Bound by the Mark of Lies (BL)-Chapter 268 - 262: Heat Protocol for Idiots

The Empress’s Office was already full when Gabriel entered.

Julian looked up from the stack of reports he was annotating with lethal efficiency. Alexandra was sprawled across one of the armchairs like a battle-worn general, scarf tied haphazardly around her bun. Irina was perched neatly at the corner of the settee with two tablets and a physical ledger—because, in her words, "redundancy builds empires." Rafael, of course, was standing by the window, trying not to look like he was standing guard. He failed.

The moment the door clicked shut behind Gabriel, all heads turned.

Alexandra was the first to speak. "You disappeared from the Winter Ball."

Irina added, "Edward said it was being ’handled.’"

Julian’s tone was cooler. "Handled is what we say when someone dies offstage."

Gabriel sighed and shrugged out of his coat, draping it over the back of his chair. "I’m fine. It was just... a private matter."

Rafael narrowed his eyes. "Did Damian pull you out?"

"No," Gabriel said. "Edward did. Which is worse."

That earned a ripple of grim sympathy. Julian shifted in his seat.

Gabriel didn’t want to worry them. Not yet. The poisoning report was still under review—labs pending, secondary samples still being verified by Alexander’s team. For all they knew, it had been a miscalculation in tea composition or a compound reaction tied to the ether cycle.

Or it could be something worse. freёnovelkiss.com

Until he had the results, there was no point in causing panic.

"I’m entering heat in the next few days," Gabriel said without preamble, sliding into his chair. "Twelve weeks pregnant. Bonded. Marked. Glowing, apparently. All of that. So, I’ll need the four of you to handle the civil examination preparations without me until it passes."

Another beat of silence.

Alexandra blinked. "Wait—now?"

Julian sighed. "That explains why Edward was pacing the east hallway with a holo-tablet like it owed him money."

Irina immediately opened a calendar interface, lips pursed. "That overlaps with the rotation review, three ambassador calls, and the press preview for the examination chambers. We’ll have to split the schedule."

"We can manage," Rafael said quietly.

Gabriel nodded. "I know. That’s why I’m telling you and not the Foreign Affairs Committee, who would promptly faint and start rewriting the engagement clause as if I were dying."

"Are you sure you’re alright?" Julian asked.

"I’m not dying," Gabriel said. "Just radiant. Hormonal. Possibly flammable."

And then—

"Wait," Irina said again, frowning. "If you’re twelve weeks along and entering heat... could that mean... I don’t know... double pregnancy?"

Gabriel’s face didn’t move. But something in the air around him did.

A stillness. The kind that preceded a storm.

"Double," he repeated slowly, as if tasting the word for arsenic.

Julian leaned back and groaned. "Oh for the love of—"

"I’m just saying," Irina rushed on, "if the ether reacts weirdly—"

Gabriel put his hands flat on the desk. "Are you suggesting that my body is dumb enough to think, ’now is a great time to stock a second heir’?"

Alexandra coughed into her sleeve. "To be fair, your body has been a bit overachieving lately."

"I hate everyone in this room," Gabriel muttered.

"You’re the one glowing," Julian said lightly.

"Because someone set my hormones to divine retribution," Gabriel shot back.

Irina looked like she regretted everything. "I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—"

"No," Gabriel said, holding up a hand. "It’s fine. I’ll just spend the next three to five days locked in a wing, wondering whether my uterus is going to schedule a sequel."

Julian gave him a long, level look. "You should ask a physician. You know... what heat is for, don’t you?"

The room froze.

Rafael suddenly looked like he wanted to dissolve into the wallpaper. Irina’s stylus slipped out of her hand and clattered to the floor. Alexandra covered her mouth with her hand—not to hide a gasp, but to smother the grin trying to break through.

Gabriel blinked slowly, like a man processing a delayed explosion.

"Julian," he said carefully, "are you implying that I don’t know what heat is biologically designed to accomplish?"

"I’m implying," Julian said with the cool serenity of someone who’d already accepted death, "that maybe you forgot, considering you are already pregnant and still going into heat."

"I didn’t choose this timing," Gabriel snapped. "And forgive me if I wasn’t prepared to have a lesson on reproductive science in my own office."

Julian raised an eyebrow. "You brought up the sequel. I just added context."

"Your context is banned."

"Your uterus is the one writing cliffhangers."

Alexandra lost it. She leaned forward, laughing into her scarf like it was a diplomatic matter. Irina was beet red and trying very hard not to exist. Rafael, poor soul, was staring out the window as if praying for an escape hatch.

Gabriel stood slowly, pushing back his chair with all the dignity of a man moments away from high treason.

"I am going to speak to a medical professional. One with degrees. And charts. And the ability to confirm that I am not about to bear the divine twins of an empire that can barely handle one."

He straightened his cuffs, buttoned the last button on his shirt with unnecessary precision, and fixed the room with a gaze sharp enough to peel wallpaper.

"As for the civil examination," Gabriel continued, "you can reach me remotely—until I lose my mind. So sort your problems first."

Alexandra saluted, still half-laughing. "Understood."

Julian was already typing something, likely a passive-aggressive checklist titled Heat Protocol for Idiots.

Irina managed a nervous nod, as if promising not to bring up anatomy again for the rest of her natural life.

And Rafael, ever the quiet one, just said, "We’ll take care of it. All of it."

Gabriel didn’t reply. He simply turned, pushed open the doors to the hallway with far too much poise for someone internally screaming, and walked out.

He needed answers.

Not just about the heat. Or the faint ether shimmer that hadn’t left his skin since bonding. Or even the second pregnancy panic that now lived rent-free in the back of his mind.

No, what he needed most was someone qualified to say, with clinical certainty, that his body was not running a fertility cult of one.

And if his snappy physician couldn’t deliver that reassurance...

Well.

There was always exile.