Chapter 8: Something Changed

Chapter 8: Chapter 8: Something Changed The ice cream had melted by the time he got upstairs. He hadn’t touched it. Not yet. It sat on the nightstand, untouched in its gilded bowl, a neat silver spoon resting beside it like an afterthought. The kind of thing one could have simply because they asked. Just like Sera said. Darling, you can have anything. Lucas closed the door behind him with a soft click. Silence returned to the room, this time not the cold, dangerous silence of the Velloran estate, but something more comfortable that allowed his mind to rest. The chamber was beautiful. Ivory panels. Heavy curtains. A bed too wide for one person and pillows that smelled faintly of lavender. There was a fireplace built into the wall, flickering low, and the bathroom door stood open like a gentle invitation. He was accustomed to luxury, and he snickered at the realization that he despised it, but Sera had obtained the impossible. The design was elegant enough to make him feel at peace. He walked to the mirror first. Not because he wanted to. But because some part of him needed to see, to check if this was a dream or reality. The light inside the bathroom was soft. Not cruel. Not the kind of clinical white he remembered from the medlabs Christian had ordered him to after every failed heat. This light was warmer. But it still showed everything. Lucas tugged his shirt over his head slowly. The fabric brushed over his face, soft and luxurious. Not tailored yet, but it fit well enough for now. He stood in front of the mirror and looked. The reflection stared back at him: seventeen, almost eighteen, lean, unmarked. Untouched. His skin was smooth. Pale. His collarbones were sharp, but not from starvation. His shoulders narrow but not hunched. No bruises. No lashes. No evidence of a body that had been claimed and discarded. He raised his hand and brushed his thumb over the skin where his mating mark had once been. Just skin now. Nothing beneath it. No spell, no burn, no scarred teeth-line claiming him as someone’s possession. Just Lucas. He exhaled, slow and hollow, leaning his head back until his eyes found the carved ceiling above the mirror. Ornate and quiet. Too clean. He was real. He had to be. He once heard that if you want to know whether you’re dreaming, check your hands. Dreams blur the details. You’ll have too many fingers. Not enough. They’ll shift if you try to count them. He looked. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. He could count them. He could flex them, feel the pull of tendons under his skin. He could trace the lines on his palm and find each one right where it was supposed to be. He could count anything he wanted. It was real. This wasn’t fever. This wasn’t death’s hallucination. He hadn’t imagined Serathine’s voice or the sound of Misty’s slap or the chill of the towel that followed. He was here. Whole. Breathing. Seventeen again, and yet, not really. The years he had lived in his first life had left scars not on his skin, but somewhere deeper. On his mind. His soul. Carved in silence, fed on humiliation, polished by the soft lie of affection that came with a price. Scars that didn’t fade just because his body had. You couldn’t wash away degradation. You couldn’t unlearn how to flinch before you were touched. You couldn’t forget the look in an alpha’s eyes right before they stopped pretending you mattered. Lucas opened his eyes again. The mirror didn’t lie. It offered back the image of a boy with a face too young to carry that kind of history. A face still untouched by age, by exhaustion—but behind the green, his eyes had changed. The boy he used to be—naïve, careful, hopeful—was gone. And the man he became... wasn’t ready to come back. He stepped away from the mirror and into the shower. The heat hit him first. Then the water. When he finally shut the water off, the silence came back. But it didn’t press as hard this time. It sat with him. Lucas dried off slowly, methodically, like each motion was part of a ritual he’d only just remembered. A life reclaimed piece by piece. Towel. Robe. Breathe. He stepped out of the bathroom, the cool air brushing against skin now free of heat and memory. The room was still quiet. The ice cream was gone—someone had replaced it with a new bowl, freshly chilled. Vanilla with something spiced and golden on top. He didn’t touch it yet. Instead, he crossed to the window. Night had settled fully now. The city lights shimmered in long threads of gold and white, flickering beyond the ivy-wrapped balconies of the estate. He looked for a sign—anything different. A single thread out of place. Because something had changed. And it couldn’t just be him. He stepped closer to the glass, his reflection pale and bare in the light. ’What changed?’ He asked the question again, not expecting an answer. Just wanting the silence to hold it. Lucas turned his back to the window, the weight of the city lights falling off his shoulders like a coat he never chose to wear. He crossed the room and picked up the untouched bowl of ice cream. The cold numbed his fingers through the porcelain. Vanilla. Something spiced. Soft enough now to dig a spoon through. He took a bite. He almost groaned. The taste was indulgent—sweet, creamy, with a warmth tucked inside the cold, like cinnamon over silk. It melted on his tongue and filled his chest with something dangerously close to comfort. He closed his eyes. Gods, he had missed this. He loved ice cream. Iced coffee too, though Misty used to slap his hand away from it and say it was unbecoming. "Too childish," she’d hiss. "Too indulgent. No alpha wants an omega with bad teeth or a sweet tooth like a peasant." So he had learned to sneak it. Late at night. Cold spoons behind kitchen doors. The only thing he ever stole. He took another bite—slower this time. Letting it sit against his tongue until it faded. A single moment of peace. A ridiculous, perfect moment. He smiled to himself, lips barely curved. It didn’t last, but it was there.