Bound by the Mark of Lies (BL)-Chapter 285 - 280: Worth It.

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

"Which apparently include premature marriage, magical surgery, and you being clingy with nerve damage."

"I prefer ’affectionate and temporarily unstable.’"

Gabriel pinched the bridge of his nose. "You really are going to be a nightmare during recovery, aren’t you?"

"I’m already a nightmare," Damian said with a smile. "You just haven’t let me put it in the wedding vows yet."

"You need help. No, actually, I need help." Gabriel turned slightly, as if appealing to the universe. "How did I end up pregnant, magically bonded, illegally titled, and engaged to the Empire’s most overpowered drama king?"

Damian didn’t miss a beat. "You have excellent taste."

Gabriel shot him a look. "I have trauma, Damian."

"Which you treat with sarcasm, caffeine, and me."

Gabriel opened his mouth, paused, then narrowed his eyes. "Unfortunately... true."

"See?" Damian said smugly. "We’re a perfect match. Now all that’s left is for you to stop resisting the inevitable and help me draft our vows. I’m including a clause about regeneration naps and unauthorized experiments."

Gabriel made a strangled sound. "You do realize that if I ever let you write those vows, the officiant’s going to burst a blood vessel halfway through."

"Then I’ll officiate myself."

Gabriel gave him a long, horrified stare. "You’re going to marry yourself?"

"No," Damian said, already smug. "I’ll marry us. Efficient. Legal. And very on-brand."

Gabriel pressed his hands to his face. "I swear to every god above, if you officiate your own wedding, I’m showing up in white armor and dramatic earrings just to outdo you."

"I look forward to it," Damian said warmly. "Shall I commission a tiara too?"

"You already did, didn’t you?"

"...Several."

Gabriel dropped his hands. "You’re insane."

"I’m yours," Damian corrected again, unrepentant. "Which, by definition, makes me just sane enough to survive it."

Gabriel exhaled, half-laughing despite himself. "And you still think I’m the terrifying one."

"You are," Damian murmured, drawing him in. "But you’re mine."

"I have to respect your talent in distracting me," Gabriel muttered, though his tone was laced with something far sharper, resignation, maybe. Or fury buried beneath too much care.

"You’re going to do it anyway. Your original plan. No matter how much I want to stop you."

Damian didn’t answer immediately. He studied Gabriel’s face instead, every line of strain around his eyes, every breath he took a little too carefully, and the way his hand was curled just slightly like he was still trying not to shake.

There was no warning.

One moment, they were standing in the fragile stillness of a barely won truce. The next—Damian slid the arcane envelope from his coat and snapped it open with a flick of his fingers.

The air shifted.

A flash of light exploded outward in a ring of ancient sigils as the array activated beneath their feet, etched in raw ether, searing itself into the stone floor with the force of a small detonation. Heat rolled through the room like a wave, pure arcane pressure, curling the edges of nearby furniture, burning through lacquered wood like it was nothing.

The golden trim on a nearby armchair bubbled.

The glass tabletop nearest the center cracked straight through.

And Damian—Damian was glowing violently.

His body lit from within like a storm given form, ether coursing up from his feet through his spine in jagged pulses that cracked and sparked with every breath. His mouth didn’t open to scream, but the noise came anyway—low, inhuman, the deep hum of ether tearing through a living vessel at unnatural speed.

Gabriel stepped forward, already moving to stop it—

But the circle pulsed hard, the runes slamming into life with a vertical ring of force that knocked him back a step.

"Damian!"

"I can’t stop it," Damian said, his voice distorted, fractured at the edges. "It’s already begun." He could feel the smug smirk in his voice.

The markings on his arms flared to life next.

From his fingertips, jagged bolts of white-gold fire cracked outward, burning him from the inside out. His ether channels lit like lightning veins under the skin, scarring as they moved, from the tips of his fingers to his elbows. The smell was unmistakable—ozone, charred silk, and the iron tang of ether-blood.

It sounded like bone splintering under pressure.

It crackled, like fire under ice.

Each burn left a hiss of steam behind, flesh refusing to blacken but glowing, almost translucent, as if the light inside him had nowhere else to go.

The thunderbolt-like scars etched themselves in real time—long, branching marks glowing white-hot before cooling to a deep golden red, like cooled magma still pulsing beneath the surface. Furniture buckled near the edge of the circle. Curtains smoldered. The very air around Damian warped, distorted by the force of what he was channeling.

And Gabriel felt it—

The tether.

Olivier’s tether.

It snapped. With a howl so deep, Gabriel felt something ancient and vile yanked from his spine like a nail from bone. He gasped, staggering, but it was already gone. The air went still.

The array flickered. Died.

Damian staggered... and caught himself.

His hands dropped slowly to his sides, smoking faintly. Thunder-scar patterns now marked him from fingers to elbow; lightning struck into living flesh. Red-gold lines. Deep. Unhealed.

He looked down at them.

"...Huh," Damian rasped. "I thought it would be worse."

A moment of silence.

Then something crashed against the floor beside him. A decorative vase. Shattered.

Damian turned just in time to see Gabriel holding a second object—a gilded candelabra.

"You reckless, infuriating, glowing bastard!" Gabriel roared, aiming like he was very willing to weaponize interior design. "You did it while I was still awake?! While I was standing right there?!"

Damian coughed once, shook his smoking hand, and offered what might’ve been a smile.

"I didn’t think you’d let me otherwise."

"I would’ve helped!" Gabriel shouted, advancing with dangerous precision. "I would’ve stabilized the wards! I would’ve shielded your spine! I would’ve—!"

"I didn’t want you near the blast zone," Damian said simply, though his voice was rough with residual heat.

Gabriel picked up a pillow and hurled it with the velocity of someone imagining it was a brick.

"You cut me out!" freewёbnoνel.com

"To protect you."

"To enrage me!"

Damian held up both arms in surrender, his newly scarred arms still faintly glowing.

"To be fair," he said, backing away from the path of destruction, "I burned myself for you."

Gabriel snatched a crystal figurine off the mantel.

"And I’m going to burn you again if you ever do something that stupid without me."

Damian laughed, winded and a little dizzy. "You’re more terrifying than the array was."

"And you’re sleeping on the couch."

"I’m the Emperor."

"Couch, Damian. Unless you’d prefer the floor."

Damian looked down at the glowing thunder-scars arcing down his arms.

Then up at Gabriel’s wild eyes and his death grip on a glass swan.

"...Worth it."