Alan’s eyes went wide, his breath jerking into ragged gasps as if he could already feel that same fate threading its way into his veins. "Y-you..." His voice cracked, thin and desperate. "You killed him..."
Trevor leaned forward, elbows braced casually on the table, as if the crushing weight of dominance filling the sterile room wasn’t his to command. His violet eyes gleamed under the fluorescent light, cold and pitiless.
"I let him drown," Trevor corrected, almost gently. "In his own blood. His body tore itself apart trying to fight what I wrapped around his lungs. Do you want to test whether yours will hold longer?"
The pressure cinched tighter. Alan gagged, eyes watering as his chest seized against invisible restraints. Sweat broke down his temples, his pulse thrashing wildly under skin that had already gone blotchy.
"Stop! S-stop—I’ll talk!" The words tore out of him in a choked rush, his dignity gone. "Benedict... he—he paid me to watch! To pass along movements, names, documents, he said it was protection, that the House was compromised... that your omega..."
Trevor’s hand twitched once against the table, and the air seemed to thrum with lethal warning. Alan stumbled over his words, panic bubbling out faster than sense.
"I kept records! Names of the others, meetings in the chapel, letters in the archive, and emails we exchanged. He said no harm would come, only knowledge... please, please don’t make me..."
Trevor let the pressure ease, just enough for Alan to suck in a greedy lungful of air.
"Let’s see what you know. What does Benedict, a man of the church, want from my mate?" The alpha asked, leaning back in the simple, though chair like it was another piece of overpriced heirloom furniture.
"His Eminence had talked about him like he was... tainted. He told me that Lucas Oz Kilmer is..."
"Lucaz Oz D’Argente of Fitzgeralt." Trevor corrected him while drumming his fingers on the cheap table between them.
Alan flinched at the correction, the new name snapping across the space like a whip. "Y-yes, yes, of course—of Fitzgeralt." His tongue stumbled over the syllables, desperate to appease. "He said the boy was... marked. That no matter how you dressed him, he carried something unclean, something that would bring ruin to your House if left unchecked."
Trevor’s gaze sharpened, but he didn’t move. His fingers tapped once, twice, thrice against the table, the sound a metronome of judgment.
"And you believed him, a man like you, careful enough to hide every one of his steps, believed this? Don’t insult me, Alan." The pheromones engulfed Alan again, not as tight as before, but enough to remind him that Trevor wasn’t playing.
"I’m sorry! I’m sorry!" Alan yelled in panic. "His eminence... he is a dominant alpha like you; he wants Lucas for himself. He said that the omega knows more than he shows and could destroy the church and people that depended on it."
"And you, the good soul you are, decided to help? Please... Don’t take me as an idiot."
Alan’s breath came in shallow bursts, each one rattling against the weight pressing down on his chest. "I... I didn’t want to!" he stammered, voice cracking. "He forced my hand. Said if I didn’t pass along what I saw, he’d ruin me, expose debts, drag my family into it..."
Trevor’s laugh was low and humorless, a blade scraping along glass. "So you betrayed mine to save yours. Admirable, if I cared about your family. But I don’t."
The air tightened again, subtle but merciless, and Alan gagged on nothing, eyes bulging as the phantom noose of Trevor’s dominance cinched higher around his throat. His legs kicked reflexively under the table, metal cuffs biting into his wrists as he fought uselessly against restraints.
"You helped a snake crawl into my house," Trevor said softly, each word weighted with the quiet certainty of a verdict. "You let him slither near my omega. And you thought I wouldn’t smell the rot?"
Alan shook his head violently, tears streaking down his cheeks. "No! I thought... you were so careful, so distant... I thought you wouldn’t notice! He said... he said Lucas would never truly be yours, that he... he was always going to return to his real mate, no matter how many hands had tainted him..."
Trevor didn’t know if the man’s IQ suddenly dropped because of his pheromones or if he never considered how he, a dominant alpha, would react to the words he spoke so desperately.
The last word barely left Alan’s mouth before the pressure snapped. The butler collapsed against the restraints, choking, eyes rolling as Trevor’s pheromones closed around his lungs like a vice. His face mottled red, then purple, spit frothing at the corner of his mouth as his body convulsed against invisible weight.
Windstone didn’t move, his posture as calm and unreadable as ever, though a flicker of cold satisfaction passed through his pale green eyes.
Trevor leaned forward, voice low enough that Alan had to fight for every breath just to hear it. "You’re not going to die tonight, Alan. But you’re going to remember what it feels like to wish you had."
The pressure eased abruptly, leaving Alan to collapse forward, dragging in a wheezing, ragged gasp that sounded like glass tearing through his lungs. He coughed until strings of spit and blood streaked his chin, his body trembling as if he’d been dredged up from drowning.
Trevor’s fingers resumed their calm rhythm against the table. Tap. Tap. Tap.
"Now," he said, violet eyes gleaming, "you’re going to tell me every name, every meeting, every word that passed between you and that priest. Slowly. Clearly. Because if I so much as suspect you’re holding something back, Alan, I will peel you open with nothing but my voice and my scent. And there won’t be a grave left to put you in when I’m finished."
Alan sobbed, broken. "I’ll tell you everything. Please... please, just don’t..."
"Start with the first meeting," Trevor cut in, his voice quiet, merciless. "And pray I don’t get bored before you finish."