Chapter 71: Chapter 71: Letting me run.

Gregrois moved slowly to avoid startling the trembling omega in his arms. He sat slowly on the couch, and his pheromones, that sharp sting of metal in winter, began to fill the room and his companion’s lungs.

Rafael was trembling from rage.

“She risked everything for something I didn’t even ask for.”

Gregoris didn’t contradict him or tell him to calm down. That would have been useless, and he knew it. He adjusted his hold instead, drawing Rafael closer until the omega’s weight settled fully against him. The tension in his palms was rigid, like a body bracing for impact long after the blow had already landed. He let his pheromones sink deeper, cold metal in winter slowly warming to breath and skin.

“It wasn’t about you,” he said quietly. His voice wasn’t gentle.

Gregoris didn’t know how to do gentle. But it was something Rafael could lean into. “It was about her. Her ambition. Her fear of losing relevance. You were just the piece she decided she had the right to gamble.”

Rafael let out a breath that sounded closer to a cracked laugh than anything else. His fingers curled into Gregoris’s shirt, like he needed something physical to anchor the rage before it burned him from the inside.

“She talks about love,” he muttered. “Family. Duty. Legacy. And then she does this. She risks my name. My future. My… everything. For what? For a fantasy in her head? For some throne in a story she wrote about herself?”

Gregoris rested his chin lightly against Rafael’s hair. If his Shadows had seen him now, they would be shocked at this side of their monster of a commander.

“Well… I can kill her anytime you want.”

Rafael made a small, strangled sound, halfway between disbelief and exasperation, like Gregoris had just offered to rearrange furniture instead of committing homicide.

“I’m serious,” Gregoris added, because of course he was. His tone didn’t change. It was the same calm, conversational voice he used when discussing deployment routes or casualty reports. “Quietly. Efficiently. No suffering, unless you want that too. You only have to say the word.”

Rafael laughed.

It wasn’t bright or carefree. It came out rough, cracked at the edges, like something that had to tear its way through the weight in his chest to exist at all. But it was real. His shoulders shook with it, his breath stuttering as he tried to control himself and failed for a moment.

“Gods, don’t tempt me,” he muttered, half-buried against him. “There’s a very ugly part of me that really, truly wants to say yes. Just… end it. End her. End all the noise she drags with her. No more speeches about legacy. No more pressure dressed up as affection. No more pretending she didn’t choose herself over me every single time.”

He went quiet for a moment, the laugh fading into a long exhale.

“But no,” he said softly. “I don’t want her dead. I just want her gone. Out of my head. Out of my life. I want to stop… orbiting around her. I want to stop being defined by what she wants from me.”

Gregoris listened. He always listened, even when he pretended not to. His hand stayed at Rafael’s back.

“So,” Rafael continued, firmer now, “I’ll leave her. Not politically. That mess will have to be handled. But personally? Emotionally? I’m done. I want to focus on what matters. My work. My future. My… life.”

Gregoris hummed faintly. “You forgot ’husband.’”

Rafael snorted. “Mate,” he corrected dryly. “We’re not married.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Do you want it now?” Gregoris asked.

Rafael froze.

Then, exactly as before, that strangled, helpless sound ripped out of him again, somewhere between disbelief and horrified affection.

“Gregoris,” he whispered, half scolding, half stunned.

“I’m serious,” Gregoris repeated, absolutely unbothered. “If you want it, you’ll have it. Papers. Ceremony. Witnesses. Or no witnesses. I don’t care. If you want to stand in front of the world and make it official, we will. If you want it quiet, I’ll drag a priest out of bed in the middle of the night, and we’ll do it then. Tell me what you want, and I’ll arrange it.”

“I want to get back to work.” Rafael said, ignoring the marriage talk with ease. Gregoris let him for the moment. “No, that won’t do. You are still recovering from the bond forming, and it is tougher on you as you are not dominant.”

Gregoris didn’t push. He could have. He could have cornered him with truth, with the quiet certainty that this was where they were heading anyway. Instead, he loosened his hold a fraction, giving Rafael just enough space to breathe without letting him slip away.

“Of course you do,” he said, as if Rafael had just announced something entirely ordinary. “Work is safe. Predictable. It doesn’t ask you to feel anything you don’t want to deal with yet.”

Rafael narrowed his eyes faintly. “Are you psychoanalyzing me?”

“Yes,” Gregoris replied without hesitation. “I hate it.”

Despite himself, Rafael almost smiled.

Gregoris sighed, like he was acknowledging reality instead of fighting it. “Unfortunately for you, work is not an immediate option. You’re still stabilizing from the bond forming. Your body needs time. If I throw you back into your usual pace, you’ll collapse. And then Edward will kill me, and Gabriel will approve the execution order out of spite.”

“I will die of boredom in this prison,” Rafael muttered.

“It’s not a prison,” Gregoris said. “It’s temporary captivity for medical and emotional safety.”

Rafael stared at him flatly.

Gregoris’s mouth twitched. “Fine. It’s a prison. But a very luxurious one.”

He leaned back slightly, shifting them both into something less tense and more casual, like they were simply talking instead of sitting in the aftermath of a breaking point.

“The Empire isn’t on fire,” he continued. “Hadeon is gone. Christian is making himself king of Donin whether they want him or not. Damian is so disgustingly in love he’s talking about a public crowning and wedding in the same breath, and I’ve been… downgraded.”

Rafael blinked. “Downgraded?”

“To papers,” Gregoris said, with deep, dignified resentment. “He wants me handling orders. Authorizations. Strategy revisions. The sort of work that requires thinking and no blood. Apparently, I’m ’too valuable’ to be used as a knife anymore.”

Rafael made a small sound. It took him a second to realize it was a laugh.

“So,” Gregoris went on, as if this were all part of a carefully crafted plan, “I have time. You have… forced time. That means we can do something terrible.”

Rafael arched a brow. “What?”

“Spend it together.”

He said it devastatingly plain.

“We can leave the Capital for a while,” Gregoris said. “Go somewhere quiet. Somewhere without court noise and reporters and nobles pretending they’re important. Or we can stay here.”

Rafael swallowed, throat tight again, but this time it wasn’t panic or grief pressing there. It was something softer. Something terrifying in how gentle it felt.

“And when I’m ready,” he asked quietly, “we go back?”

“Yes,” Gregoris said. “On your terms. At your pace or when Damian’s calling me.”

Rafael looked away because sometimes staying looked too much like falling, and he needed a second to steady himself.

“You’re letting me run,” he muttered.

“I am,” Gregoris agreed. “Because you’re not running from me. You’re just running from what hurts. And I’m going with you, so it doesn’t count.”

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