Chapter 155: Chapter 155: No.

Damian’s mouth curved faintly. “I want personality.”

Gregoris went very still.

It was always like this with Damian. He’d start with war, then slide the blade sideways until it was in your ribs, and only then would he casually announce it had been his intention the entire time.

“You want…” Gregoris began, then stopped, the words tasting wrong. “You want… What? Anecdotes?”

“I want the truth,” Damian said, tone mild. “Not the version your men write when they know it will be archived. Not the version you curate because you think feelings are a leak in security.”

Gregoris stared at him like he was trying to decide where, exactly, to bury the body and how long it would take the palace wards to notice.

Damian waited, serene.

Gregoris’ voice dropped. “You’re asking me to gossip.”

Damian’s eyes lit with satisfaction. “If you insist on calling it that.”

Gregoris’ grip tightened on the report in his hand.

Damian’s eyes flickered to it, amused. “Don’t throw that. It has numbers.”

Gregoris looked like he wanted to hit Damian with it anyway.

“You are exhausting,” Gregoris said, voice controlled, because control was all that kept the world intact.

“And you are beloved,” Damian replied and somehow managed to make it sound like an accusation.

Gregoris froze for half a second, the way a predator freezes when it hears a sound that doesn’t belong.

Damian’s expression remained perfectly calm, which meant he’d landed the hit exactly where he’d aimed it.

“I am tolerated,” Gregoris said flatly.

“You are loved,” Damian repeated, mild as ink. “By your mate. By your child. By the people in your household who don’t fear you the way the rest of the Empire does.”

Gregoris’ eyes sharpened, dangerous. “You’re testing again.”

Damian inclined his head. “Yes.”

“Why?”

Damian’s gaze held his. “Because if you can carry love and still remain lethal,” he said quietly, “then maybe it’s not weakness.”

Gregoris’ jaw flexed once.

Damian was studying the one thing he’d spent years treating like an unacceptable variable – something that couldn’t be measured in troop counts, ether reserves, or border pings.

Love.

Gregoris exhaled slowly, looking at Damian with something between pity and contempt.

“You want personality,” Gregoris repeated, voice flat. “Fine.”

Damian’s eyes brightened.

Gregoris’ mouth curled in warning. “Stay away from my family.”

Damian blinked, slow, offended in the way only Damian could be offended – like the concept of boundaries was a foreign government making unreasonable demands.

“I am the Emperor,” Damian said mildly.

“You’re a problem,” Gregoris corrected.

Damian’s gaze flicked to the folder in Gregoris’ hand, then back to his face with infuriating patience. “If you insist on calling them your family,” he murmured, “then I will insist on calling them mine too.”

Gregoris’ eyes narrowed. “Do not.”

Damian’s mouth curved a fraction. “I already did.”

Gregoris leaned forward an inch, and the air sharpened with it. “I am not joking.”

“Neither am I,” Damian replied, too calm. “But I am willing to compromise.”

“There is no compromise,” Gregoris said coldly. “You don’t get close to my family.”

Damian tapped the pen once on the vellum, the sound neat, controlled, and final. “Then you don’t get silence.”

Gregoris froze.

Damian’s tone stayed pleasant. “It’s simple. You tell me what I want to know, or I start filling in the gaps with my own initiative.”

Gregoris’ stare turned murderous. “Your initiative is a war crime.”

Damian’s smile widened slightly, because that was praise in his language. “And yet you continue to work for me.”

“I work for the Empire,” Gregoris said through his teeth.

“You swore your soul to me, in ether, before I even touched the idea of being emperor,” Damian replied.

The words landed with the quiet weight of an old chain – one Gregoris had willingly locked around his own throat and never pretended otherwise.

For a heartbeat, the etherline along the baseboard hummed a fraction louder, as if the room itself remembered the oath. The moment in the dark, before titles, before thrones, when Damian had been just a man with too much power and too little mercy, gathering monsters who didn’t mind being used, because they’d rather be used than be useless.

Gregoris’ jaw flexed once. “That was loyalty,” he said, clipped. “Not friendship.”

Damian’s gaze stayed on him, bright and unblinking. “Loyalty is more intimate than friendship,” he said mildly. “Friendship can be abandoned. An oath can’t.”

Gregoris’ eyes narrowed. “An oath can be broken.”

Damian’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Not by you.”

The certainty in Damian’s voice was the most infuriating part, because it was earned.

Gregoris stared at him, and the urge to commit treason rose in his chest like heat.

“At least give me something to drink if you’re going to insert yourself into my private life,” Gregoris sighed mockingly, as if he were granting Damian a courtesy the man didn’t deserve.

Damian’s brows lifted with immediate, delighted offense. “Insert myself.”

Gregoris’ stare went flatter. “Don’t repeat my words like you’re twelve.”

Damian’s fingers moved without hesitation. A thin line of ether pulsed along the baseboard, the console beside the desk chimed once, and a small warded panel in the wall slid open with the subtlety of a palace that was built around Damian’s habits.

A tray glided out as if the building itself was tired of listening to them.

Two glasses. A decanter of something dark and expensive. Another smaller bottle with a pale label that looked medicinal and was an antidote that never left Damian’s area after the poisoning one year ago.

Damian poured without looking, one hand still resting on the papers like the Empire would collapse if he lifted it.

Gregoris watched him with narrowed eyes. “You keep alcohol in a hidden compartment.”

“I keep solutions,” Damian corrected, sliding a glass across the desk with a swift push.

Gregoris took the glass like a man taking ammunition and drank.

The liquor burned, clean and sharp.

Damian’s gaze flicked up, satisfied. “Better?”

“I prefer cognac,” Gregoris said, placing the glass down on the desk with great care, as if the wood might take offense.

Damian’s mouth curved. “Noted.”

Gregoris stared at him. “Don’t say it like you’re going to put it in an archive.”

“I will put it in an archive,” Damian replied mildly. “Under: ’Ways to keep my Shadow commander from committing treason in my office.’”

Gregoris’ eyes narrowed. “I commit treason spiritually. It counts.”

Damian’s gaze flickered with amusement. “Augustus keeps cognac in his private cabinet,” he said, as if this was common knowledge and not the emperor casually confessing to theft plans. “I’ll keep it in mind to steal it to suit your tastes.”

“Rude,” Gregoris said flatly, because it was the only acceptable response to an emperor threatening to burglarize a noble for hospitality points.

Damian’s smile didn’t change. “Accurate.”

Gregoris exhaled through his nose, the closest he came to a laugh. “Now what do you want to know?” he asked, resigned, like a man accepting he was about to be interrogated about lullabies and infant habits instead of troop movements.

Damian leaned back in his chair, relaxed in a way that was entirely false because nothing about Damian was ever relaxed. His fingers tapped the pen once against the vellum.

“Anything,” Damian said, tone mild, almost generous. “But not forced like this.”

Gregoris stared at him, incredulous. “You—”

Damian smiled, bright and infuriating, cutting him off. “I’m evolving.”

“You’re lying,” Gregoris said.

Damian’s eyes glinted. “Maybe.”

Gregoris’ jaw flexed. “So?”

Damian’s smile lingered, then shifted from teasing to intent, as if he’d finally decided to admit what he’d wanted from the start.

“I want to be the godfather,” Damian said.

Gregoris didn’t blink.

“No.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep