Chapter 26: The Reason

Chapter 26: Chapter 26: The Reason

Trevor did not answer immediately.

He remained beside the desk, one hand resting against the back of the chair he had just pushed away, while rain moved steadily across the windows behind Sebastian. The article about Nero was still closed on Melanie’s tablet, temporarily forgotten beneath a conversation that had become considerably more personal.

"You realize what you’re asking me to do," Trevor said eventually.

Sebastian’s expression remained serious. "Yes."

"You’re asking me to deliberately keep something from my mate."

"I’m aware of the terminology."

"Lucas."

"Yes, Father. I know who your mate is."

Trevor gave him a look.

Sebastian leaned back. "You’ve kept considerably worse things from him."

"That is debatable."

Trevor’s brows rose.

"You were considerably more ruthless and bloody than he knows."

"Lucas knows exactly what I am."

Sebastian risked a scoff.

Trevor stared at him.

"He does."

"In theory."

Silence stretched between them before Trevor exhaled through his nose.

"Fair point."

Sebastian’s mouth moved faintly.

Trevor returned to the chair opposite him. "If what you tell me means Lucas, Dean, or anyone else is in immediate danger, I’m not keeping it quiet."

"It doesn’t."

"And if I decide otherwise?"

"Then you can betray my confidence with a clean conscience."

"That sounded inherited."

"Probably."

Trevor studied him, then nodded. "Fine. I swear. Unless keeping this secret creates an immediate danger, it stays between us."

Sebastian’s humor disappeared.

For a moment he looked toward the rain moving down the windows.

"Five years ago, Dean asked me to dinner, but he insisted for me to be alone."

Trevor frowned. "That sounds ominous already."

"It was. Arion was there."

"Worse."

Sebastian almost smiled, but it faded quickly.

"They had just returned from their honey moon. Dean had been given information from the temple about me."

Trevor straightened slightly.

Sebastian had never told either of his parents about that dinner. At the time, there had been no point. The temple’s information had been uncertain, full of prophecy and contradictory visions, and Sebastian had decided that frightening Lucas and Trevor with possibilities was exactly the kind of useless family drama he preferred to avoid.

"What information?" Trevor asked.

"The short version?" Sebastian said. "According to several visionaries, there were possible futures involving Nero, me, and a large-scale disaster. In some of them, Roslew fell. Infected beasts broke through. Dominant command structures collapsed."

Trevor’s face lost the last traces of amusement.

"And you?"

Sebastian looked at him directly.

"I became a dominant omega."

Trevor went still.

"Let me guess, it’s because of Nero?"

"Yes. An enigma bond."

His father’s eyes narrowed. "Dean knew this five years ago?"

"He and Arion knew enough to warn me. They also knew the temple’s interpretation was unreliable, which is why they told me privately before anyone decided to turn prophecy into policy."

"And you never thought Lucas and I should hear about this?"

"No."

"Sebastian."

"The temple didn’t know what caused what," Sebastian said calmly. "Some visions placed the change before the disaster, some around it. The reports were inconsistent, and the temple had already decided my secondary-gender change was somehow central because it was the easiest thing to blame."

Trevor stared at him.

Sebastian continued before the lecture could begin.

"There was more. Apparently, if Nero changed me, I wouldn’t become an ordinary dominant omega. The visions suggested siren-type pheromones."

That landed differently.

Trevor understood immediately.

"Like Lucas."

"Something similar."

Trevor’s gaze sharpened. Lucas’s pheromonal type had never been simple. Neither had the strange history attached to him, the lives and timelines that sat beneath memories nobody else should have possessed.

"What exactly did they think that meant?"

"They didn’t know. Rebirth. Timeline changes. Carrying memories across different lives. The same general category of impossible nonsense Dad has already survived."

Trevor looked deeply unimpressed by Sebastian’s phrasing.

"And the prophecy?"

Sebastian glanced toward the dark screen of Melanie’s tablet.

"Nero and I died."

Trevor stopped moving.

"Both?"

"That was the warning."

"How?"

"They didn’t know."

"Before or after the city fell?"

"They didn’t know that either."

Trevor’s irritation surfaced. "So they knew enough to terrify everyone but not enough to be useful."

"That was approximately my assessment."

"And you did what?"

"Nothing."

Trevor stared.

Sebastian shrugged once. "What did you expect me to do? Run to Nero and ask whether he wanted to test a prophecy?"

"You could have told us."

"And then Dad would have spent five years wondering whether his son was going to become a siren, die with Nero, get reborn, alter a timeline, or somehow cause Roslew to collapse."

Trevor opened his mouth.

Sebastian lifted one hand.

"I know. I decided for you. We have already established that this is a recurring character flaw."

Trevor closed his mouth again, visibly dissatisfied with being anticipated.

Sebastian looked back toward the windows.

"For two years, nothing happened. No changes. No prophetic nonsense. Nero stayed away. I stayed away. I assumed the whole thing was exactly what it looked like: frightened people seeing fragments and building a story around them."

"And then?"

Sebastian’s fingers curled slightly against the arm of the chair.

"Three years ago, I started dreaming."

Trevor’s face changed.

Sebastian had expected anger. The immediate concern was worse.

"I saw what those prophecies were forecasting." Sebastian touched the bridge of his nose, pressing hard enough to ease the pressure gathering behind his eyes. "Nero dying in my arms."

Trevor went completely still.

Sebastian did not elaborate.

He did not tell him how Nero died in those dreams or what Sebastian had been holding when he woke. He certainly did not describe the brutality of it. That part had frightened him more than death itself—not because someone had done something terrible to Nero, but because Nero had been capable of doing it.

Willingly.

For him.

Trevor’s voice lowered. "Once?"

"No."

"How many times?"

"I stopped counting."

"Sebastian."

"They aren’t identical." He dropped his hand. "Sometimes the place changes. Sometimes I know things in the dream that I don’t know when I’m awake. Sometimes I remember years with him that never happened."

Trevor watched him carefully. "And you’re a dominant omega in them?"

"Yes."

"With siren pheromones?"

"I think so."

"You think?"

"I’ve lived with Lucas long enough to recognize the feeling. It isn’t exactly his ability, but it’s close enough that I understood what the temple meant."

Trevor’s jaw tightened.

Sebastian looked toward the window again.

"The worst ones don’t even feel like dreams. They feel like memories I shouldn’t have."

"What happens after Nero dies?"

Sebastian’s expression closed.

"I wake up."

Trevor understood the boundary and, for once, did not push through it.

After a moment he asked, "Does Nero always die?"

"In the ones I remember clearly."

"And you?"

Sebastian hesitated.

"Sometimes I know I’m dying too. Sometimes I’m already aware that I won’t survive him. Other times the dream ends before that matters."

Trevor leaned back slowly.

Sebastian gave a quiet, humorless laugh.

"So five years ago, Dean tells me there are futures where Nero changes me, I become something like Dad, and we both die. Two years later, I begin seeing Nero die myself."

"And you still thought saying nothing was reasonable."

"I thought saying nothing was useful."

"There’s a difference?"

"Yes. Reasonable would imply I enjoyed the decision."

Trevor’s gaze softened.

Sebastian immediately looked away.

"That is why I refused to reconsider Nero," he said. "Not because he was still too young. Not because I thought he would eventually get bored."

His fingers tightened again.

"Because every time I let myself imagine saying yes, all I can see is him dying in my arms."