Chapter 144: Chapter 144: Breathe

Rafael learned, very quickly, that the phrase “she is coming” had consequences.

Gregoris straightened from his crouch in one smooth motion, already issuing orders with the same calm he used before raids, except this time his hand didn’t leave Rafael until the last possible second, like he was refusing to let the world touch Rafael before he had to.

“Marin,” Gregoris said, clipped.

The manor wards caught the name like a hook and carried it down the ether lines Gregoris had woven into the estate for emergencies, for breaches, for anything that dared threaten what he considered his.

Rafael felt it more than heard it – an invisible pull through the walls, a faint shift in the air, like the house itself had inhaled.

Minutes later, in his own office at the palace, Marin would hear it.

As a call in the wards, Gregoris’s voice delivered by ether and authority, sharp enough to cut through whatever Marin had been doing and turn it instantly into this.

Rafael, still half bent around the aftershock of the last contraction, managed a thin, breathless laugh that was mostly disbelief. “You… have labor wards.”

Gregoris’s eyes flicked to him. “Emergency wards.”

“That’s not…” Rafael started, and then the next contraction rose like a hand closing again.

Rafael’s fingers tightened on the chair arm. His breath hitched. The bowl of ice cream on his stomach became suddenly irrelevant, melting into a problem for future Rafael.

Gregoris was there immediately, one hand bracing Rafael’s thigh, the other steady at his back – careful around the curve of his stomach, like he was holding a world he refused to drop.

“Breathe,” Gregoris said, low.

Rafael breathed because Gregoris’s voice always sounded like something the universe was required to obey.

The manor reacted with the same terrifying competence.

Rafael exhaled as the contraction eased and glared up at his husband, sweat already prickling at his hairline. “Do you rehearse everything?”

Gregoris didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

Of course he did.

Rafael would have insulted him properly, but the next wave didn’t give him time.

It climbed again, stronger, and Rafael’s pride turned into a grim, silent focus. He swallowed down the sound he wanted to make and only let out a thin breath through his teeth.

“You’re going to the room,” Gregoris said.

Rafael, because he was still Rafael even while his body tried to split him in half, managed, between breaths, “I am in a room.”

Gregoris ignored the sarcasm like it was weather. “The prepared room.”

“You mean you prepared more than I know,” Rafael hissed, “because gods forbid I suffer anywhere outside your range.”

“Correct,” Gregoris said, calm as doctrine.

Rafael hated him.

Rafael loved him.

Rafael hated how those two facts kept existing at the same time.

The manor staff moved in around them quietly, like they’d been waiting for permission to become a machine. Someone took the melting bowl of ice cream with the reverence of a priest collecting evidence. Someone else brought a folded blanket. A guard opened the corridor with a speed usually reserved for assassination attempts.

Gregoris kept one hand at Rafael’s back as they moved. Another contraction hit mid-step.

Rafael stopped so abruptly a lesser man would have stumbled into him. Gregoris didn’t. Gregoris adjusted instantly, bracing him, one arm tightening around Rafael’s waist.

“Breathe,” Gregoris said again.

Rafael breathed through his teeth and muttered, “If you say that one more time…”

“I will say it again,” Gregoris replied without hesitation.

Rafael laughed once, sharp and breathless, as despite the panic, he knew he could trust Gregoris.

They took him to the private hospital room.

The manor had one.

Rafael had known it in theory – he’d seen the wing once, been told it existed, and filed it away under ’Gregoris’s paranoia is expensive.’

But seeing it now, while his body clenched and released and clenched again, made the reality feel obscene.

It was modern in the way the Empire liked to pretend it was modern: clean lines, pale walls, muted lighting that didn’t glare, and quiet ether-tech woven into everything so seamlessly it looked like architecture instead of magic.

A birthing bed that could shift angles without anyone touching it. A monitoring panel in the wall that hummed faintly with ether and displayed numbers in neat rows. Cabinets sealed with wards instead of locks. A sterilization sink that did not use boiling water and instead pulsed with a low ether field, making the air around it feel crisp.

There was even a small sitting area, because apparently the Frasners believed in suffering comfortably.

Rafael was guided inside and immediately wanted to lie down and also commit a crime.

The physicians arrived in waves, as if the wards had pulled them through space by the throat. A few were manor staff trained for emergencies; others were palace physicians who had clearly ridden hard and fast. Someone in a crisp uniform spoke to a guard in the corridor. Someone else laid out instruments with the clinical calm of people who had seen worse things than an angry omega in labor.

Marin entered last.

He looked mildly amused by the world’s audacity and deeply unimpressed by Gregoris Frasner in particular. His expression said he’d been interrupted mid-something important and had decided the universe would survive his annoyance.

He took one look at Rafael’s face and sighed like he’d been expecting this for months.

“Well,” Marin said. “You look radiant.”

Rafael glared at him. “I will end you.”

Marin’s mouth twitched. “Good. Spirit intact.”

Gregoris didn’t move from Rafael’s side when the physician approached.

Marin looked at Gregoris with the casual disrespect that only a physician could muster. “If you glare any harder at my team, you’ll set the ether wards on fire.”

Gregoris’s voice was flat. “They won’t.”

Marin hummed. “Charming.”

Another contraction rose.

Rafael’s breath hitched, his fingers tightening on Gregoris’s sleeve, and that was the moment his pride finally stopped pretending it was in control.

Gregoris’s hand covered Rafael’s, firm, anchoring. His other hand slid behind Rafael’s shoulder as the birthing bed was adjusted under him with a quiet mechanical shift.

Marin’s voice stayed calm in the way that made panic feel embarrassing. “Alright. We’re going to check you. Then we’re going to ease this. You’re not proving anything today, Rosenroth.”

Rafael managed, through clenched teeth, “I wasn’t…”

“Yes, you were,” Marin cut in, mild. “I can feel it from here.”

Rafael hated him too.

Marin checked him with quick, efficient motions while murmuring numbers to an assistant. The team moved around Rafael with practiced coordination, using a clean cloth, warm water, and an ether-activated monitor. The air in the room changed as someone raised a low ward, subtle but noticeable, as if the walls thickened against sound and scent.

Rafael’s next contraction hit, and he swore, quietly, with dignity.

Marin raised a brow. “Good. Now breathe.”

Rafael glared. “You’re all obsessed with that word.”

Marin’s eyes crinkled. “It’s almost like oxygen matters.”

Gregoris leaned closer, his mouth near Rafael’s ear. “Breathe,” he murmured anyway, because of course he did, because he was incapable of not repeating what worked.

Rafael exhaled shakily and muttered, “If our daughter inherits your personality…”

Gregoris replied, low, “She will inherit your bite.”

Rafael’s chest tightened at the sincerity in it that Gregoris already loved her enough to claim her traits like they were treasures.

Marin straightened. “Alright,” he said. “We’re progressing.”

Rafael blinked. “That’s… a word.”

“It’s a good word,” Marin said, and then, like he was addressing a problem he’d solved a hundred times, he added, “Ether.”

One of the physicians stepped in close. Their hands glowed faintly, controlled and careful. It settled into the room like a temperature change, as if someone reduced the intensity of Rafael’s pain without taking away his awareness.

Relief slid under the contraction like a buffer.

Rafael sucked in a breath and let it out, shaky. “Oh.”

Marin’s expression didn’t change. “Yes. Oh.”

Gregoris’s thumb stroked once over Rafael’s knuckles. “Better.”

Rafael glared at him. “Don’t sound satisfied.”

Gregoris’s eyes softened. “I’m alive.”

Rafael laughed once, breathless and disbelieving, because that was exactly what this was doing to him.

The contractions kept coming, but the edge was dulled now.

Gregoris never left Rafael’s side.

His hand stayed in Rafael’s. His presence stayed at Rafael’s shoulder. His gaze stayed fixed on the space between Rafael’s pain and the people tasked with easing it, like he would personally intervene if anyone failed.

Rafael gripped his fingers and thought, with grim acceptance, that this was what labor looked like in a world fueled by ether and power: a private room that felt like a fortress, a physician with dry humor and steady hands, and a Shadow commander beside him, refusing to let even reality touch what he loved without permission.

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