Chapter 7 Lucian
Lucian
The morning sun filters through a gap in the curtains that Orion was too lazy to completely close.
I blink awake slowly, my pulse kicking up with that familiar, disoriented panic that hits before I remember where I am. Nashville. Hotel. Cat. Orion.
Our room smells like hotel air and overpriced detergent. Somewhere nearby, an HVAC unit hums like it’s on its last leg, and my body is wrapped around something warm.
Too warm.
What the—
I know for a fact that when I fell asleep, it was just me and Sass in bed; Orion was on the pull-out by himself.
Oh, hell no.
I pull back an inch and see a bare shoulder. That is way too white to be mine.
Orion.
The man has migrated across the room in his sleep and is now sprawled beside me, completely unaware of the violation.
He’s lying on his back, one arm crooked under the pillow, his blond hair sticking up in every direction like he tossed and turned all night.
The sheet’s tangled around his hips, thank God, and he’s radiating heat like a furnace.
I swear under my breath and try to ease away without waking him. Then something tugs sharply at the back of my head.
I pause.
Not again.
Slowly, very slowly, I reach back and brush against fur.
Of course.
Sir Sass is perched directly on top of my hair, curled like a furry headphone set. At my movement, his entire body vibrates with content, purring loud enough to wake the dead. Or, in this case, Orion.
I try to whisper, “Buddy, c’mon,” but Sass only wiggles deeper into my scalp like he’s anchoring himself to the Earth’s core.
I attempt to lift him gently.
He clings harder.
I pull again.
He trills a soft warning chirp like, Do not test me, father.
And then he stands up.
On my head.
On my actual. Damn. Head. Before hopping off—straight onto Orion’s bare chest.
Orion inhales sharply. Sass, the brave little idiot that he is, decides now is the time to show affection and leans down to groom a patch of Orion’s chest hair like he’s smoothing out a luxury carpet.
The reaction is instant.
Orion convulses as if someone plugged him into a wall socket.
“WHAT THE—WHAT—IS—ON—ME?!” He shouts, thrashing as Sass just happily continues his spa treatment.
I lose the battle with my sanity and start laughing so hard that tears start streaming down my face.
“This,” I choke out, “is exactly how he woke me up the first night I brought him home.”
Orion sits bolt upright, eyes wide, chest hair damp from the world’s gentlest grooming session.
“He licked my nipple,” he whispers, horrified.
Sass meows proudly and flops against Orion’s stomach like he didn’t just scar my best friend.
“Yeah,” I say, wiping my eyes, “it’s affection. He thinks you’re family now.”
“Family?” Orion sputters. “Lucian, he was trying to EAT my nipple.”
“He was grooming it.”
“That’s WORSE.”
I reach out and take Sass back, scooping him against my chest. He settles instantly, rubbing his face against my jaw with a little cooing noise that could cure seasonal depression.
Orion stares at the cat like he’s seen God and didn’t like what He had to say.
“You let him do that to you?”
“I didn’t let him do anything,” I admit. “But after he woke me up by grooming my chest hair, I bought sleep shirts. There’s no universe where I would let that happen to me again. I didn’t think you’d end up in bed with me, so I didn’t think to warn you.”
Orion visibly shudders. “I’m never sleeping without armor again.”
“You could just sleep on the pull-out bed you started the night in.”
He opens his mouth, shuts it, then crosses his arms and levels me with a stare I’ve only seen him use in the interrogation room.
“To be clear,” he says, jabbing a finger at me, “I only got into your bed because I thought you were dying.”
I blink, clearly confused. “What do you mean you thought I was dying?”
“I thought you were choking,” he insists. “You were making a creepy noise, okay? Like—like you swallowed a ghost or something. I couldn’t tell if it was medical distress or you trying to summon demons.”
I scrub a hand down my face. “Okay, Dumbass, the most logical answer is that it was a nightmare.”
“Yes,” he says, aggressively pointing again, “I figured that out once your fluffy trauma therapist over there climbed onto your neck and started purring like some kind of emotional defibrillator. But until that happened? I thought I was going to have to watch a YouTube video on how to perform CPR.”
I stare. “…So your solution was to climb into my bed?”
He glares. “I was trying to be there in case you—I don’t know—had another nightmare. I didn’t expect to wake up being groomed like a prize show pony.”
Sass chirps happily at being part of the retelling and boops Orion’s arm with his head.
Orion flinches. “No. Absolutely not. Your cat already tried to exfoliate me.”
“He likes you,” I say.
“He’s too affectionate.”
“That’s what happens when you like things, Orion.”
He mutters something under his breath about boundaries and emotional support creatures, but he’s still watching Sass with that reluctantly endeared expression he thinks I don’t catch.
“You’re ridiculous,” I say, shifting Sass higher on my chest.
“And you’re welcome,” he fires back.
“For what?”
“For keeping you alive last night.”
We stare at each other as Sass purrs between us like he’s refereeing.
And fine. Maybe I did sleep better.
Maybe.
I won’t admit that out loud.
* * *
The closer we get to the stadium, the more everything inside me starts tightening like a damn vise.
We’re walking alongside the massive concrete curve of Nissan Stadium, the outer ring glowing with LED strips and pulsing color.
The air smells like hot pavement cooling after sunset, mixed with fryer oil drifting from food carts, body spray, and the sticky-sweet haze of cheap concert beer.
It’s loud and chaotic, everything you’d expect to experience before one of Umbra’s concerts.
I keep glancing back over my shoulder as if I’ll see the hotel from here. I won’t, obviously, but my brain is doing that thing where it tries to peel itself in two directions—go in, stay out; move forward, run back to my cat.
Sir Sass is in the hotel room, tucked into the armchair with a hand-folded towel nest, his water in a crystal-clear glass bowl because the metal one looked sad, his blanket arranged like he’s a fragile Victorian heir recovering from consumption.
I put on a nature channel so he could watch the birds, and listen to the soft water noises on the animal documentary, because the internet told me pets like it.
Orion made fun of me and told me I was insane.
So I told him to go fuck himself.
But the truth is, I’ve never left the little tripod alone this long. I don’t know what version of Armageddon we’ll walk into later.
“He’s fine,” Orion says, cutting me a sideways look sharp enough to be a parenting intervention. “He’s a three-legged cat with the ego of a Roman emperor. He’s probably lying on that towel throne you built, waiting for us to return with offerings.”
I grunt, partly because he’s right, partly because admitting he’s right would be fatal to my pride.
We follow a line of metal barricades funneling concert-goers like cattle toward specific gates.
Everything vibrates—voices layered over bass, laughter, the thrum of thousands of sneakers and boots and platform heels slapping concrete.
Kids run ahead of their parents, holding signs with Umbra lyrics scrawled in holographic markers.
Couples glitter under the lights. Someone wears a handmade cape that looks like a galaxy had a baby with a disco ball.
Meanwhile, I’m here limping like an elderly man who is out way past his bedtime.
We reach the will-call window, tucked away behind a secondary fence line. The employee slides the glass window back. “Name?”
“Orion Smith.”
She taps a keyboard, nods, and pulls two lanyards from a box. “Nice—VIP floor access.”
Of course it’s VIP. Orion doesn’t even breathe casually.
I take mine and brush my thumb over the laminate. The Umbra sigil catches the stadium lights, showing off the silver, sharp edges, and clean lines.
My stomach flips like the laminate weighs ten pounds.
Orion nudges me with his elbow, checking without looking like he’s checking. “Do you need a breather?”
I shake my head. “Nah, I’m fine.”
And I am.
Better than fine, if I’m being honest. The energy here isn’t as draining as I expected; it is raw, humming through the floor into my bones, invigorating me. It’s been a long time since I stood inside an arena that wasn’t a training facility or recovery center.
Something in me hums at the familiarity. The movement of the fans, the logistics that the band had to work through to put on such a massive event.
I didn’t really listen to Orion when he told me about the openers; I was more stuck on the fact I’d finally get to see Umbra. I strain my ears trying to hear the opening band through the noise of thousands of fans trying to get their merch and find their seats.
Then everything fades into background static, and all I can focus on is the fact that I’m finally here.
Seeing Umbra.
In person
The band I’ve only ever watched through screens and grainy videos when insomnia wouldn’t let me sleep. The bass bleeds through steel and concrete, muffled and insistent. My pulse falls into step with it.
Orion bumps my shoulder again. “You look like a kid on Christmas.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say as I try to smother the grin that appeared without my consent.
He huffs something close to a laugh and guides us toward the tunnel that leads to our section.
The corridor opens into the arena bowl, as the noise doubles. The opener crashes toward their final chorus, the crowd vibrating with anticipation.
Lights sweep overhead in beams that catch dust motes like sparks.
Every hair on my arms stands up; the energy is unreal.
We weave past a group of Ara lookalikes in veils and oil-slick wigs, their faces painted in sweeping metallic blues and greens.
Their voices rise as they chant the band’s name.
The opener leaves the stage in a blast of distortion and applause.
Darkness rolls across the arena, like a held breath.
“Hydrate,” Orion says, handing me water I don’t remember asking for.
“Yes, mother,” I mutter as I take the bottle from him.
Then the lights shift. Blue, then indigo, creating an atmosphere like we’re somehow in outer space.
A low vibration crawls through the floor, the earth-shaking synth Umbra fans recognize instantly—the prelude track they open with.
The crowd screams as a spotlight cuts through the dark.
A silhouette rises behind a kit with their sticks lifted, and mask catching the blue light.
Two more shadows ascend from under the stage before the arena suddenly drops into darkness.
A single vertical light splits the center stage in white flame.
The crowd goes feral.
I lean forward without meaning to.
Because everyone knows who steps through that light. A hand appears first—gloved, ringed, fingers curled in a beckoning motion.
Then she emerges.
Ara.
Her veil drapes across the lower half of her face, as her hair spills in iridescent blues and greens under the lights. Metallic markings sweeping across her face like war paint.
I’ve seen countless performances online, but nothing compares to being in person and seeing the way her body glides across the stage like gravity itself is rearranging for her.
Because this—this is why Orion dragged me here.
He wanted me to see something that reminded me of life instead of loss.
Ara lifts her mic, and the first note she sings is low, almost a growl, but it hits like an impact.
The crowd erupts.
I stand there, spine straight, and heart hammering.
Holy shit.
I didn’t know music could feel like this in person.
Lights explode into color, drums hit hard enough to shake metal, and Umbra surges into their first song.
And somewhere in my chest under scar tissue, under memory, under everything that tried to bury me—
Something wakes up and answers back.
I don’t know why.
I don’t care.
I’m here.
And I can’t look away.