[BL]Reborn as the Empire's Most Desired Omega
Chapter 131: The wedding will happen

Chapter 131: Chapter 131: The wedding will happen

Cressida turned her head, slow and exact. "What?"

Dax didn’t flinch. "You weren’t moving fast enough."

"I was waiting for the right time," Trevor snapped.

"You were waiting for the sky to fall," Dax said, still annoyingly composed. "And in the meantime, the entire court was circling like they smelled blood in the water. I gave you three months. You used three days. I call that initiative."

Trevor stared at him. "I bonded him. That wasn’t initiative. That was the rest of my life."

Dax sipped his tea like he hadn’t just set a palace wing on fire. "Exactly. And I’d rather you spend the rest of your life with him than let some noble with a bloodline and a vault full of desperation stake a claim first."

Cressida narrowed her eyes. "So the King of Saha gave my grandson a deadline to secure his own marriage."

Dax glanced toward her, completely at ease. "Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve saved your line from extinction."

Trevor looked ready to commit treason. "You pushed. You knew I wasn’t ready."

"You were ready," Dax said, sharper now. "You were just scared. And Lucas isn’t the kind of person you wait too long on."

Lucas, to his credit, said nothing.

But he sat straighter.

Trevor exhaled, low and tight, the kind of breath people take when they’ve run out of patience but still have to keep their voice level. "You don’t get to dictate the pace of my life."

"I didn’t," Dax said, almost gently. "He did."

Lucas looked at Trevor, but his mind was already somewhere else. Something in the way Dax said it—too calm, too easy—hit a little too clean. And maybe it shouldn’t have surprised him. Maybe he should’ve realized sooner that Dax wasn’t talking about nobles or alliances or the weight of a house name.

He was talking about himself.

Not directly. Not in the way most men would. But Lucas wasn’t new to this. He’d seen enough of court to recognize the shape of a door that had stayed unlocked a little too long. And now, sitting there in his house shoes with a half-drunk cup of tea and Trevor’s hand resting quietly against his own, he realized just how close that door had come to opening.

If he had faltered, even once—looked away instead of forward, chosen silence instead of action—Dax would’ve stepped in.

Not with cruelty. Not even with arrogance.

Just with certainty.

And Lucas would have said yes. Not because he wanted to. But because it would have made sense. Because it would have given him a place. Because it would have felt like control, even if it wasn’t.

The thought crawled up the back of his neck, quiet and cold.

He didn’t look at Dax. He didn’t need to. That kind of knowing didn’t require eye contact.

Instead, he focused on the warmth of Trevor’s hand, the way his thumb shifted slightly, just once, against the side of his palm—like he knew something had passed between them but wasn’t asking what.

Dax didn’t press. He didn’t say another word.

And for that, Lucas was strangely grateful.

Cressida set her spoon down, not hard, but with the kind of finality that meant something had ended and something else was beginning. "Well," she said, and the word was too smooth to be casual, "if everyone’s done flexing their regrets, I’d like to ask the boy a question."

Lucas looked up. His shoulders eased back into the chair. His voice was steady. "Go ahead."

Cressida set her spoon down with that same crisp, deliberate motion—less an end to tea and more the start of something else. "Well," she said, her gaze fixed firmly on Lucas now, "since the rest of you are content to trade dramatics like they’re diplomatic favors, I’ll ask something practical."

Lucas met her eyes. Not flinching. Not blinking.

But she wasn’t testing him anymore. That had already passed.

"I’m not here because I doubt your judgment," she continued, now glancing at Trevor with a sharp flick of affection that most people would miss if they didn’t speak her language. "You finally made a decision I don’t have to clean up. I’m impressed."

Trevor arched a brow. "Was that a compliment or an early eulogy?"

"Whichever motivates you to wear a proper jacket," she replied dryly, reaching for her tea as if her words weren’t meant to be deflected. "But I’m still mad at the fact that Windstone and this royal prick found out about your marriage before I did."

Trevor blinked. "You’re calling Dax a prick now?"

Cressida didn’t look at him. "When it fits."

Dax looked faintly delighted. "I’m touched."

"I said fits, not flatters."

Trevor stared at her and sighed, the sound quiet but laced with that particular kind of fatigue reserved for people who had known you since you were old enough to ruin silk drapes with ink and excuses. He had expected this. Not the dramatics, Cressida rarely bothered with those, but the inevitable moment where she’d draw a line between tradition and whatever mess he’d managed to make of it.

"We were almost engaged," he said, voice low but firm, threading through the tension like it wasn’t new. "Approved by the palace. By the Emperor. Everything was moving forward the way it should’ve."

He glanced toward Dax, not a glare, but close.

"And then things happened," he added, pointedly, the kind of understatement that would’ve made his younger self laugh and his older self wince. "And Lucas asked me to marry him."

He looked back at her.

"How could I say no?"

There was no theatrical pause. No attempt to dress the moment in self-pity or romantic flourish. Just a question—clear, honest, and quiet. NovelFire)

And for once, Cressida didn’t answer immediately.

She looked at Lucas instead, who didn’t smile, didn’t blink, and didn’t look away. Just sat there with his hands folded in his lap, wearing house shoes and court linen like he had every right to belong in both.

Then she looked at her grandson. The one who used to dismantle clocks to figure out how time worked and never quite put them back together.

"You couldn’t," she said finally. "Not if you were paying attention."

Trevor didn’t respond—because she was right, and because it didn’t need saying.

Cressida reached for her tea again, calm now, the tension in her shoulders softened by the decision. She sipped once, then placed the cup down with precision, as if setting the terms of a treaty.

"The wedding," she said, "will happen."