CHAPTER 205: CHAPTER 200: THE ROSE ATRIUM

"I already did that today," Gabriel said, deadpan.

Crista approached one of the garden arches, looking at the frozen landscape outside. In the Capital winter came faster than in the rest of the Empire."Then consider your duties fulfilled for the morning. You can return to your scandalous lounging in peace."

Before Gabriel could reply, the clatter of hurried footsteps broke the calm.

Irina burst through the garden archway, curls a little windblown and cheeks pink from running, her dress slightly askew in a way that made a few nearby ladies blink in surprise. She looked wildly out of place in a garden full of silk whispers and sharpened smiles.

"Your Grace!" she called, clearly forgetting protocol in her panic.

Gabriel arched a brow. "Unless you’ve been poisoned or set fire to something, I advise you to lower your volume."

Irina didn’t so much as pause. "The Emperor’s here."

Crista turned, one brow lifted. "Here?"

"In the rose atrium," Irina clarified breathlessly, eyes wide. "He’s asking for His Grace."

Gabriel blinked once. "Should I hide?"

Crista didn’t miss a beat. "Darling, if he’s in the rose atrium, it’s already too late."

Irina looked genuinely alarmed. "Should I stall him? Say you were meditating? Or praying?"

Gabriel gave her a flat look. "Yes, tell him I was repenting for all my sins. Start with the third knot and work your way up."

Alexandra, who had just returned from terrifying a servant into bringing stronger tea, raised a brow. "If he’s pacing, you have exactly four minutes before he either tears apart the roses or the nearest Shadow."

"Neither of which are technically my fault," Gabriel muttered.

Crista gave him a light shove toward the exit. "Go. Before he does something dramatic. Again."

Gabriel paused at the arch, rubbing at his temple. "Why do I feel like I’m walking into a trap?"

"Because you are," Alexandra called sweetly. "Now tuck in your shirt before he thinks someone else undressed you."

Irina stifled a laugh and motioned ahead. "I’ll show you the fastest route. He’s... very tense."

Gabriel groaned. "Of course he is. He always is. It’s his default setting."

But he followed her, boots crunching faintly against the frost-dusted path, robe swaying behind him like the banner of a man about to face either divine wrath... or worse: a Damian in love.

—

The rose atrium was quiet in the way only beautiful places became when danger loomed inside them.

The glass dome overhead shimmered with winter light, pale and crisp, casting silvery reflections across the marble floor. Every bush and trellis was carefully pruned, their blossoms preserved by subtle ether enchantments—lush red roses still in full bloom, despite the creeping frost outside.

Damian stood still in the rose atrium, the cold air biting at the edge of his patience.

He hated the atrium.

Too serene. Too perfect. Every petal and vine manicured into submission—an illusion of control, and he was never fond of lies, even when crafted in glass and silk.

His gloves were still damp from the frost. His coat was unbuttoned. He’d tossed it over a bench with the kind of indifference only a man one minute away from losing his temper could carry.

He hadn’t come here to pace. But he had paced. He hadn’t come to wait. But he was waiting.

He was waiting for Gabriel while trying to not set the entire high class on fire. He was sure that reopening the social season officially after five years would bring problems, but that gave him Gabriel, and for that he was willing to sacrifice.

"Few more steps and you will make a trail in stone."

Damian didn’t flinch at the voice. He didn’t need to look to know who it was.

Gabriel.

The familiar cadence—smooth, unimpressed, edged with that impossible balance of weariness and mischief—cut through the frost better than any spell.

"Few more steps," Gabriel said again, stepping into the atrium with his robe trailing faintly behind him, "and you’ll wear a trench so deep we’ll have to name it something imperial. The Emperor’s Spiral, maybe."

Damian exhaled once through his nose. Not a laugh. Not quite. But the storm behind his eyes eased, if only a fraction.

"You’re late," he said, not turning yet.

Gabriel shrugged with maddening calm. "Crista gave me tea. Blame her."

"You should be in bed."

"I would," Gabriel murmured, "if someone let me sleep instead of treating me like a sacrificial offering to the gods of rut and dominance."

Damian’s smirk deepened, slow and predatory. The gold in his eyes flickered like struck ether—just shy of dangerous.

"Oh no, darling," he murmured, his voice a velvet threat. "If it had been rut, you wouldn’t be walking."

Gabriel blinked once and exhaled sharply through his nose, as if trying not to laugh or scream. "What did I do to deserve an alpha with this level of ego?"

Damian’s smirk deepened, unapologetic. "You glared at a minister and rewrote a national project in a single night," he said, voice low and fond. "I figured I should lock that down. I warned George that I would have you for myself. I never said how."

Gabriel stilled, the air in the rose atrium seeming to still with him.

"You what?"

Damian didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Just watched him—golden eyes sharp beneath the frost-glazed dome. "I warned George," he repeated. "Back when he still thought he could use you as a piece on the board. Told him I’d claim you. I just never clarified whether it would be with ink or teeth."

Gabriel’s breath caught, something between a laugh and a curse building in his chest. "I was doomed from the start." He paused as Damian placed his hands on his hips. "Did Edward report on Anya’s portrait already?"

Damian’s fingers tightened slightly at Gabriel’s waist—possessive, grounding, dangerously calm.

"He did," the Emperor said, his voice low but steady. "The forger was paid through three intermediaries. The ether signature traces back to a Donin illusionist; I would find out more after five".

"Good. And what was Edward talking about with the Elliot forgery?"

Damian’s jaw ticked—barely, but Gabriel saw it.

He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, his gaze drifted toward the frost-laced glass of the atrium dome, golden eyes reflecting a thousand slivers of cold winter light.

"That," he said finally, his voice lower now, the edge of command sharpening beneath the calm, "is more complicated."frёeωebɳovel.com

Gabriel didn’t flinch. "I gathered that."

Damian’s gaze returned to him. "We intercepted the image before it was circulated. It was more intimate. More... calculated. I will tell you more after I have names and corpses."

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. "You already have suspects."

Damian didn’t deny it.

Instead, he reached up, gently brushing a thumb along the edge of Gabriel’s jaw—as if grounding himself with the contact. "Yes," he said softly. "But suspects aren’t enough. I want confessions. I want evidence. I want the names burned into every wall of every noble house that dared to touch you."

The cold light of the atrium caught the gold in Damian’s eyes, but there was nothing warm about the way he said it. It was a promise. A death sentence spoken like a prayer.

Gabriel let the silence settle a moment, his gaze never leaving Damian’s.

"You’re going to burn them all down."