Bound by the Mark of Lies (BL)-Chapter 254 - 248: I Beg You

And that person was the one Rosaline had targeted.

Rosaline didn’t care what happened to House Roseroth.

She didn’t care about the family name, or the years Delphina had spent stabilizing it after her husband’s death, or the son who had never asked to be part of this.

She wanted one thing: to hurt Damian.

And she had chosen the most convenient path to do it.

A smear here. A rumor there. A quiet suggestion, folded between harmless laughter and the clink of champagne glasses—just enough to shift the weight of perception.

Enough to plant the idea that Rafael was more than just a civil exam assistant, even if he had been in the palace for less than a day. Even if he hadn’t spoken more than five words to the Consort in public.

Delphina’s fingers tightened around the stem of the crystal glass.

She should have stopped Rosaline when she first saw the glint in her eye. When the girl smiled too easily and asked one too many questions about Gabriel. She should have listened when the instinct, the same one that had kept her alive in court for twenty years, told her that Rosaline wasn’t planning to climb.

She was planning to burn.

And she was using Rafael to do it.

Delphina would not fall into the trap.

She would not wait until the court turned on her son, until Gabriel looked at him and saw a threat, not a boy in the wrong place.

She would rather be punished by Damian now than watch Rafael become collateral in Rosaline’s war.

She set the glass down—quietly, without flourish—and moved through the crowd with the same calm she always wore, like she wasn’t walking straight toward judgment.

She didn’t speak to anyone. Didn’t pause to gather support.

There would be no explanation. No apology.

Only a name, passed to the nearest guard in the side corridor, and a single request:

"I want to speak to His Majesty. Alone. Now."

She didn’t care if it made her look desperate.

Desperate was forgivable.

A threat was not.

—

The note reached him just before the last waltz began.

Folded once. No seal. Slipped into his hand by a Shadow who didn’t make eye contact.

Damian didn’t read it immediately. He let it sit in his palm as he watched the ballroom, eyes half-lidded, the weight of the Empire pressed neatly across his shoulders.

Gabriel stood near one of the arched windows, backlit by chandelier light and polite tension, speaking with two ministers from the Southern Trade Bloc. His posture was effortless, his expression politely amused. Every inch of him looked unbothered.

It was a lie, of course. A practiced one.

Damian knew the tightness in his shoulders, the subtle lift of his chin. He could read every flicker of his mate’s discomfort, even when Gabriel worked to hide it from himself.

But there were too many eyes in the room tonight.

Too many lords whispering second consort. Too many half-finished drinks trembling in crystal flutes. Too many teeth, hiding behind compliments.

Damian finally unfolded the note with one hand.

Lady Delphina Roseroth.

Ten minutes. Alone.

I beg you.

He stared at the final line for a long moment.

Delphina had never begged anyone. Not in two decades of court. Not when her husband died. Not when her house faltered. Not when the vultures circled.

I beg you.

His thumb pressed against the fold, flattening the paper before sliding it into the sleeve of his coat.

"Now, this is interesting." Damian said while standing, adjusted his cuffs, and walked away.

—

Delphina waited in one of the resting rooms off the Winter Wing.

Not one of the receiving parlors or garden salons meant for polite withdrawal—but a room with dark curtains and heavy chairs, where noblewomen came to sit when they could no longer smile.

It was quiet. Heavily warded.

Two men stood outside the door—uniforms black, faces shadowed, blades visible but not drawn. Damian’s Shadows—she had heard of them and their silent presence was enough to make anyone anxious.

Delphina stood near the hearth, perfectly composed. She hadn’t removed her gloves. She hadn’t touched the tea tray that had appeared in the center of the low table. She stood like she had already been judged and chosen to accept it with grace.

But her mind was louder than the silence.

She had sent a note that ended with I beg you.

She had signed it with nothing. She had written it without Rosaline’s knowledge. And now she waited, knowing full well she would get only one chance to speak—and that it might cost her everything.

Still, she stood.

The door opened behind her. Quietly.

And Damian entered.

He didn’t look at the guards. He didn’t look at the untouched tea.

He looked at her. Just once. Then closed the door behind him with a single click.

Delphina inclined her head. Not deep. But low enough to be understood.

"Your Majesty."

Damian didn’t move further into the room. He stood in the center, the faint echo of his boots settling into the silence. There was no cruelty in his face. No warmth, either.

Just the unmistakable presence of someone who could end entire families with a word and had simply never needed to say it out loud.

"You begged," he said.

Delphina nodded once. "Yes."

"You’ve never begged in your life."

"I’m aware."

A beat.

Damian’s gaze didn’t shift. His tone didn’t change.

"Do you wait for the light to be right," he asked softly, "or are you going to speak?"

Delphina didn’t flinch.

She had waited in silence before—before thrones, before executions, before contracts written in marriage and blood. But this was different.

This was final.

"I didn’t come to perform," she said evenly. "I came to stop something before it grows teeth." She sighed before continuing.

"The rumors about the second consort are not from me. I’m not this stupid."

Her voice didn’t rise, but something in it darkened.

"But there is someone who is. Someone so desperate to make you suffer that she is willing not only to spread rumors about your mate but also to deprive him of his reproductive abilities."

Damian didn’t move.

But the temperature of the room changed.

The kind of stillness that preceded ruin.

Delphina didn’t rush. She had no illusions that haste would save her.

"You know what happens," she said, voice low, "when a mate is bare. When he won’t be able to conceive."

She didn’t look up. She couldn’t.

"She has a plan. I stalled her as much as I could. I even told her—just bringing Rafael to Gabriel’s tea party was enough. That it would cast doubt, stir whispers, turn court eyes."

She drew a breath, shallow and deliberate.

"But she won’t budge."

Damian didn’t interrupt. His silence was not permission. It was the slow closing of a cage.

Delphina felt the weight of it before she saw it.

"She planned to poison Consort Gabriel," she said carefully. "Not all at once. Not with your usual weapon. Slowly. Quietly. With a tea blend."

Her hands remained clasped in front of her, knuckles pale beneath satin gloves.

"A blend that passes as harmless. It smells like peace. It’s brewed for focus. It’s sold openly in most circles. But the compound has one effect—one—on male omegas."