Bound by the Mark of Lies (BL) Chapter 297 - 292: The choice he didn’t have to make

Gabriel’s hand lingered in Damian’s hair a mont longer, fingers threaded through the black strands like he was anchoring them both. But then—gently, without speaking—he moved, the shift barely a breath. He tilted Damian’s face up with the sa hand, his other reaching for the ringed fingers still pressed tight over his waist.

"You’re not staying on the floor forever," Gabriel murmured, voice low, a little amused, a little too soft to be anything but dangerous to Damian’s composure.

Damian let out a slow breath. "I might."

Gabriel arched a brow. "Not if you plan on walking tomorrow. And especially not if you want to avoid Edward personally hauling you to bed like a sack of imperial guilt."

A reluctant huff left Damian’s chest—half a laugh, half surrender. He didn’t argue when Gabriel braced him. Didn’t pretend it didn’t hurt when his knee shifted, joints stiff and shoulder bracing too much of his weight.

Gabriel caught it. Of course he did. He was watching too closely not to.

"Alright," Gabriel muttered, leaning in a little, arms tightening as he helped him up with deliberate slowness. "You’re not built for groveling. Let’s get you vertical before you rupture sothing imperial."

Damian groaned, but the sound was quiet, swallowed in the fabric of Gabriel’s shirt as he steadied himself. Gabriel slled like ink and cinnamon tea and sothing sharper underneath—sothing Damian couldn’t na but had always known. He leaned into it instinctively, just enough to press his nose to the side of Gabriel’s throat.

Gabriel didn’t pull away.

He just held on.

And when Damian finally rose, spine unfolding one slow vertebra at a ti, the weight of the world still clinging to his shoulders like old ash, it was Gabriel who steadied him. Who kept one hand firm around his wrist and the other at the small of his back, just above the curve of the bond mark. Like he was reminding Damian of what was already his.

Gabriel’s voice was light—just barely—but it cut through the quiet with the familiar edge of affection disguised as mockery, the kind of dry tenderness only he could deliver without softening the blow.

"Let’s get you to bed before you get roots at your desk."

Damian huffed, a sound not quite laughter and not quite pain, sothing caught in between. He didn’t argue. Didn’t reach for dignity like he normally would. Instead, he let himself lean just a little harder into the hands that held him steady.

Gabriel guided him carefully, steps slow, the press of his palm above the bond deliberate. Not possessive. Not protective. Just there. Steady. Like a reminder that no matter what else fractured in the world outside this room, this—them—wasn’t one of them.

Damian let his eyes fall half-shut, and for the first ti in weeks, maybe longer, he let himself believe it. Let himself rest, not just in body but in belief—that he was allowed this. That he hadn’t imagined the mont, or the ’yes,’ or the ring now catching light on Gabriel’s hand like it had always belonged there.

And as the door to their wing slid closed behind them, sealing away the weight of the Empire with it, there was no ceremony, no guards, no thunderous declaration.

Only Gabriel’s shoulder brushing his. The scent of ink and quiet resilience. The hush of two matched heartbeats easing into sync.

And the promise, unspoken but absolute, that tomorrow could wait.

—

The room had long since gone quiet, the kind of stillness that settled only after sothing sacred had been said and accepted. The fire had burned low, casting a soft amber wash across the sheets. Damian lay curled on his side, one hand tucked beneath the pillow, the other resting loosely near where Gabriel had been. His breath was even now—finally—and the tension that usually carved into the corners of his mouth had softened, worn away by exhaustion and peace alike.

Gabriel hadn’t joined him.

He sat by the window instead, curled in the armchair Damian always insisted was too narrow for comfort and that Gabriel had promptly claid anyway. The sky beyond was ink-blue and cloudless, the stars above the palace glowing like silent sentinels, too distant to care and too constant to forget.

One hand lay absently over his belly, fingers curved with a reverence he hadn’t yet admitted out loud.

He could feel it now—faint, not movent, not yet, but the echo of sothing alive beneath his skin. A ripple of ether, steady and impossibly soft. His child. Their child.

And with the quiet ca clarity. Brutal, blinding clarity.

Damian could have waited.

He could have let the engagent be formalized in so grand ballroom, could have waited until Gabriel felt stronger, until the physicians cleared them both, until the empire settled again, until Gabriel stopped flinching at the mory of what had been done to him. He could have waited for the perfect mont, the one Gabriel kept pretending he didn’t need.

But he hadn’t.

He hadn’t because he knew.

He knew the risk. Knew that forcing the extraction, redirecting a soul-shard into the Empire’s deepest defenses through a bond still raw and newly ford, could tear through him. He knew that ether didn’t forgive carelessness, that channel failure wasn’t poetic—it was brutal, silent, and final. That if he miscalculated, if even one vital thread in his chest burned out, he wouldn’t just lose his power—he’d lose breath. Lungs. Heart. Life.

He knew he could beco nothing but a shell of the man he was. A walking corpse with gold eyes and no future.

And he did it anyway.

Because he had seen what Gabriel looked like when forced to choose—had seen the way he went quiet, too quiet, when decisions turned to blades, when survival demanded surrender, and when love twisted into guilt too heavy to hold.

Damian didn’t wait.

He didn’t give Gabriel ti to spiral into all the ways it could go wrong, didn’t let him carry the weight of the obvious answer, the easy one.

Because the truth was brutal, not kind.

There had been another way—one the physicians would have called clean, clinical, unmarked by pain.

Wait for the shard to settle. Wait for the ether to bind to the growing child’s core. Then end it.

No screams. No blood. No damage to the womb. Just a reset.

Efficient. Cruel. And entirely possible.

But Damian hadn’t let it co to that.

He rushed the process.

Tore Olivier out through a bond still raw and not yet tempered.

Redirected the soul-shard into the deepest ward channels of the Empire, into stone and seal and steel-buried vaults.

And he’d done it knowing—knowing—what it would cost him.

Because ether didn’t forgive recklessness.

If the channel of his lungs ruptured, he’d suffocate.

If his heart’s thread caught fla, he’d die before anyone could reach him.

He’d calculated every risk.

Accepted every consequence. And he did it anyway.

Because Gabriel would’ve chosen the Empire. Would’ve chosen Damian. Would’ve chosen survival.

And hated himself for it every day after.

Damian wasn’t trying to be brave. He wasn’t trying to be noble.

He was just trying to make sure the man he loved wouldn’t have to bleed again—

not for him.

Not this ti.