Dinner was called at seven exactly, and I made it downstairs at six fifty-five, because showing up late on day one felt like the kind of mistake you didn’t get to take back.
The dining room was its own kind of intimidating a table long enough to seat twelve, though only four places had been set at one end.
Elise was already moving between the kitchen and the table, and before she could finish, I reached for the bread basket and started passing plates down without being asked. It felt strange not to.
My mother had raised me to help, and old habits didn’t care that we lived in a house with staff now.
"You don’t have to do that, Max," Elise said, half-amused, taking the basket gently from my hands.
"Habit," I said. "Sorry."
"Don’t apologize for good manners." Damian’s voice, coming in from the hall. He took his seat at the head of the table, Mom to his right, and gestured for me to sit across from the last empty chair. "Lucian will be down."
He wasn’t wrong, technically. Lucian appeared four minutes later, dropped into his seat without a word, and picked up his fork like the rest of us weren’t there.
Damian let the first few minutes pass in silence plates filling, wine poured, the quiet clink of cutlery before he set his own fork down and folded his hands.
"Before we eat properly, I want to say something. Now that we’re one household, there are a few things I’d like everyone to understand." He looked between Mom and me, then, pointedly, at Lucian. "Respect in this house isn’t optional. Whatever’s happened between us in the past stays in the past. Clara and Max are family now, and I expect you to treat them that way. Full stop."
"Understood," Mom said warmly, glancing at me.
I nodded. "Understood."
Lucian didn’t look up from his plate. "Can we eat now."
Damian’s mouth tightened, but he let it go, gesturing for everyone to start.
The food was good better than good and for a few minutes it almost felt normal, four people having dinner, if you ignored the fact that one of them was radiating cold like an open freezer.
"So, Max." Damian turned to me between bites, an easy, genuine warmth in it, the kind that made it obvious where Lucian didn’t get his personality from. "Tell me about school. Clara mentioned international business?"
"Yeah." I set my fork down, glad for something to talk about that wasn’t the tension across the table. "I just finished my second year. I want to work in trade policy eventually.... the way regulations shift between countries, how companies adapt. It’s more interesting than it sounds."
"It sounds plenty interesting." He smiled. "You know, that’s not far off from what Lucian studies. Business, with an economics focus. You two might actually end up sharing a class or two."
I saw it before he even finished the sentences the shift in Lucian’s jaw, the fork slowing halfway to his mouth.
"Which reminds me," Damian went on, and I felt the air in the room change a half-second before I understood why. "Max, you’ll be transferring to Lucian’s school starting Monday. Same campus, similar track — makes sense for you to be there instead of commuting across the city."
"Oh—" I blinked. Nobody had mentioned this to me. "Okay. That’s—sure, that works."
"And you’ll go together," Damian added, like it was the simplest thing in the world. "Lucian has a car. No reason for you to be taking the train every morning when he’s already driving that direction."
The room went very still.
Lucian set his fork down. Not gently.
"No."
"Lucian—"
"No." He stood so fast his chair scraped hard against the floor, and then his palm came down flat on the table, hard enough to rattle every glass on it. "I’m not his ride. I’m not his babysitter. I didn’t ask for a brother and I sure as hell didn’t ask to chauffeur one to school like he’s my responsibility."
"Lucian, sit down."
"You don’t get to just decide this." His voice climbed, and something underneath it climbed with it a pressure in the air, low and heavy, like the room itself had started holding its breath. "You married her. Fine. That’s your mess. But you don’t get to hand me a stranger and call it family and expect me to just—"
The pressure broke.
It hit like a drop in air pressure before a storm a weight pressing down on every nerve in my body all at once.
My knees buckled before I even understood what was happening; I was on the floor, one hand braced against the table leg, gasping like the air itself had turned to something too thick to breathe.
Beside me, Mom went down too, a small broken sound escaping her as her knees hit the marble.
Somewhere at the edge of my vision, I saw Elise and two other staff already reaching for something at their collars thin black masks, fitted fast and practiced, like they’d done this a hundred times before. Like they’d been waiting for it.
I hadn’t known what an Alpha’s aura actually felt like. Not really. Not until it was crushing the air out of my lungs and forcing my body toward the floor like gravity had tripled just for me.
Through the haze of it I heard him. Still snarling, still furious, his voice edged with something that didn’t sound entirely human anymore a low growl braided underneath every word, like there were two throats speaking at once.
"He is not—" Lucian’s voice cracked with the weight of what was rolling off him "—my problem."
"Enough."
Damian’s voice hit different. Heavier. Older.
The moment it left his mouth the air seemed to fold in on itself, and I felt Lucian’s pressure buckle under something stronger, something that didn’t ask, only demanded.
My chest loosened just enough to drag in one full breath. Beside me, Mom gasped like she’d been underwater.
I looked up in time to see it —Damian on his feet now too, eyes gone from warm brown to something closer to burning amber, and for just a second, standing there in his tailored shirt with his wine glass still on the table, he didn’t look like a businessman at all. He looked like something with teeth.
Lucian’s whole body went rigid. His jaw locked. And slowly visibly fighting it the entire way he pulled his aura back in, folded it down small, until the pressure lifted off my chest all at once and I could breathe again without it feeling like drowning.
The silence afterward was worse than the noise had been.
Damian’s amber eyes faded back to brown. He didn’t sit down. He didn’t apologize either. He just looked at his son with something tired and disappointed carved into his face. "Go cool off."
Lucian didn’t answer him. He looked down at me once one flat, unreadable second, no apology in it, nothing at all and then he turned and walked out of the dining room without another word.
A moment later I heard the front door open, and slam, hard enough that I felt it in my chest even after his aura was gone.
Mom was still shaking beside me. I got an arm around her, helped her back into her chair, my own hands not entirely steady either.
Damian exhaled, sat back down like nothing had happened, and reached for his wine glass with a hand that I noticed wasn’t quite steady either.
"I apologize for that," he said quietly. "That won’t happen again."
I wanted to believe him.
I wasn’t sure I did.