Chapter 104: Chapter 104: Risk management

Gregoris stared at him for a beat.

Then the smile finally won, if one could call it that, but in truth it was more of a grin of a man who’d been insulted in a way he respected.

“He did,” Gregoris said. “And he did it with paperwork.”

Rafael’s eyes widened in horrified delight. “No.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

Gregoris exhaled slowly, like he was still personally offended by the audacity. “He didn’t call it an order.”

“Of course he didn’t.”

“He called it,” Gregoris continued, voice flattening into a near-perfect imitation of imperial calm, “’an adjustment to operational status in light of the newly registered marriage and expected heir of House Alamina.’”

Rafael choked. “Expected heir. That sentence is going to haunt me.”

“It already haunts me,” Gregoris said, deadpan. “He made it sound like I woke up yesterday and announced I was developing a preference for indoor work.”

Rafael laughed, helpless. “Let me understand. Damian decided he needs you in the palace and uses me and our pregnancy as an excuse to keep his hound indoors?”

Gregoris’s eyes narrowed in offended pride.

“I am not a hound,” he said, far too calmly for a man who absolutely was.

Rafael lifted a brow. “You track people. You bite on command. You make grown men confess just by standing too close.”

Gregoris blinked once. “That is called competence.”

Rafael’s smile sharpened. “And the Emperor has decided your competence is best utilized in climate-controlled corridors.”

Gregoris’s jaw worked, like he was swallowing the instinct to argue with imperial logic. “He decided,” he corrected, “that I am more useful alive.”

“Oh,” Rafael said sweetly, “how considerate.”

“He used you,” Gregoris admitted. “And the child.”

Rafael’s eyes glittered with delight. “He weaponized domesticity.”

“He weaponized protocol,” Gregoris said, as if that made it worse. “He attached the directive to the consort security annex. The one no one can publicly contest without looking like they want the heir endangered.”

Rafael leaned back, savoring it. “So if you resist, you look like a reckless alpha endangering his pregnant husband.”

“Yes.”

“And if Delphine complains, she looks like she’s arguing against the Emperor’s heir-protection policy.”

“Yes.”

Rafael’s grin widened, almost wicked. “So Damian didn’t just order you. He built you a gilded cage and then made it politically immoral for anyone to comment on the bars.”

Gregoris let out a quiet, long-suffering breath. “Exactly.”

Rafael tilted his head, mock-thoughtful. “You must be furious.”

“I am,” Gregoris said, then added with a faint, reluctant glint, “and I respect him for it.”

Rafael laughed again. “That’s disgusting.”

“It is leadership,” Gregoris corrected.

“It is manipulation.”

“It is imperial,” Gregoris said flatly. “Damian doesn’t request compliance. He redesigns the environment until compliance is the only dignified option.”

Rafael’s eyes narrowed with admiration he refused to name. “So what did you do? Growl at him? Bare your teeth?”

Gregoris’s mouth twitched. “I signed.”

Rafael froze, then burst into laughter. “You signed?”

“I signed,” Gregoris repeated, perfectly calm. “Because I am honorable.”

Rafael wiped at his eye. “No. You signed because he outplayed you.”

Gregoris’s gaze slid to him, unblinking. “Two things can be true.”

Rafael leaned into him, still amused, still incredulous. “So I’m an excuse.”

“You are not an excuse,” Gregoris said, immediate and firm, the humor sharpening into something protective. “You are the reason the Emperor can justify what he already wanted.”

Rafael’s laughter softened, the warmth sneaking in where he didn’t want it. “And what did he want?”

Gregoris’s hand settled at Rafael’s waist, steady. “He wanted me close. In the palace. Running operations from the center. Doing the work that keeps knives from reaching the imperial family.”

Rafael’s voice went quieter. “Because last time…”

“Last time,” Gregoris said, and the room cooled by a degree, “we came too close to losing him.”

Rafael held his gaze for a beat, then exhaled slowly.

“Fine,” Rafael murmured, dry again because softness was dangerous. “You’ll be an indoor predator.”

Gregoris’s mouth curved, faintly savage. “I will be a predator with a desk.”

Rafael snorted. “That’s horrifying.”

“It should be,” Gregoris replied, eyes glinting. “Now the people who bother you won’t have to fear a battlefield accident.”

Rafael’s brows lifted. “They’ll fear a meeting.”

Gregoris leaned closer, voice low and almost pleased. “They’ll fear me having time.”

Rafael let that sit for a second, savoring it the way he savored every rare moment where the world felt like it had stopped trying to chew him up. Then he squinted, because his brain, unfortunately, was still functioning.

“Wait,” he said slowly. “This isn’t just about you.”

Gregoris didn’t answer immediately, which was an answer.

Rafael’s eyes narrowed further. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Gregoris’s mouth twitched again, that almost-smile that meant Rafael had stepped on a truth. “You’re not wrong.”

Rafael leaned back against him, robe collar warm against his neck, and stared up at Gregoris like he was trying to read the fine print in his face. “What else did Damian do?”

Gregoris exhaled once slow, like a man admitting a conspiracy he didn’t particularly mind being part of. “Alexander.”

Rafael blinked. “Alexander.”

“The second commander,” Gregoris said. “Arcanist. The one who thinks wards are a love language.”

Rafael snorted. “That’s… accurate.”

“He’s been reassigned,” Gregoris continued, voice maddeningly calm. “Desk command. Palace perimeter. Internal response. No more long-range field deployment unless absolutely necessary.”

Rafael stared.

Then he barked out a laugh, half amusement, half disbelief. “You’re telling me Damian caged two apex predators.”

Gregoris corrected smoothly, “He gave us office space.”

“That’s cage talk.”

Gregoris didn’t deny it.

Rafael’s eyes sharpened, the pieces clicking into place like a lock. “Alexander is engaged to Irina.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re married to me,” Rafael said slowly, as if the words were still new on his tongue, still strange in how final they sounded. “And I’m pregnant.”

“Yes.”

Rafael turned his head, looking at the now-dark screen, at the reflection of the room, at the faint ether-light threading the manor like a pulse. “So Damian wants his best men close.”

Gregoris’s gaze stayed on him. “Damian wants his best men where he can rely on them quickly.”

“And where he can control them,” Rafael said, not accusing. Just… naming it.

Gregoris’s mouth curved faintly. “He’d call it ’risk management.’”

Rafael’s laugh was sharp. “Of course he would.”

But the humor didn’t fully cover the thought taking shape in Rafael’s head, solid and unsettling.

“And he wants their children,” Rafael said slowly, “and future children… closer too.”

Gregoris didn’t flinch. He didn’t deny it. He didn’t soften it.

“Damian,” Gregoris said, voice low and matter-of-fact, “does not like vulnerabilities he cannot guard.”

Rafael’s throat tightened in an annoying way.

He’d spent years thinking the Empire’s worst danger was the nobles’ hunger. He was learning the truth was more complex: the imperial family’s protection could be a fortress, and fortresses had gates that only opened one direction.

Rafael looked up at Gregoris. “So Alexander got the same speech.”

Gregoris’s eyes glinted. “Different phrasing. Same intent.”

Rafael imagined Damian leaning back in that terrifying calm of his, using the same tone he used to end wars and start policies, telling Alexander that his operational status had been adjusted for internal stability.

“I don’t know who is more terrifying, Damian and his plans, or you complying with them.”

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