Chapter 118: Chapter 118: Home

They didn’t, in fact, die.

Somehow, Gregoris was less of a danger at a family dinner table than Delphine Rosenroth was on her best day, and that realization made Rafael feel things he refused to name. Gratitude was one of them. A strange, reluctant softness was another. He hated both.

Rafael’s hand had settled over his belly without thinking, more as a reflex than a conscious check-in with a body that was no longer solely his. Maybe it was for himself. Maybe it was for the baby. Maybe both.

Gregoris noticed immediately.

His gaze flicked to Rafael’s hand, then to Catherine’s face, then back to Rafael again, and his posture shifted in that subtle way that meant ’enough.’

“We’re leaving,” he said, simple as a command.

Daniel blinked. Philip looked relieved. Bruno opened his mouth, already preparing commentary.

Gregoris didn’t let him.

“He’s pregnant,” Gregoris added, calm and final. “He’s my priority.”

Bruno, predictably, grinned as he noticed his older brother softening. “Aww—”

Gregoris’s eyes slid to him, flat. “He would be my priority without the child too.”

Bruno’s grin faltered in delighted offense. “Wow.”

Catherine’s expression softened. Damon’s mouth twitched. Daniel looked like he’d witnessed a solar eclipse.

Rafael stared at his plate, pretending he hadn’t heard it. Pretending it didn’t warm something under his ribs that had no business being warmed.

They left shortly after, with Catherine pressing packed food into Rafael’s hands as if feeding him was now her personal mission, and Damon offering a calm, quiet ’come again’ that sounded like it mattered.

Back at the manor, the bath was warm enough to steal the fight out of Rafael’s muscles. The herbal tea tasted like compromise and sleep. By the time Gregoris tucked the blanket over him, Rafael was already drifting, eyes heavy, body finally unclenched.

Now, Rafael slept.

Gregoris sat in the small sitting area of their bedroom, dressed in a black satin pajama set, the top unfastened as if buttons were an inconvenience meant for men who weren’t constantly on the edge of duty. The tablet glow painted pale light over his hands and throat, turning the lines of him sharper in the dim. The ether wards hummed softly through the walls, steady as a second heartbeat, and the only other light came from the low lamps Rafael liked.

The reports on the screen refused to respect domestic bliss.

Gregoris hadn’t expected that one sharp omega with vengeful eyes and a taste for retaliation would end up in his bed, under his roof, wrapped in his life so thoroughly that the idea of losing him felt less like heartbreak and more like failure. He’d wanted the strategist. He’d gotten the whole man. The pride. The teeth. The way Rafael fought back with sweetness disguised as poison.

And Gregoris, for all his discipline, didn’t want to give it up.

The Empire had to be stable. Damian was offering that – building it, demanding it, forcing order into a world that kept trying to rot. Gregoris had been a weapon his entire adult life, the thing that removed problems before they became catastrophes. He could do that in his sleep.

Now he understood the difference.

Before, he protected only an Emperor.

Now, he protected his home too.

His gaze flicked toward the bed without turning fully, as if looking too directly would make the softness real enough to hurt. Rafael slept on, unconcerned and safe, and Gregoris felt something tighten under his ribs that had nothing to do with desire but everything to do with ownership in its purest form: responsibility.

His shadows needed an inspection.

He made the decision as if it was nothing, as if it didn’t change the way his entire organization would breathe for the next month.

His stylus moved. A message queued. Rotations adjusted. Internal checks scheduled. Quiet audits that would make men sweat without understanding why.

Gregoris watched the last confirmation ping blink green.

Then he closed the tablet with a final motion that meant the warm domestic bubble had been folded away and filed under later.

—

The next morning, the Shadow training hall smelled like ether, metal and discipline.

It was a private facility buried beneath ordinary architecture, insulated from the city’s noise, from the press, from people who still thought the Empire ran on speeches and ceremony. Down here, it ran on bodies that didn’t break and minds that didn’t hesitate.

The Shadows were elite.

They were also still struggling, because elite didn’t mean invincible, and Gregoris had never tolerated ’good enough’ when ’better’ existed.

He stood at the front of the hall in plain black, an ether-enhanced blade balanced in his right hand with casual ease. The weapon looked like an extension of his fingers. The air around him held that thin pressure that made spines straighten without anyone knowing why.

Nobody spoke unless spoken to.

Nobody breathed too loud.

And then Charles decided he was brave.

Charles’s blue eyes burned with the particular hatred of a man who had been trained against his will and had learned to sharpen resentment into a survival skill. His black hair was pulled back, his posture too rigid, his stance aggressive in that way of young alphas who thought anger was power.

He stepped forward anyway.

“What got you so mad?” he asked.

It was the question everyone else wanted to ask. It was also the question everyone else loved their lives too much to voice.

The room held its breath.

Gregoris lifted his head slowly and raised a pale brow while asking calmly, “What do you mean?”

The innocence in his tone made the entire line of Shadows shudder, because no one believed Gregoris Frasner was ever innocent. Not even when he sounded like it.

Charles scoffed. “Don’t ’what do you mean’ me. They’re your soldiers, fine. But I completed what Damian called punishment.” His voice rose, frustration cracking his control. “Why am I still here?!”

Gregoris’s gaze slid over him like a blade testing a seam. “Because you are a Shadow.”

Charles’s jaw clenched. “I’m not—”

“You are,” Gregoris interrupted, monotone, like explaining a basic concept to someone slow. “And Shadows have special training sometimes. Like now.”

Charles’s hands clenched into fists. “I resign.”

A few people flinched. Not because resigning was unheard of, but saying it to Gregoris’s face was.

Gregoris’s mouth curved in the faintest grin that promised education.

“You can’t,” he said. “Gabriel won’t let you.”

Charles went still, then snapped, “My brother is the Consort Empress. He can choose anyone he wants.”

Gregoris hummed, unbothered.

Charles stepped closer, voice sharp with humiliation and fury. “I’m done being used for your entertainment.”

Gregoris didn’t blink.

He balanced the blade on two fingers, let the ether along its edge shimmer once, then let it settle again effortlessly, as if the weapon itself obeyed him out of respect.

“Entertainment,” Gregoris repeated, thoughtful.

Charles’s eyes flashed. “Yes.”

Gregoris tilted his head slightly, as if weighing the word. “You assume you are entertaining enough to be the reason I’m irritated.”

Charles inhaled, then sighed with the power of a thousand gods – long and loud and theatrical, like he was trying to exorcise Gregoris from the room by sheer exasperation.

“I mean, sure,” Charles said, voice dripping with exhausted sarcasm. “Maybe you just had a bad morning. Maybe the last shift had a one percent decrease in efficiency. Maybe a report had a typo. Maybe someone breathed wrong in your general direction. I don’t know.” He swept a hand through his black hair and glared. “I’m used to your deadly trainings, but keep me out of this. I’m not even in your division anymore.”

A few Shadows flinched at the audacity of that sentence.

Gregoris didn’t.

He looked… pleased.

“Oh,” Gregoris said softly, as if remembering something delightful. “Yes.”

Charles narrowed his eyes. “Don’t ’yes’ me.”

Gregoris’s grin widened, slow and infuriating. “You are not in my division.”

Charles’s shoulders loosened a fraction, hope flickering like a mistake.

Gregoris continued, perfectly calm. “But I borrowed you.”

The room went still.

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