Lucas sat in the ringing silence of his home office, the upside-down report a monument to his failure. Ten minutes. Trevor had given him a ten-minute ultimatum, as if he were a junior analyst being sent to cool off. The sheer, unmitigated audacity of it made his blood boil, or maybe that was just the preheat talking.
He was still fuming, a low simmer that had nothing to do with biology and everything to do with his husband's infuriating, unshakeable confidence. He was the Grand Duke's consort, a political strategist in his own right. He managed the duchy's finances, navigated the viper's nest of the court, and wrote speeches that could sway the unmovable. He was not… not some omega being lured upstairs like a prize won in a campaign.
And yet.
His own scent, thick and heavy with honey and unspoken need, was already saturating the air, chasing away the last traces of Trevor's cedar. His glands throbbed in time with his pounding pulse. Trevor was right. He was drowning.
