CHAPTER 387: CHAPTER 387: NOT NOW

Trevor tensed, the air seeming to thin around him. He forced himself to keep reading.

"If the dominant omega is reborn in the temple, it means it’s the end of the cycle. The last chance of your generation. The circle breaks only when the omega chooses to live rather than to survive. Until then, you will keep coming back. That is why the temples hunt them... because a dominant omega who remembers can change the order of things. But if they suffer enough to wish for another chance, it will happen again. The body dies. The soul starts over. The world resets just enough to keep the illusion of time moving forward."

Trevor’s hands froze around the tablet. His breath caught somewhere between his chest and his throat.

Lucas had awakened in the temple.

The realization passed through him like ice, slow, invasive, and unstoppable. Every line Yerofey had written, every cycle of death and rebirth, every repetition of the same faces and names, all led to the man sleeping softly against his side.

He looked down at Lucas, whose lashes fluttered faintly in sleep, the soft rhythm of his breathing steady against the quiet storm outside.

"If the dominant omega is reborn in the temple..."

Trevor’s pulse faltered. He reached out, brushing his thumb over the back of Lucas’s hand, feeling the warmth of life there, the fragile, human pulse that had survived across lives of suffering and silence.

"Yerofey..." he whispered, almost to himself. "You made it this far, didn’t you?"

The rain outside had stopped entirely, leaving only the faint sound of wind shifting against the glass. Somewhere deep inside, something uncoiled, a truth that wasn’t relief but recognition.

Trevor closed the tablet with care, the screen going dark in his lap. He leaned back into the couch, pulling Lucas closer, his fingers absently tracing the omega’s pulse as if to reassure himself that this time, it was real.

"This time," he murmured, more to the storm than to anyone else, "you’re not alone."

—

Lucas woke to soft light. It seeped gently through the sheer curtains, tinting the room in pale gold and quiet warmth. For a few seconds, he didn’t move, his mind caught between the fading pull of sleep and the lingering heaviness behind his eyes. The sheets smelled faintly of cedar and coffee, that clean, grounded scent that always meant Trevor had been nearby.

He blinked once, then again. This was their bedroom.

He didn’t remember coming here. The last thing he recalled was reading on the couch, his head resting against Trevor’s thigh, the sound of rain steady against the windows and then... nothing.

Lucas sighed softly. So Trevor had moved him. Again.

He pushed himself up a little, the blanket sliding down to his waist, the fabric warm and heavy. His body felt sluggish, as if his limbs hadn’t caught up with his thoughts yet. It wasn’t unusual lately, his energy had dipped over the past few days, the early symptoms of pregnancy making him light-headed and easily tired. He had brushed it off, insisting he was fine. Trevor, apparently, hadn’t believed him.

He turned his head.

Trevor was still asleep beside him.

His black hair was a mess across the pillow, falling in loose strands that framed his face and caught the morning light. His lashes were long and dark, casting soft shadows across his skin, and the slow rhythm of his breathing made his chest rise and fall beneath the blanket he’d half stolen during the night.

He was hugging it, clutching it for dear life, one arm draped lazily over the folds, his other hand resting near where Lucas’s head had been.

He was wearing only pajama pants. The rest of him, bare shoulders, faint lines of muscle, the subtle warmth of sleep-soft skin, looked far too effortless for a man who could bend half the court with a single command.

Lucas stared for a long moment, unable to help it. There was something profoundly unfair about how Trevor managed to look beautiful even in sleep. Unreasonably handsome. The kind of beauty that made the world slow down around it, just to be admired.

He leaned closer unconsciously, drawn in by that quiet gravity, and whispered under his breath, "You’re ridiculous."

Trevor didn’t stir, though his hand shifted slightly, fingers brushing the edge of Lucas’s blanket like his body knew before his mind that Lucas was awake.

Lucas smiled faintly, half amused, half undone by how ordinary and perfect this was. The morning air was cool, threading softly through the curtains, but the warmth radiating from Trevor was enough to make him forget the chill entirely.

He didn’t know what possessed him to lean in closer, maybe it was the steady rhythm of Trevor’s breathing or maybe it was the faint scent of cedar and morning warmth that clung to his skin, rich and grounding. It wasn’t overpowering, just there, like the promise of something he hadn’t yet asked for.

Lucas’s gaze traced the line of Trevor’s jaw, the curve of his mouth, and the slight stubble shadowing his skin. His heart gave a quiet, traitorous thud.

Without thinking, he bent forward and kissed him.

It was soft, barely a brush of lips, the kind of kiss that could be mistaken for a dream. But the taste of him, the sleep, the warmth, and the faint trace of his scent were enough to make Lucas’s heart race. He lingered for a second too long before pulling back.

That was when he realized it.

The scent. The cedar, the heat, the subtle trace of him in the sheets. It curled around his senses, slow and deep, turning warmth into ache. The reaction was instinctive, low in his chest, spreading through his skin like something alive. His breath hitched, and he forced himself to swallow it down.

’Not now.’

But the thought came too late. His body had already betrayed him, caught between memory and want.

Trevor shifted slightly, his brow furrowing, as if his body sensed the change in the air even before he woke. Lucas froze.