Bound by the Mark of Lies (BL)-Chapter 284 - 279: No Footnotes for This Madness

"No. Don’t ’Gabriel’ me like you didn’t just say that with a straight face. You’re acting like giving up a limb of your soul is a reasonable trade-off for a curse someone else carved into me!"

Damian’s jaw tightened. "Because it is. It’s for you and the child."

Gabriel stepped back like he’d been slapped.

His voice, when it came, was too calm. Too quiet.

"Say that again."

Damian didn’t blink. "It’s for you and the child. If it keeps you alive—if it keeps both of you safe—then yes. It’s worth it."

Gabriel laughed. Once. It wasn’t a nice sound.

"Oh, of course. It’s worth it. As long as it’s your blood, your power, your body breaking down instead of mine. As long as you get to be the one bleeding so I don’t have to. Tell me, does that make you feel noble? Or just slightly less helpless?"

Damian’s voice dropped. "Don’t—"

"No, you don’t." Gabriel’s words were sharp, cutting through the air like shattered glass. "You don’t get to stand there and pretend that this is the only way, like I haven’t spent my entire life being told what I’m worth, what I should sacrifice, and who I should belong to. I chose you, Damian. Not because you’re an emperor, not because you’re powerful, but because you saw me. And now you’re standing there, ready to carve yourself apart in the same breath you claim to love me."

Damian’s expression cracked—just faintly. But Gabriel wasn’t done.

"You think I’d want to wake up next to you one day and feel nothing through the bond? To feel your power gone because you decided I was too fragile to carry the cost of a curse that wasn’t mine to begin with?" His voice broke, but he caught it with teeth. "You think I want our child to grow up with a father who can’t touch ether without seizing because he thought that was the only way to keep us safe?"

Damian didn’t move.

Gabriel took a breath that sounded more like a warning than a release.

"You should have chosen someone who didn’t know what happens when ether channels burn off."

Damian’s shoulders stiffened, but he said nothing.

"Someone softer," Gabriel went on, his tone slicing quieter now, like a scalpel. "Someone who’d cry and accept your sacrifice with a trembling smile and a lifetime of gratitude. Someone who wouldn’t know that once the ether burns through your channels, it doesn’t just take your power—it takes everything. Coordination. Temperature regulation. Pain tolerance. Sleep. Memory. You’ll shake when you stand. You’ll forget how to walk in certain weather. You’ll bleed for no reason."

"Gabriel—"

"No," he snapped. "You’re not ready for that. You think you are because you love me. Because you’d die for me. But that’s not love. That’s desperation wearing devotion like armor."

Damian’s fists clenched at his sides, but a smirk appeared on his face.

"How weak do you think I am?" he asked, voice low, almost amused. "Do you really think it would burn everything?

Gabriel froze.

Because that wasn’t defiance.

That was confidence. Real and deadly to those who tried to undermine it.

The smirk deepened, and Damian’s eyes began to glow, not from rage, not even from ether overload, but from something worse.

Gabriel stared at him, his expression halfway between awe and pure exasperation.

"You are a smug bastard."

Damian didn’t deny it. The glow in his eyes dimmed to something calmer, but no less intense.

Then Gabriel’s gaze dropped, drifting to Damian’s hand.

The one he’d destroyed days ago.

Slammed into the stone at the Shadow base. Bloodied it to the bone.

Now?

Nothing.

No scar. No bruising. Not even the faintest echo of damage beneath the skin.

Gabriel’s eyes lit up, not with alarm this time, but with calculating realization.

"Why do I even try to keep pace with you?" he muttered, more to himself than anything. Then, sharply: "You can regenerate channels?"

Damian’s smirk curled into something far more dangerous.

"I can force regeneration. Painfully. Incompletely. But yes."

Gabriel blinked once, then pointed at him like he was uncovering a war crime.

"You’ve been sitting on this information?"

"It’s not standard practice," Damian replied smoothly. "Most people die before the process completes. Or go mad. Sometimes both."

Gabriel squinted at him, long and hard, like he was trying to decide whether to kiss him or slap him with a textbook.

"And you, of course, are the exception. What in fantasy armor plot is this?"

Damian had the audacity to look amused. "I trained for it. Years before I took the throne."

"Right," Gabriel deadpanned. "Because nothing says healthy coping like preparing to rip your own soul veins open and stitch them back together for fun." He threw up his hands. "I swear to the Empire’s flaming archives, you’re every tragic protagonist rolled into one high-functioning god complex."

Damian tilted his head. "That’s a bit dramatic, even for you."

"You glowed," Gabriel snapped. "You literally glowed at me five minutes ago like the second coming of arcane judgment, and now you’re trying to act like this is normal? Damian, there’s not even a footnote for this kind of reckless brilliance in Marin’s files. And he made up an entire classification system just to call me a myth."

"That was mostly sarcasm," Damian said.

"No, that was documentation, and it is now officially the second most terrifying thing I’ve read this month," Gabriel muttered. "Right after you deciding to feed your body to the Empire’s ether core and call it retirement."

Damian stepped closer, his voice lower now. "Are you done?"

"Not even slightly," Gabriel said. "I’ve just hit the middle of my monologue arc, but if you distract me properly, I might lose my place."

Damian leaned in. "Tempting."

Gabriel sighed. "Stop trying to seduce me with your reckless genius. It’s working and I hate it."

Damian’s grin was all teeth. "Then help me make it survivable."

Gabriel groaned and dropped his forehead against Damian’s shoulder. "Gods, fine. But if we’re doing this, you are not allowed to spontaneously combust or do that glowing eyes thing without warning. My blood pressure can’t take it."

"I’ll add it to the protocols," Damian said solemnly.

Gabriel murmured into his shoulder, "You’re lucky you’re pretty."

"Mm," Damian said, hand already wrapping around his waist. "And you’re lucky you’re terrifying. But even if I’m chosen by ether, it’ll hurt like hell. In loose terms, that means I’ll be irritable... until my wife comforts me."

Gabriel pulled back just far enough to stare at him, utterly deadpan.

"For the love of gods... we aren’t married yet."

Damian blinked, then raised a brow with full imperial offense. "We’re bonded. You bear my mark. You sleep in my bed. The entire council refers to you as Her Imperial Grace when they think I’m not listening".

"That doesn’t make it legal."

"I’m the Emperor," Damian said flatly. "I am the law."

Gabriel groaned and tried to step away, but Damian just tightened his grip.

"No escaping. You started this with your brilliant scheming and terrifying monologues. Now you live with the consequences."