Chapter 54: Chapter 54: Them

Gregoris watched Rafael laugh, and something inside him stilled, like a blade pauses just before being drawn.

It wasn’t a loud laugh or the careless, but that devastating expression Rafael wore when he decided charm was the sharpest weapon available to him. His eyes were bright, his posture open, and his body angled just enough toward the alpha noble beside him to suggest interest without promising anything at all. It was planned to provoke him and it worked.

The man next to him, young, tall, and bred for court and confidence, leaned closer than necessary. His hand hovered near Rafael’s elbow, nearly touching, testing the boundary with the arrogance of someone who believed the space already belonged to him.

Gregoris felt something stir his insides.

For over fifteen years, he had worked for Damian. Fifteen years of blood and mastery, of operations carried out so cleanly that most of the world never knew they had happened. Only the last six as a Commander, leading the most elite fighters and arcanists on the continent, but the nature of the work had never changed. He had killed without hesitation. Tortured without sentiment. Sabotaged entire lives and infrastructures when they stood between Damian and what he wanted.

And he had always been good at control.

He knew how to separate duty from indulgence and how to categorize people cleanly: assets, obstacles, tools, and amusements. Toys were disposable. Pleasure was temporary. Anything important was protected by distance and discipline.

He had never blurred those lines… Until Rafael.

Something old and brutal inside him slid into alignment, a realization so clean it was almost shocking. The provocation was a clever little social skirmish Rafael was staging for amusement, but it sparked possession and the sudden, unsettling realization that seeing Rafael like this, open, admired, and looked at, brought every alpha instinct Gregoris thought he had mastered to life.

He wanted, briefly, to kill every person whose gaze lingered too long on that exposed line of chest.

Rafael shifted, turning slightly, the movement careless in the way only confidence allowed. The low cut of the coat pulled just enough to expose more skin, the silver-gold chain catching the light as it rested against his chest. Gregoris saw the flicker of satisfaction in Rafael’s eyes when he noticed his attention.

And didn’t stop but smiled brightly at the noble instead.

Gregoris inhaled slowly, grounding himself by habit alone. He became distantly aware of the difference in their bodies, something he had never stopped cataloguing. Rafael’s frame was slimmer, elegant, built for motion and words instead of brute strength. Gregoris’s height alone was enough to change how rooms behaved. When they stood close, Rafael barely reached his shoulder. When Gregoris placed a hand at his back, it covered almost all of it. When he leaned in, there was nowhere for Rafael not to feel him.

And Rafael had forgotten that.

Forgotten who Gregoris was. What he did. What he had reduced to ash for less.

The alpha noble laughed at something Rafael said, emboldened now, fingers brushing Rafael’s sleeve in a gesture that crossed the line by a breath.

That was when Gregoris stopped pretending this was a social event. Caelan could bill him what he wants; he would pay for it smiling.

Gregoris crossed the room.

People moved without quite realizing they were doing it, parting instinctively as he advanced. His presence altered the air with the certainty of a man who did not require permission. Conversations faltered. Gazes slid away. Someone stepped back without knowing why.

Rafael felt him close before he saw him.

Gregoris watched the change ripple through him, the faint tightening of his shoulders, the shift in his balance, and the way his head turned.

Their eyes met.

For a heartbeat, Rafael looked startled.

Then amused. That amusement was a mistake.

Gregoris stopped behind him, close enough that the space between them ceased to exist, and placed his hand flat against Rafael’s lower back.

The alpha noble froze.

Gregoris leaned down just enough for his mouth to hover near Rafael’s ear, his voice low, calm in the way only something dangerous could afford to be.

“Move.”

It wasn’t meant for Rafael.

The noble swallowed, recognition dawning too late, and stepped back immediately. Color drained from his face as survival instincts finally caught up. He muttered something, possibly an apology or an excuse, and disappeared into the crowd with the speed of a man who had just realized how close he’d come to a very permanent mistake.

Rafael didn’t turn.

“Your Grace,” he said lightly, as though Gregoris’s hand wasn’t burning through silk and skin alike. “How dramatic.”

Gregoris’s fingers tightened, just enough for Rafael to feel it.

“Do you enjoy this?” Gregoris asked softly. “Or did you genuinely forget who you’re provoking?”

Rafael finally looked up at him, chin lifting despite the height difference, defiance threading through his gaze. There was no fear there, only strategy, with clear retaliation beneath it. “I enjoy my evening.”

Gregoris studied him in silence, his silver eyes narrowing.

This close, Rafael’s pulse was visible at his throat. His scent was stable, controlled, and infuriatingly unafraid. The omega was there, dressed like that only because he wanted to. Rafael wanted to provoke him with all he got.

That, more than anything, destroyed the last illusion Gregoris had been holding onto.

He didn’t want Rafael compliant or untouchable. Gregoris wanted the omega for himself and the others to see what they’d lost.

“Then listen carefully,” Gregoris said at last, his voice lowering, the feral edge he usually leashed bleeding through. “Because this ends now.”

Rafael’s brows lifted. “Does it?” He leaned subtly into Gregoris’s touch, voice dropping, intimate and infuriating all at once.

“But the evening has barely started, Gregoris,” he said softly. “You can’t possibly expect to leave so early.”

Gregoris felt a shiver of pleasure at the sound of his name on Rafael’s lips. He pressed his thumb into the omega’s waist, as if reminding Rafael, and anyone close enough to see, that Gregoris was possessive of what he considered his.

Rafael’s smile faltered for the briefest fraction of a second.

Gregoris leaned closer, close enough that their shoulders brushed, his height casting a shadow that swallowed the light at Rafael’s side, and spoke at conversational volume.

“That wasn’t an invitation,” Gregoris said calmly.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep