2. The Separation Decrees #4
Miles looked at the letter again. The sheer mess of it was staggering.
The business responsibilities, both legitimate and illegitimate, of Goldmar’s holdings in the Rookgate district and shipyards across Averly.
Rookgate Manor in Averdon, which was a frequent scene in both their nightmares and surely unimproved by being left derelict these six months.
And then there was Queen Annelise’s Regent.
Lord Selden Lumeis didn’t just prefer order; he strangled chaos in its crib.
The man spent his days balancing the rabid war-hawks against the merchant pragmatists, desperate to keep the realm from tearing itself apart over a child Queen’s claim to a foreign throne.
Gabriel wasn’t a stabilizer. He was chaos in a silk waistcoat.
He was living, breathing evidence of the aristocracy’s rot, a survivor of the very depravities the Spires fought to keep hidden.
Placing a former sex slave among the peers who had used him wasn’t governance; it was insanity.
Lumeis had to know that Gabriel’s presence would be like tossing a lit match into an oil cask of scandal.
Unless Lumeis didn’t know. Or, worse, if he did.
Miles traced the heavy embossing on the letter.
Was this just the mindless, grinding machinery of inheritance law, blind to the dangerous reality?
Or was this a trap? A lure to drag a loose end back to the city to be snipped off quietly?
If the Regent viewed Gabriel as a threat to his precious stability, a summons to the lion’s den was the most efficient way to neutralize him.
But beyond all of that, foremost in Miles’s mind was the Separation Decrees.
If Gabriel kept the title, they could be lovers, but never husbands.
No.
Miles folded the letter. He placed it on the arm of the chair and stood up.
The anger was still there, buzzing under his skin, but it had transmuted into something useful. It was fuel .
He wasn’t just a lover now. He was a Hand in the secret Order of the Unwritten, even if he was on leave. He was a Guild-certified Level 4 Caster. He was a war veteran. He was a problem solver.
Gabriel couldn’t handle this. That was clear.
Gabriel could survive torture, could seduce a room full of killers, could steal the teeth out of a wyrm’s mouth, but he couldn’t fight a piece of paper.
He couldn’t pry that hated name off himself.
He couldn’t fight the weight of a legacy he never asked for.
So, Miles would do it for him.
They had to go to Averdon. They had to go to the Crown Offices. Gabriel had to formally renounce the title. He had to abdicate. It was the only way to clear the board, to remove the legal barrier of the Separation Decrees and get out from under the quagmire of the inheritance.
But renunciation would likely be complex. It would require signatures, witnesses, and fees. It required facing the bureaucrats.
Miles lowered the letter, took off his glasses, and walked to the window. His reflection stared back at him, serious, unkempt, eyes hard.
Miles would be the adult if that’s what it took. He would be the structure Gabriel needed to climb out of this pit. He would manage the paperwork, he would ward them against the memories, and he would stand between Gabriel and the ghost of Madaze Goldmar with every ounce of magic he possessed.
He looked back at the bedroom door.
Sleep well, my love, Miles thought, a grim determination settling over his features. Because tomorrow, we go to war with the probate office.
***
Gabriel
Gabriel blinked himself awake, the crust of sleep slowly giving way to the vivid memory of Miles’s hands, the weight of his partner’s body pressing the panic out of him until only exhausted peace remained.
For a moment, just a single, glorious heartbeat, the world was nothing but this: the scent of sandalwood and old paper clinging to Miles’s skin, the rhythmic puff of breath against Gabriel’s shoulder, and the ache in his muscles that felt more like a victory than a wound.
Then memory sharpened its claws.
The letter.
Gabriel stiffened, the languid warmth evaporating. The malignant hiss of that creamy vellum slithered through the walls from the living room where it was buried beneath the embroidery floss like a venomous snake coiled in a flowerbed.
He shifted carefully and looked down at Miles. His lover was dead to the world, chestnut hair escaping its bun in a tangle. Miles slept with the same intensity he applied to researching ancient runology: deep, committed, and usually involving a bit of drool.
Oh how he loved his gentleman disaster.
Gabriel’s gaze lingered on the line of Miles’s jaw, and his fingers followed, careful not to wake him. He couldn’t keep the summons hidden. He knew that. The panic yesterday had been a reflex, a feral animal trying to kick dirt over a trap. But hiding the trap didn’t disarm it.
He had to tell him.
Miles valued honesty. He valued the intricate, boring machinery of the law. He would be hurt that Gabriel had shoved a Crown mandate into a box of notions and tried to seduce his way out of the conversation.
Would he leave him?
The thought was a habitual intruder, a remnant of a life where affection was transactional and temporary. Gabriel pushed it away. Miles wasn’t a client. He wasn’t a master. He was the man who had laid siege to a vampire’s manor just to offer Gabriel a choice. He wouldn’t leave.
But he would be disappointed.
Gabriel drew a breath, held it until his lungs burned, then let it out.
He’d do it. Now. He’d wake him with kisses, maybe a little breakfast if they had any eggs left, and then he’d present the letter like a nasty dead rat a cat brought in, something distasteful that they needed to dispose of together.
Together meant packing bags. It meant putting Briarleigh in the rearview mirror and hiding themselves away long enough for the Crown’s bureaucrats to realize their new Lord was a retired whore with a penchant for larceny and find someone else.
He reached out to brush a stray hair from Miles’s forehead.
Miles’s eyes snapped open, blinked once, and then narrowed .
Well, shit.
“Good morning,” Miles said. His voice was gravelly, but the tone wasn’t amorous.
Gabriel pulled his hand back, tucking it under the quilt. “How are your wheels already grinding, darling? Stop. It’s too early for thinking. Let’s go back to the part where you make coffee, and I pretend to be asleep until it’s ready.”
Miles didn’t smile. He sat up, the sheet pooling around his waist, revealing the broad, hairy expanse of his chest.
Miles knew. Gabriel could see it in those sad eyes. Not just about the summons, but about the pathetic attempt to bury it under skeins of indigo thread.
“Good morning, my Lord,” Miles said to the room.
Double shit.
“I can explain,” Gabriel started, forcing a brightness into his voice that sounded off even to his own ears.
He sat up, dragging the sheet with him. “It arrived yesterday. While you were out. I didn’t—I wasn’t trying to hide it, exactly.
Or not for long. I just couldn’t have that name in this house.
Not yesterday. I needed a moment to breathe before the suffocating weight of my absurdly persistent history crushed us flat. ”
He waited for the lecture. He waited for the hurt.
Instead, Miles sighed, a long, deflating sound, and reached out. He took Gabriel’s hand, squeezing tight.
“I found it in the sewing box,” Miles said gently. “I’m not angry you hid it, Gabe, not really. I know what that name does to you.”
Gabriel couldn’t swallow past the thickness in his throat. “It’s a mistake. A clerical error. Or a cruel joke. It has to be.”
“It’s not a joke. It’s a legal designation of inheritance. I don’t understand how, but it’s real.” Miles rubbed his thumb over Gabriel’s knuckles, his expression shifting into that familiar, intensely focused look he wore when solving puzzles. “But we will deal with it together.”
“Together,” Gabriel echoed. He let his head thump back against the headboard, the tension leaking out of his frame until he was just a pile of limbs and relief.
“Gods, you had me worried. I thought you’d be pulling out the Penal Code of Averly and reading me the section on ‘Proper Document Handling’ alongside a lecture on civic duty. ”
“The thought crossed my mind,” Miles admitted. “But I imagine the panic was punishment enough. So. We deal with it.”
Gabriel nodded, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
The floorboards were cool under his feet.
Action. He could do action. “Right. Dealing with it. I’ll get the trunks.
If we pack light, we can be on the midday coach west. We lose the trail in the foothills, maybe head toward the coast. Or—” He spun around, a solution blooming in his mind, audacious and perfect.
“Lyonnor. Who looks for a rogue Averlian noble in Lyonnor?”
He was already mentally cataloging which of his silk tunics would play best in a foreign court—or a foreign tavern, which seemed more likely—when he realized Miles hadn’t moved.
Miles was sitting perfectly still, his hands resting on his knees, wearing an expression of baffled concern. It was the look he usually reserved for when Gabriel tried to explain why a cravat color could be morally wrong.
“Lyonnor,” Miles repeated, the word flat.
“I don’t care about the war, Miles; the border guards are bribable.
” Gabriel grabbed his robe, sliding his arms into the cool silk.
“The architecture is stunning, the wine is superior, and they don’t have a heavy import tax on refugees fleeing bureaucratic nightmares. Plus, I hear the accent is charming.”
“Gabriel,” Miles pointed out. “I spent two years lobbing fireballs at their front lines. I’m fairly certain my face is on a watchlist somewhere. I’m not sure we have a bribe big enough for that.”