waiting for you or accepting your refusal."
He didn't raise his voice, didn't plead. He simply let the words fall into the quiet between them, like someone setting down an offering without demanding it be picked up.
"But before the latter," he added, softer now, "at least give me the chance to try."
Lucas didn't move at first.
He only tightened his grip on the knife, his eyes fixed on Trevor with that strange, too-still focus he reserved for situations he hadn't yet decided how to survive. But it wasn't fear that made him still this time—it was something else. A flicker of recognition. The slow, deliberate turning of a lock.
Because Trevor was sincere.
Painfully so.
He could have done what so many others had done before: waited for Lucas to be too weak, exhausted, or overwhelmed by his own biology to fight back. He could have used the heat when it came. Could have let instinct blur the lines until there was no decision left to make.
But he didn't.
He stood here now, offering Lucas something he hadn't realized he could still have: choice.
And that was the thing that caught him. Not the danger. Not the rare genetics or the threat of being hunted. But the fact that, in the middle of all of it, Trevor had chosen not to take the easy path.
He didn't lie.
He didn't twist the timing to his advantage.
He waited and told him the truth.
A truth that could have shifted everything in his favor.
Lucas almost smiled at the thought, his lips twitching with something quieter and more serious. Relief, maybe. Or the start of something close to it.
He looked up again, meeting Trevor's eyes across the table, and for the first time since the conversation had started, his expression wasn't unreadable.
It was open.
"Have you always been like this?" he asked, his voice low, not accusing, not defensive—just curious. Just tired in a way that wanted to believe the answer might be yes.
Trevor's brow lifted slightly, his gaze never leaving Lucas's.
"Like what?"
"Careful," Lucas said, fingers relaxing on the napkin now. "Honest. Infuriatingly patient."
A faint smile tugged at Trevor's mouth. The kind that was quieter than charm, and far more dangerous for it.
"No," he said, with that same frustrating ease. "Just with you."
That did something to him.
Lucas looked away, not sharply or in rejection, but as if he had been offered warmth and didn't know where to put it. He stared down at the rim of his water glass, willing his face to stay composed, even as something traitorous pulled at the corner of his mouth.
"Then you might have a chance," he murmured, almost too quiet to be heard.
Trevor leaned back, slow and deliberate, his smile curling wider but never arrogant. It was not a victory; it was a promise.
"I'm counting on it."