_*]:min-w-0 !gap-3.5" style="border:0px solid">The conversation with Valerian continued, Lucius still holding the phone as the human servant hurried away with his instructions. For a moment, silence hung in the air—not the comfortable silence of brothers who had shared millennia, but the tense pause before a storm.

  "Tell me," Valerian said quietly, his voice emerging from the speaker with unexpected gentleness. "Tell me everything, brother."

  Something in that simple request—the soft tone so at odds with Valerian's usual military precision—broke the final barrier of Lucius's control. His hand tightened around the phone with such force the metal frame creaked in protest.

  "He's already two hundred years old, Eli," Lucius began, his voice barely recognizable—raw and strained with emotions he'd contained for millennia. "Two hundred years! Born without me knowing, raised in captivity, suffering while I..." He trailed off, chest rising and falling with unnecessary breath, an ancient human reflex surfacing in his distress.

  Nova sat perfectly still on the edge of the bed, watching this transformation with growing confusion. The king—this being of immeasurable power who had terrorized the supernatural world with a mere flicker of emotion—was unraveling before his eyes.

  "I've searched for him for two thousand years," Lucius continued, the words tumbling out now, unchecked and unfiltered. "Two thousand years of visions, of preparation, of building safe havens for him across all territories. I arranged protection for every wereanimal under my care. I created sanctuaries where hybrids could live with dignity. I maniputed territorial boundaries to ensure his safety when he would finally appear." His voice cracked with self-recrimination. "And none of it mattered. None of it!"

  Nova's brow furrowed, his eyes tracking Lucius with growing bewilderment. Two thousand years? Visions? Sanctuaries created for him specifically? None of it made sense—yet the emotion behind the words was unmistakably genuine.

  "He was born through some noble's experimental crossbreeding program," Lucius spat, genuine disgust coloring his tone. "Not in Gabriel's territory or Cassian's nds as I arranged, where he would have had protection and care from birth. Instead, he was treated as property from his first breath, owned by Lord Darius who spent two centuries trying to break him."

  Nova's eyes widened at this revetion, his gaze flickering between Lucius and the phone as if seeking expnation from the unseen Valerian. How could this king—this stranger—know such details about his birth? How could anyone have "arranged" territories for his protection before he even existed?

  "Do you know what Darius did to him?" Lucius asked, his voice dropping dangerously low. "The 'training methods' he employed? Daily beatings that continued for decades. Starvation used to enforce compliance. Burns inflicted as 'motivation' for proper behavior."

  With each detail, Lucius's power pulsed outward in waves of suppressive force that caused supernatural beings throughout the pace to gasp in renewed agony. Yet strangely, Nova felt nothing of this pressure—unaffected by the power crushing everyone else.

  "And the worst part?" Lucius continued, pacing the room with predatory grace. "For all these centuries, Darius bragged about his 'untamable pet.' He made Nova's resistance into entertainment for his guests—a party trick to demonstrate at gatherings. 'Watch how my pet refuses to submit despite decades of training,' he would say, as if Nova's indomitable spirit were merely an amusing inconvenience."

  Nova's jaw tightened imperceptibly at the memory, his body tensing despite himself. The casual cruelty of those exhibitions had perhaps been the most degrading aspect of his captivity—his suffering transformed into social entertainment.

  "I should have found him sooner," Lucius said, his voice hollow with regret. "My visions showed him clearly enough—why couldn't I find him in reality? What good is seeing the future if I couldn't prevent two centuries of torture?"

  Nova's confusion deepened with each revetion. Visions? Seeing the future? The king spoke as if he had known Nova before he existed—as if he had been searching specifically for him across millennia. None of it aligned with anything Nova understood about the world or his pce in it.

  "He's got scars I'll never be able to heal, Eli," Lucius continued, genuine anguish in his voice. "Some of the wounds are two centuries old, long since healed wrong. His left shoulder was broken and reset improperly at least three times. They denied him proper medical care to 'teach lessons' about obedience."

  As Lucius detailed injuries Nova had long since learned to live with, describing them with an intimacy that seemed impossible for a stranger, Nova unconsciously touched his left shoulder. The old injury still ached during certain movements—a permanent reminder of punishments for attempted escapes in his early decades.

  "And after all of it—after two centuries of captivity and cruelty—do you know what amazes me most?" Lucius asked, his voice shifting from rage to something like wonder. "He's exactly as I saw him in my visions. Unbroken. Unbowed. His spirit intact despite everything they did to destroy it."

  The pride in Lucius's voice was palpable, genuine admiration alongside the pain and fury. He spoke not as king to subject, or even rescuer to victim, but with the reverence of someone describing something precious beyond measure.

  "I've waited two thousand years for him, pnned for his arrival across millennia," Lucius continued, his voice softer now but still audible to Nova's enhanced hearing. "I created safe havens, established protection systems, developed entire governance frameworks to ensure his welfare. All of it... useless. He suffered for two centuries while I searched, and I found him only through rumors of an 'untamable pet' that finally reached my court."

  Nova's mind struggled to process these impossibilities. No one waited millennia for another being. No one prepared for someone not yet born. No one could have visions of his existence before he came into the world. Yet the naked emotion in Lucius's voice could not be feigned—whatever the king believed, he believed it completely.

  "The one being I've waited for across two thousand years," Lucius said, his voice breaking slightly. "The soul I saw in visions before he was even born. The spirit that gave me purpose when nothing else could. And I failed him, Eli. I failed him completely."

  Throughout this revetion, Nova remained still, his expression carefully neutral despite the storm of confusion within. He had learned centuries ago to hide his reactions, to keep his thoughts private—a survival skill that now served him well as he tried to make sense of the impossible.

  One thing was unmistakably clear to Nova, however: this king—this being of immeasurable power—was genuinely, deeply enraged about what had happened to him. Not the cold, performative anger of nobles pretending concern, but a raw, visceral fury that had literally brought the supernatural world to its knees. Whatever else Nova couldn't comprehend about visions and millennia of waiting, the authenticity of Lucius's rage on his behalf was undeniable. No one had ever been angry for him before—not in his entire two centuries of existence.

  "What will you tell him?" Valerian asked through the phone, his voice gentle but practical.

  Lucius turned toward Nova, their eyes meeting directly across the room. For the first time since his rescue, Nova saw uncertainty in the king's expression—vulnerability from the being who had brought the supernatural world to its knees.

  "The truth," Lucius replied simply. "All of it. He deserves nothing less."

  Nova's heart rate increased slightly—the only outward sign of his inner turmoil. The truth? What truth could possibly expin these references to visions and millennia of waiting? What connection could exist between himself and this ancient king that would justify such emotion?

  As Lucius continued speaking to his brother, detailing more aspects of Nova's captivity with impossible knowledge of events he couldn't have witnessed, Nova's confusion only deepened. The king spoke of him with an intimacy that suggested centuries of connection, yet they had met only hours ago. He referenced pns and preparations spanning millennia, all apparently centered around Nova's existence—a concept too enormous for Nova to fully comprehend.

  The dramatic irony hung heavy in the room—Lucius pouring out two thousand years of emotion while Nova listened without context, hearing raw feeling without understanding its source or meaning. Whatever revetion awaited him when this conversation ended, Nova sensed it would fundamentally change everything he understood about himself and his pce in the world.

  For now, he could only listen as the king of vampire society continued venting his millennia of emotion to his brother, each word simultaneously expining nothing and everything about why the most powerful being in existence had personally tended his wounds with such reverent care.