Shadow Unit Scandal: The Commander's Omega-Chapter 90: Handle it.

Rafael left the office on unsteady legs, the word pregnancy still echoing in his skull like a misfired spell he couldn’t dispel.

Six weeks.

It felt unreal. As if the future had reached out and closed a hand around his throat with terrifying gentleness.

The corridor was quiet, washed in pale light and antiseptic calm. And at the far end of it... Gregoris.

He stood exactly where Rafael knew he would be. Broad shoulders, dark uniform, hands folded behind his back in that disciplined, immovable way that made him look more like a fortress than a man. The bloodhound of the Emperor. Commander of the Shadows. Mate and menace alike.

The moment Rafael appeared, Gregoris’s posture shifted. A subtle straightening. Those inhuman senses locking onto the omega the way they always did, as if the world rearranged itself around that single point.

Rafael took one look at him and snapped.

He approached him, and with an instinctive movement, his hand shot out to fist into the front of Gregoris’s coat, fingers curling into expensive fabric with the kind of strength that came from adrenaline and a mind in freefall.

"Come here," he said, low and urgent.

For a heartbeat, the corridor seemed to hold its breath.

Gregoris did not resist.

If anything, the corner of his mouth twitched, faint and dangerous, amusement flickering in his eyes at being seized like that, in public, by an omega who usually kept his composure in any situation.

He let himself be pulled.

Rafael marched him down the hall with single-minded determination, shoes striking too fast, grip never loosening. Staff and guards flattened themselves to the walls on instinct, pretending very hard not to see the Duke being dragged like a misbehaving accomplice.

Gregoris followed easily, long strides matching Rafael’s shorter, furious ones, allowing it the way one allowed a storm to think it was in control.

They turned a corner. Then another. Past a side antechamber, through a quiet service corridor, until the sounds of the medical wing dulled and the wards thickened.

Only when they reached a small, unused sitting room - shielded, soundproofed, and forgotten by most of the palace - did Rafael finally shove the door open and pull Gregoris inside.

The door closed behind them with a soft, final click.

Rafael released his coat only to immediately plant both hands on his own hips, breathing hard, eyes bright with something between panic and fury and disbelief.

Gregoris straightened his lapel calmly, still watching him with that unsettling, intent focus.

"You look like you just declared war on your own future," he said mildly.

Rafael lifted his head.

"I am," he replied. "And you’re the problem."

Gregoris’s brow lifted, just slightly. "I had a suspicion."

Rafael stared at him as if he had just confessed to arson.

"You had a suspicion," he repeated, very quietly.

"Yes."

"And you did not think," Rafael went on, each word crystal clear, "to mention this suspicion to the person whose body was, apparently, already reorganizing itself around the idea?"

Gregoris considered him for a moment, silver eyes intent, unflinching. "Your scent changed last week while we were in the south. I wasn’t sure, so I’ve sent you to Marin."

Rafael stared at him, the words sinking in with a delayed, dangerous clarity.

"You sent me to Marin," he repeated slowly, "because you thought I might be pregnant."

"Yes."

"And you did not," Rafael said, voice dropping to something deceptively calm, "think to inform me of that hypothesis before outsourcing my existential crisis to the palace physician."

Gregoris held his gaze. "I wanted confirmation before causing you unnecessary distress."

Rafael laughed again, sharp and breathless. "Unnecessary distress. Right. Because finding out in a sterile office with hormonal results and clinical certainty is so much gentler than being told by the man who did this to me."

His hand lifted, gesturing between them, then briefly, unconsciously, toward his own abdomen.

"You watched my scent change. You noticed my body recalibrating in real time, and you decided silence was the kinder option."

"I decided accuracy was," Gregoris corrected.

"That is a strategist’s answer," Rafael snapped. "Not a mate’s."

The word hung there, heavy.

Gregoris’s jaw tightened. "You were already under strain," he said quietly. "Political pressure. Your mother. The gossip after the charity gala. I did not want to introduce a possibility that might not exist and let your mind spiral around it."

Rafael stepped closer, close enough now that he had to tilt his head back to meet Gregoris’s eyes.

"My mind spirals for a living," he said softly. "What I do not tolerate is being excluded from my own reality."

There was a brief pause.

"If my body is changing, if my future is shifting, if there is a life forming inside me - you do not manage that information for me. You share it. Immediately. Even if it’s uncertain. Even if it’s terrifying."

Gregoris studied him for a long moment.

"...Understood," he said at last.

And this time, it was not a commander acknowledging a report.

It was a mate acknowledging a boundary.

"Good. Now... let me spiral in peace." Rafael said.

Gregoris’s mouth curved, just barely, the faintest shadow of something that might have been a smile.

"You are doing that already," he observed.

Rafael exhaled, a sharp, frustrated breath, then dragged a hand through his hair. "Yes, but now it is an informed spiral. There is a difference."

He turned away, pacing a few steps, then stopping as if the room were too small for the thoughts crowding his head.

Then Rafael went still, the earlier anger burning down into realization.

Not of the pregnancy itself, his body had already accepted that truth with unsettling calm, but of the consequences.

Alexandra. Gabriel. Edward. The rest were manageable, but this trio was the end of him.

Rafael closed his eyes.

"First," he said faintly, "I am going to be murdered by concern."

Gregoris tilted his head. "Concern is rarely lethal."

"You have never been the target of Gabriel’s soft-voiced interrogations," Rafael muttered. "He will sit me down with tea, look at me like I am a wounded kitten, and start asking about my sleep schedule, my diet, and whether I am emotionally prepared to become a strategic symbol of the Empire’s future."

"And Alexandra?" Gregoris prompted.

Rafael opened one eye. "She will already be planning nurseries. In three color palettes. She will ask about names. She will casually suggest tutors. She will absolutely tell Damian before I finish the sentence ’don’t tell anyone yet.’"

"And Edward."

Rafael winced. "Edward will go very quiet and then somehow triple palace security as if pregnancy were a hostile foreign power."

Gregoris’s lips twitched.

"And then," Rafael went on, voice darkening, "there is my mother."

Delphine Rosenroth would smile with perfect composure and then dismantle reality with elegance.

"She is going to be furious, more furious than she already is," Rafael said flatly. "Because I am pregnant without a ring, a contract, a ceremony, and a carefully choreographed social narrative. She will consider this... scandalous."

Silence stretched a moment.

Then Gregoris said, simply, "We can marry."

Rafael stopped pacing and stared at him.

"No," he said immediately. Then, more honestly, "Not no. Just... not now."

He dragged a hand down his face. "I cannot process pregnancy, court gossip, my mother’s impending strategic meltdown, and a wedding all at once. My brain has limited bandwidth, and it is currently on fire."

Gregoris waited, patient as a man who had waited out sieges.

Rafael looked at him, eyes sharp, exhausted, and very, very aware of what this would become.

"I can’t think about that now. You handle it if you want it."

Gregoris did not argue.

He only smiled.