Chapter 143: Chapter 143: First sign

Rafael was, for the first time in what felt like an entire lifetime, content.

His work had been formally, officially postponed, with stamped documents and polite excuses that made it sound like he was taking an elegant sabbatical, rather than being placed under protective house arrest by a husband who treated ’the last month of pregnancy’ as a national security state.

Rafael didn’t fight it.

He could have. He had the temperament for it. He had the vocabulary, too.

But Gregoris had looked at him one morning with that calm, unmovable gaze and said, “No palace.”

Rafael had opened his mouth to argue and realized he didn’t even have the energy to be dramatic about it.

So he stayed.

And because Rafael was incapable of doing nothing without turning it into a personal project, he fell back into old habits from before Gabriel had snatched him, labeled him an imperial secretary, and dropped him into the political meat grinder with a smile.

He read history books.

Gregoris’s library turned out to be obscene with old volumes bound in leather and vellum, annotated margins, and editions rare enough that Rafael felt like he should be wearing gloves and committing crimes. He’d found a first print of a pre-Imperial treaty compilation and had stared at it for a full minute, genuinely offended that Gregoris owned it and had never mentioned it.

Gregoris’s only response had been, “It’s a book.”

Rafael had glared at him. “It’s a relic.”

Gregoris had watched him carefully place it on a cushion like it was a newborn and then said, with unhelpful sincerity, “You’re happy.”

Rafael hated that he was right.

He read curled near the windows when the light was good. He read on the chaise with his feet tucked up because his body had decided that ankles were now a luxury. He read at night with a lamp low and Gregoris nearby, working, the scratch of pen on paper steady enough to feel like protection.

It was an odd kind of peace.

He had also, privately, been curious to see how the palace would run without him physically present to sharpen the edges of every conversation.

Gabriel had given Alexandra and Irina more authority, and Rafael wanted to see how that would play out while he was away.

He imagined Alexandra taking a meeting apart with polite precision, smiling while she bled a duke dry.

He imagined Irina trying her best to be composed and accidentally threatening someone with cheerful sincerity.

It was… comforting.

In reality, everything was going smoothly.

That fact alone was suspicious.

But the reports that filtered in – through Charles when he visited, through the occasional message from Gabriel, through Gregoris’s clipped updates – were infuriatingly calm. The Empire didn’t collapse. No one set the capitol on fire. The council survived without Rafael’s direct participation.

Which meant, annoyingly, that he could let himself breathe.

He even got time with Arik.

That, more than anything, made the manor feel less like a bunker and more like a home.

Arik had finished teething, mostly, and had returned to being a charming little cherub instead of a tiny tyrant with gums and opinions. He toddled with the confidence of someone who had never been told no. He had a laugh that was too bright for a palace and too loud for a Shadow commander’s sanity.

Gregoris pretended the sound didn’t soften him.

He failed.

Rafael watched him sometimes, how Gregoris would glance up when Arik babbled, how his hand would hover at the back of the child’s shirt when he wobbled near furniture, and how he would pick Arik up without warning and set him higher like he was relocating an important object to safety.

Rafael had, once, teased, “He’s not a report you can file.”

Gregoris had answered, utterly serious, “He is small.”

Rafael had rolled his eyes, but his chest had warmed anyway, because there was a tenderness in Gregoris’s caution that he didn’t offer the rest of the world.

And maybe that was the real reason Rafael hadn’t fought the house arrest.

Because here, away from the palace, away from the constant teeth of court, he was allowed to be a person.

A pregnant person, unfortunately, but still.

He was currently occupying Gregoris’s office like it was a conquered territory.

Gregoris’ desk was too big and too harsh for comfort, designed for maps, reports, and the decisions that made men disappear. The room itself smelled faintly of ink, polished wood, and Gregoris – something clean and sharp beneath the familiar scents, as if the air had learned discipline from him.

Rafael had dragged a chair closer to the window, because he had taste and also because he needed to see daylight to remember he wasn’t being held in a beautiful prison.

He had a bowl of ice cream balanced on his stomach like it was a devotional offering.

Vanilla with something dark and expensive mixed through it, because Gregoris had ordered the kitchen to ’give him what he wants,’ and the staff had taken that as permission to spoil Rafael into a problem.

Rafael was reading a translation on his tablet – an old document, pre-Imperial, the kind that had too many clauses and too much ego. Someone, centuries ago, had written it with the confidence of a man who believed paper made him immortal.

Rafael, modern and petty, was enjoying judging him.

He scrolled with one hand, spooned ice cream with the other, and pretended he wasn’t perfectly comfortable.

Across the room, Gregoris worked. He wore that focus like armor, and yet his attention flicked toward Rafael every few minutes anyway, as if his body refused to accept any world where Rafael was unmonitored.

Rafael looked up once and caught him.

Gregoris didn’t look away.

“You’re staring,” Rafael accused, flat.

Gregoris’s expression didn’t change. “You’re breathing.”

“That’s not a reason.”

“It’s a metric,” Gregoris said calmly, and went back to reading.

Rafael sighed dramatically and returned to his tablet, because arguing with Gregoris about his surveillance habits was like arguing with gravity.

He scrolled again, eyes catching on a line about inheritance and the ’rightful claim’ of a firstborn.

Rafael’s mouth twisted. “Men really wrote nonsense with their whole chest back then.”

Gregoris hummed, noncommittal.

Rafael took another bite of ice cream, pleased with himself.

Then something tightened low in his abdomen.

It didn’t feel like the usual discomfort. Not the constant pressure of late pregnancy, nor the dull ache that lingered in his bones like a roommate.

This was… specific.

A slow, intent squeeze.

Rafael froze with the spoon halfway to his mouth.

He waited, because denial was a hobby he had perfected at court.

The pressure climbed, peaked, made his breath hitch, and then held for a heartbeat too long.

Rafael’s brows knit. He sat very still, eyes fixed on nothing.

It eased.

He swallowed, slowly, as if he could swallow the entire situation back down into ’not happening.’

He lowered the spoon into the bowl with unnecessary care.

He stared at the tablet like the document might offer an opinion.

Then, because life loved irony, the second contraction hit before he could decide he’d imagined the first.

Stronger.

It tightened through him like a hand closing, and Rafael’s fingers curled around the edge of the chair automatically.

He let out a breath through his teeth, controlled, refusing to make noise because making noise would mean admitting it.

Across the room, Gregoris’s pen stopped.

Rafael didn’t look up.

He could feel the shift in the air, the stillness becoming sharper.

Gregoris said, quietly, “Rafael.”

Rafael kept his gaze on the tablet, because if he looked at Gregoris, he would have to see his reaction, and Rafael was not emotionally prepared to deal with Gregoris reacting to anything that involved pain.

“It’s nothing,” Rafael said, voice too quick.

Gregoris’s chair moved.

His presence was beside Rafael before the contraction even fully crested, and Rafael hated how relieving it felt.

Gregoris crouched, one hand settling on Rafael’s knee.

Rafael’s grip on the chair tightened, not because he needed it, but because he needed something to hold that wasn’t Gregoris.

The pressure peaked and then began to loosen.

When it eased, Rafael exhaled shakily and finally looked up. “She is coming.”

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