CHAPTER 200: CHAPTER 195: A SCENE IN VELVET

Gabriel barely made it to the shower.

His knees ached. His thighs burned. His back was sore, his neck was mottled with marks, and his scent clung to the sheets like a confession. Damian hadn’t just been possessive. He’d been relentless.

Three times.

Three knotting times.

Gabriel groaned as the hot water hit him. "What are you trying to do, Emperor? Secure an heir or ruin my spine?"

He braced a hand on the marble tile, the other pressing instinctively low against his stomach. It wasn’t pain. Not really. Just... a tightness. A fluttering awareness that something might’ve changed. His body didn’t feel like it normally did after sex. It felt full.

Gabriel exhaled, dragging fingers through his damp curls. It was reckless. It was deliberate. And it was very likely effective.

He placed a hand low on his stomach and rolled his eyes at the ceiling. "Wonderful," he muttered to himself. "I’ll be round and hormonal in no time."

He leaned back now against the divan in their chambers, a soft robe loose around his hips, a towel tucked under him to protect the velvet upholstery from what was still leaking down his thighs. He couldn’t clean everything.

The velvet caught some of it—warm, damp, and faintly scented. Gabriel grimaced and let himself fall onto the pillows with a hand over his eyes. He should return to bed.

The door creaked open.

Gabriel didn’t look up. "If you’re here to remind me I’ve got meetings, Edward, I swear I’ll vomit on the floor. I was promised a day to rest."

"It’s not Edward," came a familiar voice, clipped and already irritated.

Gabriel groaned and let his head fall back against the divan. "Why must you ruin every quiet moment I have?"

Alexandra swept into the room like a thundercloud wrapped in silk. Her coat was slung over one arm, her gloves still half on, her expression somewhere between scandalized and furious.

She stopped short when she saw him fully, robe slipping from one shoulder, a towel tucked beneath his hips, skin still flushed and glowing from last night’s exertion. His damp curls were a mess, and he looked thoroughly debauched.

Alexandra pinched the bridge of her nose.

"I’m not even going to ask why the furniture needs protective layering," she muttered.

Gabriel lifted a brow without moving. "You’ve met your brother. Use context."

Alexandra rolled her eyes. "Remind me again why I came to see you instead of drinking myself into silence at the conservatory?"

Gabriel shifted, wincing. "Because you love me."

She made a noise halfway between a groan and a sigh. "I’m here because you’ve become the centerpiece of an escalating rumor war. And no, before you ask, this one doesn’t involve your thighs."

He groaned. "That’s honestly a little disappointing."

Alexandra crossed the room, dropped her coat on the nearest chair, and began rifling through the stack of correspondence Edward had neatly arranged earlier. She pulled a letter from the pile, opened it, and waved it in the air.

"They’re saying you and Princess Anya were lovers. That she was your first before you betrayed her for the throne."

Gabriel blinked. "Do I look like a man who would date Princess Anya?"

"You look like a man who was knotted all night and left for dead in a velvet crime scene," Alexandra shot back, tossing the letter onto the floor with the flair of a woman whose patience had died somewhere around sunrise.

"Not far from the truth," Gabriel muttered, adjusting the towel beneath him with exaggerated dignity. "But this is supposed to be my free day."

Alexandra folded her arms. "Free from what? Dignity?"

Gabriel offered her a lazy smile. "Oh, I left that somewhere between the second knot and my seventh orgasm. It is your fault for barging in here; you and Charles need to learn your lesson."

She raised a brow, unfazed. "Trust me, Charles is already traumatized enough by the last time he opened the wrong door."

"What about Anya?" he asked, tone shifting just enough to sound tired rather than amused. He would rather not discuss what his sibling witnessed because they were noisy. "Did she cry in public again or start a fire this time?"

Alexandra’s smirk faded. She bent down to pick up the discarded letter and flung it onto the table. "No fire. Just a portrait. Of you and her. Looking like star-crossed lovers under the palace moonlight."

Gabriel’s brow twitched. "You’re joking."

"I wish I were," she said, reaching into her coat for a rolled-up image and tossing it beside the tea tray. "The high society circles are already whispering that you were hers first. That you left her to claw your way into the Emperor’s bed."

Gabriel stared at the roll like it might bite him. "That’s absurd. She tried to slap me."

Alexandra arched a brow. "And you think that deters a love story? That just makes you the tragic omega who refused his true love for the throne."

Gabriel stared. "I’m going to scream."

"I haven’t unsealed it," Alexandra said. "I thought it would be more entertaining to watch you do it."

"Lovely," Gabriel muttered. "Nothing pairs better with pelvic soreness than social assassination."

"You should be flattered. They think you’re dramatic enough to abandon a princess and seduce an emperor in the same breath."

He reached out slowly and broke the seal. The paper unrolled with a reluctant sigh.

Then he saw it.

He and Anya, beneath the arch of the Imperial balcony. Her hand lightly brushing his chest, her gaze tilted up like a woman remembering something lost. He was not even touching her, but the pose, lighting, and angle were all artfully done. Romantic. Intimate.

False.

His mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again. He could feel his stomach turning with disgust.

"She looks like she’s in love," he said flatly.freewēbnoveℓ.com

"She probably thinks she is," Alexandra muttered. "The problem is, now half the capital does too."

Gabriel dragged a hand down his face. "Gods, Damian is going to—"

The door swung open.

This chapter is updat𝓮d by fre(e)webnov(l).com