Age 25 — East Wing, Velloran Estate
The velvet curtains barely stopped the warm summer sun from entering the luxurious room. The floors were heated marble. The bed, wide enough for three, sat untouched except by the alpha who owned it.
Lucas Oz Kilmer lay curled at the base of a tall dresser, ribs sharp beneath translucent skin, the silk of his discarded robe clinging to his fevered body like a second betrayal. His lips were split from dehydration. His scent, which had previously filled rooms and turned heads, had faded into something brittle and hollow.
He hadn't bathed in days. The bathing room, like the bed, like the fire, like the fresh food arranged so delicately on the high buffet table, was off-limits. His bond mark, once a vivid gold, had dulled to a pale smudge. Velloran hadn't touched him in six months.
Not since the last failed heat.
Not since the alpha leaned close to his face, nostrils flared in disgust, and said, "Three years and not even a miscarriage. What a waste."
Then he made his biggest mistake.
He'd asked Velloran, with a trembling voice and tear-lined eyes, whether the problem might not be his alone. Whether it could—possibly—be the alpha's fault.
The silence that followed had been worse than a slap.
Velloran's ego flared, as fragile things do when touched. His pride, bloodline, and image as a virile, powerful lord had all cracked in that moment. And Lucas, soft-voiced and desperate, had been the one to shatter it.
What came next killed the last sliver of trust he had. The last shard of belief that mateship meant protection.
Velloran did the unthinkable.
He brought in other alphas.
One by one.
"You want answers?" Velloran had said, not unkindly. That was the worst part.
His tone was almost gentle, his fingers threading through Lucas's hair like he was still something precious. Something his.
"We'll get answers."
A promise.
And for a breath—a single, stupid heartbeat—Lucas believed him.
He let himself imagine it: a future where he wasn't broken. Where the problem could be named and fixed. Where someone stayed beside him through the worst and said, it's not your fault.
He imagined quiet mornings. A garden, maybe. A family. Peace.
Just once, peace.
So he nodded, hope catching in his throat like splinters. He followed when Velloran told him to bathe. When he told him to drink something sweetened. When he sealed the room and locked the door behind him.
Lucas barely noticed the heat crawling under his skin until it was too late.
He couldn't fight. Couldn't even lift a finger when the induced heat took hold.
And Velloran watched. Not with affection. Not with lust. With the detached interest of a man testing a theory.
The others came in. One by one. Faces blurred by time, by trauma, by the haze of forced submission. Lucas felt them, endured them, and drowned in the sickening perfume Velloran had insisted he wear. The same perfume he'd once said made Lucas smell like honeysuckle and gold.
He never touched him again after that. Not once.
Lucas stopped asking questions.
He stopped speaking altogether.
The truth had been obvious from the beginning. He'd been sold the moment he failed to bloom before his eighteenth year. Before his name could be legitimized. Before the Empire might've had to acknowledge him.
He was born with too much beauty, too much blood, and none of the power to defend either.
His mother, Misty, once a courtesan-turned-consort, had smiled sweetly the day she told him to pack.
"You're lucky," she'd said, adjusting his collar like he was going off to a ball instead of being sold. "Lord Velloran has good taste. A count, no less. There are omegas who'd kill for the offer."
She kissed his cheek. Said she'd miss him.
Lucas had clung to those words for a long time, convincing himself that at least one person in the world loved him. That maybe she had tried to protect him. That maybe her hands trembled, just a little, when she closed the car door and sent him away.
But that lie unraveled too.
The alpha he met then—Count Velloran—was nothing like the ones Lucas had known at court.
He was calm. Soft-spoken. He didn't leer like the others. He didn't grab.
He brought flowers to their first private dinner and asked about Lucas's studies. He listened. He smiled.
And Lucas—gods, foolish, hopeful Lucas—had thought, 'Maybe… this one will choose me.'
So he gave himself up.
His youth. His dreams. His career.
He tucked away the books he used to study late at night. Stopped writing to his professors. Let his work fade in the soft shadow of the bond he was promised.
He let himself believe that this man—the one who kissed him softly before their first heat together, who held him through the pain, who said, "you're safe now"—could be his everything.
But years later, when his hands trembled too much to turn pages and his eyes burned with fever, he forced himself to read the contract again.
Line by line.
Clause by clause.
And saw it for what it truly was.
He hadn't been given to Velloran for affection. Not even for the promise of children.
He was sold like a chair. Like a painting.
An omega with imperial blood. The bastard son of the Emperor.
Not a claim, but a tool. A bargaining chip. A silent offering for status and power.
Velloran had never wanted him. He wanted the access—the possibility that binding himself to a cast-off imperial might earn him a seat closer to the throne.
When Lucas failed to deliver a child, the illusion cracked. And with it, so did any pretense of care.
Now, curled on the heated floor in the stifling room that Velloran refused to cool—because he knew how Lucas hated the heat—Lucas barely breathed.
His robe clung to him like damp punishment, sweat plastering the expensive fabric to his too-thin frame. He couldn't even pull it off. His fingers shook too hard.
But they tightened anyway, clenching into the folds as if he could tear it apart with hate alone.
His heart was slowing. He could feel it. Like the house itself was pressing down on him, suffocating him with silence and warmth and rotting sweetness.
Somewhere above, a fly buzzed lazily beneath the chandelier. The grapes on the buffet had begun to mold. The fire flickered low, even now—burning steadily as if to mock him. Lucas couldn't remember the last time he'd seen someone enter the room.
He was a ghost already.
A ruin behind closed doors.
He tried to lift his head, but the weight of the robe pulled him down. His lungs dragged in another breath—shallow, wet. The scent of his own fever made his stomach churn.
No one would come.
Not Velloran. Not the servants. Not even Misty, his own mother, who had long since stopped writing.
He wasn't afraid. Not anymore.
Just tired.
He imagined, for a moment, the cool stone floor of a temple. The scent of incense. Spring sunlight dancing across stained glass. A boy kneeling in silk robes, hands pressed together in a prayer he didn't understand.
"Let me live with purpose," he had whispered.
He'd been seventeen. Beautiful. Hopeful.
He hadn't known yet that hope was a weapon. That love could be a leash. That his body and bloodline would become currency in someone else's game.
And now everything was fading to black like a sickly sweet dream.
He knew he was dying.
The silence curled around him, thick and final. His chest rose once. Fell.
And when it didn't rise again, no one noticed.