Chapter Fifteen

At first Lucien tried to come up with some excuse in order not to attend the house party.

But Royce wouldn't hear of it. "You've been avoiding social functions as it is," he said, frowning deeply. "You haven't gone out at all ever since Eric left. You were pretty sociable when the kid was around, and I thought you'd started feeling more comfortable at social gatherings, but it wasn't that at all, was it?"

Lucien shrugged, averting his gaze. He had made more efforts to attend society events when Eric had been there. Eric was a Pelugian omega who had been a guest in their house for a few months. He was a distant relative of Royce's mate and the Cleghorns had given him shelter while he tried to recover from a scandal back home. Lucien had sympathized with the poor kid: he could certainly relate to being the center of a nasty scandal. Eric's scandal hadn't been as bad as his, of course, but he was still a young, vulnerable omega whose reputation had been ruined through no fault of his own.

Lucien had wanted to help the boy. That was why he'd made an effort and accompanied the Cleghorns and Eric to various social gatherings: he had wanted Eric not to feel alone. And Lucien was cynical enough to know that his presence distracted people from Eric's scandal, making it look insignificant in comparison. And it had worked marvelously. Until it didn't.

When Eric had returned to Pelugia, Lucien had stopped going to social events. There was little point anymore.

"You know I hate them, Royce," Lucien said. "I attended them only for the sake of the kid. I have no fondness for being gawked and sneered at. Please. Don't make me attend this house party."

Royce gave him a long look.

"And it has nothing to do with Aksel?"

Lucien's stomach clenched. "I don't know what you mean."

"Lucien, I'm not blind," Royce said with a sigh. "I know I'm rarely home, but even I have noticed that you and Aksel avoid each other these days. Haydn says it's actually been like this for a year." He gave a rueful smile. "Which was news to me. I really need to spend more time with the family." He ran a hand over his face tiredly. "But this job has been sucking me dry; it's a good thing Haydn works so close or I would neglect my mate too."

"Everything is fine, don't worry," Lucien said, forcing a small smile.

Royce's dark eyes bored into him. "Did he do something to offend you? Do I need to have a talk with him?"

"No!" Lucien said. "Look, we did have a bit of a... disagreement, but the fault was entirely mine, not his. Please don't bring it up with him."

Royce hummed thoughtfully, not looking entirely convinced. "Fine," he said. "But I will not allow you to become a hermit, Lucien. You will attend this party. It's a perfect opportunity to socialize: it'll happen in your own home. No one will dare to insult you in your own home."

Lucien wished he could have Royce's confidence—or rather, Royce's naivete.

***

There were fifty-two guests in total, and eighteen of them were young omegas from some of the most influential families in the country.

"Nothing but the very best for my son," Vagrippa all but gloated as they waited outside the house to greet their guests.

Aksel's lips twitched into something that wasn't quite a smile, but his face remained stony, his eyes inscrutable as he looked steadily at the arriving guests.

Lucien averted his gaze away from him and looked at the arrivals, too.

His stomach knotted up when he saw a gorgeous omega walking toward them. The omega was very young and startlingly beautiful. His coloring was similar to Lucien's, but he was about fifteen years younger, if not more, and his body was normal : lithe and fit, his flat chest and stomach accentuated by his elegant clothes.

Lucien immediately became painfully aware of his own body. He had stopped being self-conscious about his curves while he and Aksel had been having sex, but now, seeing the young omega Aksel had supposedly approved of… Maybe Aksel had just been humoring him all along and he actually preferred slim, fit omegas. It would make sense.

His stomach clenched when Aksel stepped forward and shook the omega's hand. He couldn't see Aksel's face, but he could see the omega's: it was lit up with a lovely smile, and his eyes roamed over Aksel's handsome face before traveling over his tall, muscular body.

A noise threatened to leave Lucien's lips, a feral hiss. He wanted to put his body between Aksel and that omega and bare his teeth. He quashed the stupid urge and breathed steadily, trying to get a grip on his emotions.

He had no claim on Aksel.

Aksel wasn't his.

He could be perfectly polite and amicable.

He would be perfectly polite and amicable.

Lucien repeated it like a mantra and managed to put a smile on his face by the time the omega and his companions turned to him.

"Welcome," Lucien said, stretching his hand out.

His smile froze on his lips when his gaze shifted to the omega's companions.

One of them was Lucien's father.

Their eyes met, and Lucien felt like the ground was moving from under his feet.

It wasn't as though he'd never seen his father in the past two decades. He had seen him at some social functions, but always from a safe distance. They'd never spoken in the twenty-two years since his father had thrown him out of his home.

His father looked... old. His green eyes, so much like Lucien's own, were unreadable as he gazed at Lucien. After a long, charged moment, he gave a stiff nod. He didn't shake Lucien's hand.

The woman accompanying him—his new spouse—gave Lucien an uncomfortable, strained smile. "Come on, darling, let's find your room so that you can rest," she said, addressing the pretty omega. "Dylan has a delicate constitution," she explained to Vagrippa with an indulgent smile. "I don't know who he gets it from. His father isn't like that at all."

Lucien went still as his brain finally connected the pretty omega to his father. He looked between the pretty omega—Dylan—and his father, and his stomach sank when he noticed the similarities. Dylan looked like Lucien's father. And like Lucien . A much younger version of Lucien.

Nausea rose in his throat.

Lucien shot Vagrippa a furious look, unable to believe she was actually considering Lucien's own half-brother for the role of Aksel's mate. Did Aksel know? Hadn't he approved all the omegas invited to this party? Why would he do this to him? Did he hate Lucien that much now?

Before he could stop himself, Lucien looked at Aksel.

But his handsome face was inscrutable. His eyes were only on Dylan.

Lucien felt sick.

Sick and utterly betrayed. And furious. He didn't believe in coincidences. He didn't believe that this choice of a prospective mate wasn't malicious, wasn't aimed to hurt him. There were thousands of young, suitable omegas out there, and yet one of the few Aksel and his mother handpicked was Lucien's brother?

He hadn't thought Aksel was capable of such cruelty.

But maybe he was wrong. Maybe Aksel was that hurt. That pissed off.

Well, screw him, and screw his mother, and screw Lucien's father. Lucien wouldn't give them the satisfaction of showing how much this hurt him.

"Welcome," he said with his nicest smile, looking at his father. "I hope you had an uneventful journey, Mr. Deveraux. After your recent... troubles, you deserve a bit of respite." Maybe it was petty of him, but he couldn't resist taking a dig. Although Lucien had avoided looking up his former family, even he had heard the rumors that his father was in financial trouble. Judging by the subtle tensing of his father's mouth, the rumors weren't wrong.

"Thank you," he ground out, without quite meeting Lucien's eyes.

His wife's smile was even more strained now. Their son gave Lucien a long look before averting his gaze without even a nod of acknowledgment to him. He didn't shake Lucien's hand. His own brother.

It shouldn't have hurt after decades of such treatment.

But somehow, with Aksel just standing there and not even looking at him, it hurt more than ever. Twenty years, ten, even a year ago, Aksel wouldn't have tolerated any perceived insult toward him. Clearly those times were in the past.

You can blame only yourself , a rational voice tried to tell Lucien at the back of his mind. But right now he couldn't be very rational. He didn't want to be rational. He was furious, and so damn hurt. The fourteen-year-old in him couldn't believe his Aksel could ever be so cruel. This was his father and his second family. Aksel knew how much his father had hurt him, how much his actions had broken him, and now he was standing there, shaking his father's hand and ogling Lucien's brother—the brother who had everything Lucien didn't. Regardless of the rift between them, Lucien couldn't believe Aksel could ever be that cold-hearted and cruel.

Apparently, he could be.

Realizing that his eyes were stinging, Lucien turned away and headed back into the house.

It wasn't as though he would be missed by anyone.

***

Unfortunately, that set a pattern for the rest of the house party.

Royce had been wrong: being in Lucien's home didn't stop the guests from scorning him. Sure, it was subtler than how people treated him elsewhere, the offensive remarks vague and not so obvious, but it was humiliating all the same. In some ways, it was more humiliating, because this was supposed to be his home, his safe place. If he was ostracized even here, several decades later, it meant there was no hope that people would ever move on from the scandal in his past.

The thought was incredibly depressing.

But it wasn't even the most depressing part. Even his former family's presence wasn't the most depressing part—over the past ten days, Lucien had learned to ignore them as they ignored him.

It was the omegas. The young, beautiful, pure omegas paraded in front of Aksel. They didn't have a sordid scandal in their past. They weren't Aksel's stepfather. They were young,healthy, and presumably fertile. They were everything Lucien wasn't.

Lucien hated them.

He knew it was irrational, illogical, and completely unfair to those omegas, but he hated them. He did. He wanted to wrap all his limbs around Aksel and hiss at them like a feral cat. No matter what his rational side said, no matter how angry and hurt he was, Aksel felt like his on a bone-deep level. On a soul-deep level.

But Aksel barely looked at him these days, his blue eyes cold whenever he happened to glance at him.It made Lucien feel small.He longed to hide in his room for the duration of the party, but his pride wouldn't allow him to do it. And there would be questions if he did.

So he put on a bright smile and went downstairs every day—to be ignored and sneered at and looked down on.

Just three more days , he told himself as his dinner partners once again pretended that Lucien wasn't sitting next to them.

He could do this.

He could ignore the fact that Aksel almost always sat down next to Dylan at the other end of the table. He could ignore Dylan's melodic laugh.

Lucien focused on his food. It tasted like ash.

Just three more days.