Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 56786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
“I intended to stay away from you,” Aksel said, nuzzling his scent gland. “I really did. But I can’t. You’re what I came back to.”
“Don’t be silly. You came back to your home.”
“Yes,” Aksel said, his arms tightening around Lucien. “I came back to my home.”
Lucien’s stomach clenched.
“War slowly destroys you,” Aksel said, his voice muffled by Lucien’s neck. “It’s not even the killing that gets to you. It’s the way you stop feeling anything after a while. Grow numb, dead on the inside. It—it becomes hard thinking of anything good. You stop remembering what you’re killing for, what you’re fighting for. The only thing that helped me—” He cut himself off, shoving his face tighter against Lucien’s neck. “I wanted to come home. To my home. And it helped me focus. I fought for that. I killed for that.”
Lucien swallowed. Did it make him a terrible person that he didn’t care how many people Aksel had had to kill in order to come back?
“It’s okay,” he whispered, threading his fingers through Aksel’s hair before pressing a fervent kiss into it. “I’m so glad you did—that you’re back home, safe and whole. I’m so glad. I—I missed you. So much.” He regretted the words as soon as they left his lips. They felt too revealing. Too raw. Too much. There was something vaguely obscene—something wrong—about his confession, or at least it felt like it.
Aksel lifted his head and looked at him, his expression alarmingly intense. “Did you?”
His face rather warm, Lucien gave a clipped nod. “Of course I did,” he said with a laugh. “I all but raised you, didn’t I?”
Aksel went very still, his face wiped of any emotion.
“You didn’t,” he said at last. “You’re just nine years older than me.”
“Almost ten,” Lucien said, lifting his chin. He wasn’t sure why he was arguing semantics, but for some reason, it felt incredibly important to remind Aksel about their age difference.
“That doesn’t matter,” Aksel said, his jaw setting into a hard line. “I never saw you as a parental figure. My parents raised me. Not you.”
“Did you forget what I did for you?” Lucien said with an uncomfortable laugh.
Aksel’s gaze flicked down to his chest. “No, I didn’t. I do remember.”
Lucien’s skin was so hot he felt like he was running a fever. His breasts suddenly felt heavy. “Then you should see my point.”
“What is your point?” Aksel said, his eyes hard and sharp. “That you see me as a son? I’m not your son. And you don’t see me as one.”
His heart beating fast, Lucien stepped back. “I’m glad you can speak so confidently for me,” he said with a short laugh, crossing his arms over his chest.
“One of us has to,” Aksel said, watching him carefully.
His gaze made Lucien want to fidget; it was so penetrating.
God, he could barely see the boy Aksel had once been. The man that stood in front of him had been aged far beyond his years. No twenty-five-year-old should have eyes like that. World-weary. Hardened with cynicism and something else.
“I don’t understand what you mean,” Lucien said.
“Of course you don’t.”
Lucien looked at him in confusion. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Stepping away from him, Aksel walked to the window and stared out at the rocky beach behind the house, his hands in his pockets, his wide shoulders tense.
Seconds dragged by before Aksel spoke again. “Royce lectured me for an hour before I came here. He all but ordered me to stay away from you. He warned me not to be pushy with you.” He chuckled, the sound devoid of any humor. “My own brother doesn’t trust me to behave. I’m a Xeus, after all. A beast ruled by his base instincts.”
Lucien frowned, feeling upset and angry on Aksel’s behalf. “That’s ridiculous—”
“He’s right,” Aksel said flatly.
Lucien blinked.
What?
Aksel turned around and just looked at him for a while, his lips curled into something that looked more like a grimace than a smile. “He’s right. I’m not to be trusted. Not with you.”
Lucien opened his mouth and closed it without saying anything. As much as he didn’t want to, he understood what Aksel was implying. But... but it seemed ludicrous. Too outlandish to contemplate.
Aksel couldn’t possibly want him. That way. He could have anyone. Any young, untainted omega without a horrid scandal in their past.
“Is this your idea of a joke?” Lucien said with an uncomfortable laugh. “Because it’s not very funny, darling.”
Aksel’s expression remained grim. “I’m not joking.”
“You can’t possibly mean that you—that you want—”
“You can’t even say it,” Aksel said, his blue eyes flashing with something hard and bitter. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything. You can’t even grasp the thought that I might want you that way.”
Lucien swallowed, staring at him helplessly. This wasn’t a conversation he’d ever expected to have, much less with Aksel.