Bound by the Mark of Lies (BL)-Chapter 255 - 249: Tea

"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."

Delphina’s voice didn’t shake, but her posture had turned rigid. Controlled. As if every word cost her more than the last.

"It builds in the bloodstream," she continued, "quietly. Slowly. The body doesn’t reject it. It doesn’t raise fevers. It simply... dulls. Until it’s too late."

Delphina’s breath caught. She didn’t try to hide it.

"I don’t know if she tried anything yet," she said, her voice barely above a breath. "But she planned it for the next public event. The luncheons and tea parties outside the palace. Places where protocol stretches thin. Where the staff isn’t vetted. Where the drinks are poured by people who don’t know better."

She paused.

"She knows how your security works. She won’t try to cross the throne directly. She’ll slip something through his cup."

Delphina looked down at her gloved hands, fingers tightening, then gathered what remained of her composure, her spine straightening as she met his gaze.

She faced him like a woman who had already seen the fire and still chose to walk forward.

Damian exhaled slowly as he was trying to keep his calm.

"Who?"

Delphina met his eyes. "Rosaline of Trennova."

There was no hesitation. No need to soften the name.

"She wanted to see Gabriel bleed; she thinks he is the reason you don’t want her anymore."

Then, with a motion too calm to signal panic, he reached into the inner pocket of his coat and pulled out his phone and called.

Edward," he said, voice cold and clipped. "Prepare the convoy. Gabriel returns to the palace. Inform him that there may be a tampering with the drinks."

A pause.

"And have the medical staff waiting. I want a full panel—blood, scent, toxins. Anything even slightly irregular, I want on my desk by the time I get back."

He closed the call and looked at the woman in front of him.

If she hadn’t spoken—if she had waited another day—Rosaline’s plan might have succeeded.

There were very few male omegas in the Empire. Even fewer dominant ones.

What was dangerous for them and not for others was an unknown he couldn’t control. And Damian hated what he couldn’t control.

His fingers tightened on the phone. The leather casing creaked under the pressure.

"Why now?"

Delphina didn’t flinch.

"Because I didn’t really think she would go through with it," she said. "Because I had no proof. She hid everything under Patricia’s name, and I thought..."

A pause.

"I thought she got scared. After Patricia’s execution was announced, she stopped speaking about it. She started planning dresses. Tables. Her usual distractions."

Damian’s eyes didn’t move.

Delphina inhaled slowly. "I thought it was over. Or buried. I was wrong."

"Gregoris."

The name alone was enough.

"Yes, Your Majesty?"

Gregoris stepped from the shadows without a sound, as if he’d always been there. He didn’t acknowledge Delphina.

Damian didn’t look at him.

"Arrest Rosaline," he said. "Find out everything. Names, sources, silence. I want her whole."

"Yes, sire."

Gregoris vanished and left the two in silence.

Delphina didn’t speak. She didn’t move. Her hands remained clasped at her waist, her chin lowered just enough to acknowledge where she stood and how quickly it could be taken from her.

Damian regarded her without urgency, the weight of his silence pressing harder than any accusation.

"You are going to pay for this."

The words were quiet, almost conversational, but they landed with the force of a sentence long prepared.

Delphina’s breath caught—barely—but Damian didn’t look at her.

"Your network is too valuable to kill you," he continued, tone flat, eyes unreadable. "And Gabriel would be disappointed if Rafael left the Empress’s Office because of you dying by my hands."

He paused, his cold voice making Delphine shiver.

"So," he said, as if handing her the edge of a blade, "you have twenty-four hours to erase every whisper from tonight. I want every rumor about Gabriel and Rafael gone."

Delphina’s head lifted slightly, confusion breaking through the tension. "That’s it?"

She hadn’t meant to speak. Not like that. However, it slipped out of disbelief rather than defiance.

Because this—this was something she knew how to do. Court manipulation. Information management. This was where she excelled.

Damian didn’t react immediately. He just watched her for a beat longer than necessary.

Then he smiled, and Delphine’s eyes widened as she recognized the warning of a predator rather than the soldier or politician that the others saw.

"No," he said. "That would be far too easy."

His voice sharpened—not raised, not cold—but focused like a blade held steady at the throat.

"You will remain under my orders. From this moment forward, you will shape the narrative as I decide. You will guide the whispers where I point them, shift them where I demand, and bury whatever I choose not to acknowledge."

He stepped forward, just once, closing the space not out of intimidation—but to make the message unmistakable.

"You wanted to protect your son? Then you will turn your entire legacy into a shield for mine."

Delphina’s hands tightened where they rested, fingertips pressing against fine gloves, but she didn’t speak. She didn’t look away.

There was nothing left to say that would help her now. Only survival and the quiet reshaping of power beneath another man’s name.

Damian stepped forward again, and when he lowered his head, it was not in kindness. His frame cast a long shadow, and for a brief moment, the full weight of what he was—not just Emperor, but Gabriel’s mate—settled visibly between them.

"Gabriel is pregnant."

The words were spoken plainly.

And yet they rang out like judgment. Delphine’s hands clenched even harder than before.

"Do you understand how things could get for you?"

Delphina did not flinch, but the air around her thinned.

Because now it was no longer about court rumors or tainted tea. It was about lineage. About succession. About the legacy of a new dynasty.

And she understood.

She had served at court long enough to know how the world shifted when an heir entered the equation. When a mate became not just Consort, but the future of an Empire’s bloodline.

Any offense against Gabriel now was not just an insult. It was treason.

And Rosaline had tried to make him barren.

Damian didn’t wait for an answer.