Chapter 135: Everything He Wanted

Chapter 135: Chapter 135: Everything He Wanted

Sebastian stayed sprawled across Nero long after either of them had any practical reason to remain that way, one arm folded over his chest, one leg tangled with Nero’s beneath the sheets, and his cheek resting directly above the slow beat of Nero’s heart.

There was no attempt at dignity.

No complaint about heat, no irritated demand for space, no pretense that exhaustion was the only reason Sebastian had settled there.

When Nero shifted slightly beneath him, Sebastian tightened his arm with sleepy annoyance until he stopped.

The reaction almost hurt.

Nero stared toward the dim ceiling while one hand moved slowly through Sebastian’s dark hair, separating strands with his fingers before letting them fall again. The bedside lamps had been turned low enough that the room was mostly shadow, warm amber catching only along the edge of the headboard, the pale spill of Nero’s hair across the pillow and the disorder of sheets neither of them intended to fix tonight.

Sebastian shifted higher against him.

Nero’s hand stopped for half a second.

He still had difficulty believing moments like this were real.

He had spent so long wanting Sebastian in pieces that having everything together sometimes felt more impossible than any fantasy he had built around him.

Attention had come first, back when Nero had been young enough to think simply being noticed would be enough.

Then affection.

Trust.

Sebastian choosing to stay.

Sebastian choosing to marry him.

His body, his scent, his collars, his bed.

Now Sebastian reached for him without thinking, slept pressed against him, leaned over Nero’s shoulder while he worked, put his head in his lap when briefings ran too late, and sometimes walked into a room, saw him, and smiled as if Nero’s presence alone improved whatever mood he had been in before.

Nero had known how to survive rejection.

He had spent years learning how to maneuver around it.

This easy affection was considerably more dangerous.

"You’re holding me like I’m going somewhere," Sebastian murmured against his chest.

Nero looked down.

Sebastian’s eyes remained closed.

"I am holding you because I can."

"That sounded almost normal."

"Don’t ruin it."

A quiet laugh warmed Nero’s skin.

Sebastian’s hand slid lazily across his chest before settling over his heart again, and Nero bent to kiss the top of his head.

He would have remained there indefinitely if his own mind had been capable of enjoying anything without eventually searching for the next unanswered question.

The visions still sat between them.

Not openly anymore, but Nero felt them whenever Sebastian mentioned something he could not have known in this life, whenever a dream left him quiet in the morning, whenever another version of Nero appeared indirectly in some warning, habit, or half-remembered preference.

He wanted to know all of it.

He wanted the details Sebastian had not yet offered: which life came first, how long they had been together, whether they had married, whether they had fought, where they had lived, what Sebastian had loved about those other versions and what he had hated.

The jealousy was absurd enough that Nero recognized it perfectly and felt absolutely no need to correct it.

Those men might have shared his face, his blood and whatever strange thread connected the different lives Sebastian remembered, but Nero did not consider them himself.

They had experiences he did not.

Some of them had years with Sebastian that belonged to no memory Nero possessed.

That was enough to resent them.

Still, he had promised to wait.

Sebastian would speak when he was ready, and Nero had learned that pushing for answers was one of the fastest ways to make him close entirely.

There were also questions Nero hoped Sebastian would never learn enough to ask.

His fingers slowed in Sebastian’s hair.

The harmless manipulations had never troubled him much.

Invitations arranged so Sebastian had to attend.

Seating charts changed.

Diplomatic visits shifted by a day.

Anonymous gifts chosen after Nero spent hours learning exactly what Sebastian liked.

Meetings made to look accidental.

Those were almost embarrassingly innocent compared with what had come later.

Sebastian believed Nero had manipulated circumstances around him.

He did not know Nero had altered circumstances inside his body as well.

The incompatibility had not been chance.

Enigma pheromones were capable of subtler changes than transformation, provided the exposure remained controlled enough, and the person using them understood what he was doing. Nero had discovered years ago that recognition responses could be distorted; pheromonal compatibility nudged just far enough that candidates who might otherwise have registered acceptably simply did not.

Sebastian’s tests kept failing.

Potential dominant omegas never felt right to him.

Numbers stayed beneath viable thresholds.

Everyone searched for explanations.

Nero already had one.

He had created the problem.

Nero had made certain no one else could become the answer.

The dispatch rotations had required even less effort.

A name transferred between lists, an assignment extended because another dominant supposedly became unavailable, leave moved several weeks later, a replacement quietly redirected elsewhere.

Sebastian was reliable enough that command rarely questioned placing more on him.

He had been strong, experienced, and willing to work until someone ordered him to stop.

Nero had exploited that.

More field use meant greater pheromonal strain. Greater strain meant instability. Instability meant Sebastian moving closer to the point where surviving alone ceased to be realistic.

Nero had understood every step.

That was the part he never softened for himself.

Sebastian stirred against him.

"Nero?"

Nero resumed stroking his hair.

"Go back to sleep."

Sebastian lifted his head instead, green eyes heavy and unfocused in the low light.

"You disappeared somewhere."

"I’m here."

"That isn’t what I meant."

Nero studied his face.

There were moments when Sebastian’s intelligence became inconvenient.

He had always noticed too much; the difference now was that he noticed Nero without keeping emotional distance between them.

Nero touched his thumb beneath Sebastian’s eye.

"I was thinking."

"That usually ends badly."

"Frequently."

Sebastian watched him for another few seconds before deciding, apparently, that whatever answer he wanted could wait.

He lowered himself again and tucked his face against Nero’s neck.

The trust in that movement landed harder than accusation would have.

Nero stared past him toward the darkened windows.

If Sebastian ever learned the truth, there would be no convincing argument waiting behind it.

No explanation Nero could produce that would transform calculation into accident.

Sebastian could hate him for it.

He could leave.

He could decide that every choice he believed had been his had rested on foundations Nero poisoned long before Sebastian ever entered Saha.

All of those reactions would be reasonable.

Which was precisely why Nero would never volunteer the truth.

Sebastian shifted again until he was almost entirely on top of him, apparently dissatisfied with the remaining few centimeters between their bodies.

Nero’s arms closed around him automatically.

"You’re very clingy tonight," he murmured.

Sebastian pressed a sleepy kiss to the side of his throat.

"You dislike it?"

Nero tightened his hold.

"Not remotely."

"Then stop complaining."

"I wasn’t complaining."

Sebastian made a quiet sound that suggested he did not care enough to continue the argument.

Within another minute, his breathing began evening out.

Nero remained awake.

Eventually Sebastian would tell him about the visions, and Nero would listen even if every remembered life gave him another version of himself to resent.

He would learn what Sebastian had seen, what might still be coming, and whether the future remained something they needed to fear.

But the deeper manipulations would stay buried.

Nero had finally been given everything he had wanted from the only person he had ever wanted this badly.

He was not noble enough to risk losing it for the sake of confession.

Sebastian’s fingers curled loosely into the fabric near Nero’s ribs.

Nero lowered his mouth to his hair.