Gabriel's face was composed, the polite half-smile of a consort standing beside the Dowager while courtiers fussed over lace napkins and ether-glazed pastries. But under that mask, his mind roared with fury.
Someone had dared to aim not at him, not even at Damian, but at a five-month-old child who still couldn't hold his own head steady. That arrogance, that cowardice, had torn straight through the promise he'd once made to Damian: that he would keep his hands clean, that his brilliance would build and not destroy. That the Emperor would not have to watch his mate carve through enemies the way he used to in rebellion days.
But the stench of clove and camphor had hit him, sharp and poisonous in his lungs, and instinct had answered before reason. His ether had snapped outward like a blade unsheathed, and in that breath, the omega had ceased to exist.
