Inside the cottage, Lucas heard the sound before he fully registered it. Three sharp raps against the front door, echoing through the small space.
His heart—beating, living, painfully human—lurched in his chest.
He's here.
He'd known it was coming. He'd felt the bond growing stronger over the past two days, pulling at him like a tide. But knowing and being ready were two very different things.
Lucas set down his coffee cup, his hands unsteady. The liquid sloshed over the rim, dark drops staining the worn wood of the table. He didn't notice.
He was staring at the door.
"You going to answer that?" Rohan's voice came from the kitchen, calm and measured, as if he knew he would.
Lucas opened his mouth, but no words came. His throat was dry. His hands were shaking. Everything inside him was screaming at him to run, to hide, to pretend he wasn't here.
But the bond was louder. The bond was begging him to open the door.
He's right there. He's so close.
Lucas forced himself to stand. His legs felt like they were made of stone, heavy and uncooperative. Each step toward the door was an effort, a battle against every instinct that told him to protect himself.
He reached the door.
His hand hovered over the handle.
I could just not answer. I could pretend I'm not here. I could—
But the bond wouldn't let him. It was pulling, insistent, desperate.
Lucas took a breath.
He opened the door.
The door swung open, and Sebastian forgot how to exist.
Lucas stood in the doorway, backlit by the soft morning light filtering through the cottage windows.
He looked different, older, somehow, though his face was still the same.
There was a weariness in his eyes that hadn't been there before, a quiet sadness that made Sebastian's chest ache.
But he was still Lucas. Still beautiful. Still the man Sebastian had loved and lost and spent five years trying to find.
Sebastian opened his mouth to speak, to say one of the thousand apologies he'd rehearsed.
Nothing came out.
His hands were still sweating. His heart, dead and still, seemed to be pounding in his chest anyway. His tongue felt thick and useless in his mouth.
Lucas stared at him, his expression unreadable. The silence stretched between them, heavy and suffocating.
"I—" Sebastian's voice cracked. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I didn't know what to say. I still don't."
Lucas said nothing.
Sebastian's hands clenched at his sides. "I've been planning this for years. Writing letters. Rehearsing speeches. I thought—I thought if I could just find you, I would know what to do. But now I'm here, and I don't—" He shook his head, his voice dropping to barely a whisper. "I don't have anything. Just the truth. Just—"
He stopped, his throat tight.
Just I'm sorry. I just miss you. I've just been lost without you, and I don't know how to find my way back.
Lucas's expression flickered—something almost like pain crossing his features before it was smoothed away.
"Sebastian," he said, and his voice was soft and careful. "What are you doing here?"
Sebastian opened his mouth, then closed it. The words he'd rehearsed for years had abandoned him completely, leaving nothing but raw, desperate honesty.
"I came to find you," he finally managed. "I've been looking for you for weeks."
Lucas's expression didn't change. "You found me. Now what?"
The question hung between them, sharp and unforgiving. Sebastian felt it like a blade to the chest.
"I don't know," he admitted, his voice cracking. "I didn't think past this moment. I just—I needed to see you. I needed to know you were okay."
Lucas let out a breath, something between a laugh and a sigh, hollow and tired. "I'm okay, Sebastian. I've been okay. I've been better than okay, actually. I've been healing."
Sebastian's throat tightened. "Healing from what?"
Lucas's eyes met his, and for the first time, Sebastian saw the full weight of the pain he'd caused. It was there, written in the lines around Lucas's eyes, in the set of his jaw, in the way his hands trembled slightly at his sides.
"From you," Lucas said quietly.
"From everything you did. From the years I spent being your secret. From the night you asked me to stay and watch you marry someone else."
Sebastian flinched like he'd been struck. "Lucas, I—"
"No."
Lucas held up a hand, his voice steady but fragile.
"Let me say this. I've spent five years thinking about what I would say if you ever showed up. For weeks, I have been imagining this moment. And I need you to hear me."
Sebastian nodded, unable to speak.
Lucas stepped out onto the porch, closing the door behind him. He moved slowly, deliberately, like he was gathering strength with every step. When he spoke, his voice was soft, barely above a whisper.
"Do you know what it was like? Watching you propose to her? Standing there in the crowd, smiling, pretending I was happy for you?" He shook his head.
"I felt like I was dying, like someone had reached into my chest and ripped out my heart, and I was just supposed to stand there and keep breathing."
Sebastian's hands clenched at his sides. "I didn't know."
"You didn't know?" Lucas's voice cracked.
"Of course you didn't know. You never knew. You never saw me. You never really saw me. You saw the bond. You saw what you wanted. But you never saw me."
The words landed like stones, heavy and bruising.
"I remember every single moment," Lucas continued, his voice growing stronger now, fueled by years of suppressed pain.
"Every time you called me to that motel. Every time you told me Beatrice was okay with it. Every time you made me feel like I was something shameful. Something to be hidden."
Sebastian shook his head, his eyes burning.
"That wasn't what I meant—"
"Then what did you mean?" Lucas's voice rose, just slightly.
"What did you mean when you asked me to be your dirty secret? What did you mean when you told me I could come to your wedding as a guest? What did you mean when you showed up at my door the next day and asked me to stay?"
Sebastian opened his mouth, but no words came.
Lucas stepped closer, his eyes bright with unshed tears.
"I would have done it, you know. I was standing there, in that motel room, and I was so close to saying yes. So close to destroying myself just to have you in pieces. Because I loved you. I loved you so much that I was willing to become nothing just to be near you."
"Lucas—"
"But then I looked at your face," Lucas continued, his voice breaking.
"And I realized that you didn't love me. Not really. You loved what I gave you. You loved the way I made you feel. But you didn't love me. Because if you had, you would have fought for me. You would have chosen me. You would have done something—anything—to prove that I mattered."
Sebastian's chest heaved.
"I did choose you. I had already chosen you from the moment I knew about the bond. It's always been you, Lucas."
Lucas froze, his eyes narrowing. "Then why—"
"Because I was scared."