Bound by the Mark of Lies (BL)
Chapter 399 - 393: The Shard’s World (2)

Chapter 399: Chapter 393: The Shard’s World (2)

He began to move.

The corridor stretched before him, lined with dark‑stained paneling and heavy drapes embroidered in a pattern he hadn’t seen in years. His boots sounded soft against the polished floor, each step placed carefully, like waiting for the floor to disappear again. He passed a window and caught a glimpse of the night beyond, starless, smothered in shadow, the world outside muted like paint left too long in the sun.

Every detail pulled at old memories, memories of a time when this manor had been both sanctuary and cage. His maternal grandfather, Peter, had ruled these halls with a quiet authority, keeping what remained of the von Jaunez children ’safe’ while the others, his parents, his brothers and uncles, bled themselves out in wars Olivier himself had sparked.

Gabriel’s fingers trailed along the carved wood of the banister as he turned down the main staircase. The smell hit him then, faint and unmistakable: paper dust, aged wood polish, and the bitter tang of old incense. He knew this place. He had lived here.

Portraits lined the walls, their eyes following him with the same unsettling focus they always had. He passed Alexandra’s childhood room and felt his throat tighten at the memory of her laughter spilling out into these same halls, so bright and alive against the silence.

He kept moving, past the old library where Peter would sit late into the night, records and letters spread before him like a map of futures that never came.

The weight of the shard’s world pressed in, but Gabriel’s steps didn’t falter. This was his memory, not Olivier’s. These halls were full of his own ghosts, not gifts Olivier could twist to bind him.

He reached the main foyer and stopped.

The lanterns here burned too bright, the shadows too deep. A figure lingered near the double doors, just out of reach of the light. Tall. Broad shoulders. The gleam of medals on his chest.

Peter.

Gabriel’s throat worked, a slow pulse rising at the back of his neck. He hadn’t seen the man in years and had buried him in memory and resentment both, but here he was, as sharply defined as the day Gabriel last left this manor. The sight of him was a fist closing around old wounds, dragging up everything Gabriel thought he had burned away.

’The man who forced me into this.’

The thought was acid in his chest. Peter, with his cold plans and colder logic, was the man who had orchestrated the experiment, who had seen Gabriel’s future as another political move, not as family or even a person.

Gabriel had come to terms with what he had become. He had accepted it, not for Peter, never for Peter, but for himself. For the life he had carved from a world that wanted to own him. For the child now safe in his arms, in the future, where Peter was long dead. For Arik. His and Damian’s son.

And as the shadows of the shard’s world thickened around him, Gabriel’s hand brushed the back of his neck again, feeling the steady warmth of the mark burned there, and a dark smile curled faintly at his lips.

He couldn’t change what Peter had done. He wouldn’t. Because without it, Damian and Arik wouldn’t exist. And for all the ghosts in these halls, that thought was enough to anchor him as the figure in the dark began to move.

Peter’s boots rang out again against the marble, deliberate, unhurried, each step tightening the coil of old dread in Gabriel’s chest.

"Gabriel, dear. Where have you been until now?"

The voice, low, smooth, and sickly sweet, hit him like a hand around his throat. He flinched back a single step before he even realized it, the motion instinctive, old muscle memory surfacing from a time he swore he’d buried.

"Well," Peter continued, a faint curl of satisfaction in his tone, "we can talk about that later. For now, you have to get ready."

Gabriel felt the old tension spike in his stomach, the phantom twist of a leash he hadn’t worn in years. He knew exactly what this meant. Peter never said what for. He rarely had to. The threat always lay in the not‑knowing, the way he used the future as a blade to torment, ’you’ve done something wrong, and you will pay for it, but I decide when.’

Gabriel’s jaw clenched. He hated how easily his body remembered this, hated the faint tremor in his fingers even as he straightened. He forced his voice out, clipped and sharp, a tone he never would have dared use in those days.

"For what?"

The question struck like a spark, and Peter froze mid‑step. A heartbeat later, Gabriel saw it, the shift in his eyes, that quiet flicker of fury.

The hand came down before he could blink.

A broad, calloused palm slammed against his neck and pinned him to the wall, the impact hard enough that the old wood paneling shuddered behind him. The pressure tightened, fingers digging in with cruel precision, cutting off half his breath but not enough to choke him out. Not yet.

Peter’s face was too close now, the faint shadow of his breath hot against Gabriel’s cheek, his words soft and venomous.

"When," Peter hissed, each syllable drawn out like a blade edge sliding across skin, "did you learn to use that tone with those who hold authority over you, hmm?"

Gabriel’s nails bit into the hand clamped around his throat, but the shard’s world held him, the memory given weight and heat and pain. He could feel his pulse hammering against Peter’s fingers, his own anger rising like fire through ice, but underneath it was that razor‑sharp clarity that had kept him alive all these years.

This isn’t real.

This is the shard. A shadow, nothing more.

But the sting on his neck was real enough, the echo of old scars flaring as if the years had folded in on themselves. He dragged in a shallow breath, his gaze steady despite the haze edging his vision.

"Let go," Gabriel rasped, not pleading, but commanding, something he would never have dared then.

And Peter’s eyes narrowed, the faintest curl of a smile ghosting over his mouth, as though amused that his little omega thought he could speak like that and walk away whole.

Gabriel’s pulse thudded once, hard, and he braced himself, knowing the shard’s world was about to bare its teeth.