CHAPTER 402: CHAPTER 402: AMBER MEMORY

The wind carried it again, soft and almost human, threaded with warm, expensive cologne and a faint sweetness of amber. There was no threat in it, not at first. Only a trace of memory disguised as civility.

And suddenly, Lucas wasn’t standing on the Fitzgeralt balcony anymore.

He was in a quiet room bathed in the soft orange of firelight, the scent of aged leather and burnt sugar thick in the air. Shelves climbed the walls, filled with books that smelled of old paper and familiarity. Outside the tall windows, it was snowing heavily.

A fire crackled in the hearth. His tea had gone cold.

And across from him, Benedict sat in the armchair opposite, one ankle crossed over his knee, his posture a perfect picture of modern elegance, his tailored shirt rolled to the forearms, and his tie undone just enough to suggest exhaustion that wasn’t real. His dark brown hair fell slightly over his forehead, framing eyes so vividly blue they seemed to reflect the snow behind him.

He looked devastatingly calm.

"You shouldn’t be here," Lucas heard himself say. His voice sounded younger, with more confidence than he’d ever had and the poise of an imperial family. "You said you’d call when..."

"I couldn’t call," Benedict interrupted softly, his tone almost kind. "You wouldn’t have picked up."

He leaned forward slightly, hands clasped, the movement too gentle for what it carried.

"I didn’t want you to hear it from the news feeds."

Lucas frowned, the cold creeping up his spine. "Hear what?"

"About Trevor."

The way Benedict said his name made Lucas step back; he knew that the two alphas never liked each other, but this felt almost fond and wrong.

"There was an incident on the northern front this morning," Benedict continued, his voice wrapped in that same unbearable calm. "His convoy was ambushed. The command post confirmed two survivors. Trevor wasn’t one of them."

Lucas went very still. The room didn’t move; even the snow outside seemed to pause.

"That’s not..."

"Official reports will take hours," Benedict said quietly, eyes fixed on him. "But it’s done. He’s gone."

The words sank slowly, like weight added to an already sinking stone. Lucas felt his breath catch somewhere between disbelief and refusal. They lost so much in the past two years... A pregnancy... a three-month-old child and now... Trevor? No.

"You’re lying."

Benedict didn’t flinch. "I wish I were."

He stood, moving closer with the kind of empathy that felt rehearsed. His voice softened. "You should eat something. You’ll need the strength."

Lucas’s laugh was hollow, caught halfway to a sound he couldn’t finish. "You always say that when you want me quiet."

"When I want you alive," Benedict corrected.

He stopped a step away, close enough for Lucas to see his reflection in those unnaturally bright blue eyes. "Some people burn out, Lucas. Trevor was one of them. He lived too hard. Loved too much. The world doesn’t reward that."

Lucas’s pulse had started to pound in his ears.

"Don’t..."

"He wasn’t built to last; he is a soldier with a title," Benedict went on, voice still impossibly calm. "You are. And you’ll see that someday."

The sound of the fire returned, the low hum of the city pushing at the edges of the silence. But all Lucas could hear was Benedict’s voice, steady and composed, like a surgeon’s hand closing over a wound instead of treating it.

The scent of him, amber, linen, and clean skin, blended into the moment until it imprinted itself somewhere behind Lucas’s ribs.

When he blinked again, the light changed. The apartment dissolved into winter sunlight, the terrace, and the sharp bite of wind.

His grip tightened on the marble railing.

"Lucas?"

Alistair’s voice sounded too close and normal.

Lucas turned toward him sharply. His eyes were too bright, his expression steady only by force. "Inside."

Alistair hesitated. "What..."

"Now," Lucas said, pulling him toward the doors.

The noise of the luncheon swallowed them again glasses clinking, voices overlapping, the pulse of polite conversation that suddenly felt unreal.

Cressida saw them first, eyes narrowing. "What happened?"

Lucas didn’t answer at once. His hand was still tight on Alistair’s sleeve, grounding himself by contact alone. "Where’s Trevor?"

"Still handling the press inquiry," Cressida said, her tone shifting at once. "Why?"

Lucas looked past her, toward the glass doors they had just closed. His voice came out quiet, perfectly even. "Because Benedict was here."

Cressida’s cane stilled against the marble. "Excuse me?"

"He didn’t come inside," Lucas said, his tone steadier than his pulse. "But his scent did."

When Trevor appeared minutes later, Lucas’ expression changed immediately. It was controlled and polished, but the fear underneath was unmistakable.

Trevor reached him quickly. "Lucas. What is it?"

Lucas looked up, the faintest tremor breaking through his composure. "He was here. I don’t know how, but he was. I could smell him."

Trevor’s expression hardened, jaw tight. "You’re sure?"

"I’d know it anywhere," Lucas said softly. "Amber, rain, and lies."

Trevor’s gaze flicked toward the balcony, the protective stillness settling over him like armor. "Windstone," he murmured into his comm, "seal the perimeter. Now."

As guards moved quietly in the background, Lucas’s eyes drifted back toward the glass. The winter light shimmered against it, distorted slightly by the warmth inside. For a moment, he thought he saw a reflection with dark brown hair, a white shirt, and blue eyes.

The next few seconds blurred into controlled motion.

Security moved like shadows no noise, no panic, just the quiet, synchronized efficiency that came from years of Trevor’s obsessive training. A discreet shutter closed over the balcony doors with a hiss of magnetic seals. Two drones detached from the ceiling, their silent rotors gliding toward the terrace, scanning for residual pheromones and heat signatures.

Lucas didn’t flinch, but his pulse hadn’t slowed either. His hand was still half-curled, as if it hadn’t decided whether to tremble. Trevor’s arm slid around him, not roughly, but with enough pressure to hold.

"Breathe," Trevor said quietly, not as a command, but as a habit. "He can’t touch you here."

"I remember... I remember him..."