Valen's POV
The door closed with a soft click, and Elias was gone.
Valen remained motionless for a moment, his hand still curled possessively in the boy's hair, his breath out of habit more than need , slow and calculated. The heat from the boy's body lingered, flushed and pliant beneath him, but it no longer stirred anything in him. Not truly.
He pulled away.
The boy whined softly, reaching for more, but Valen had already stood, already straightened his shirt, already shifted from predator to ghost. He didn't look back.
"Get dressed " he said, his tone stripped of warmth. "Your part is finished."
The boy hesitated, confused, bruised in the way mortals always were when the illusion collapsed.
But Valen wasn't thinking of him.
His gaze had shifted long ago, back to the door Elias had slipped behind. A quiet rage was building beneath his skin ,not anger at Elias, but at himself.
He had brought in the boy for spectacle, for control. A test, yes. But somewhere in the performance, he'd lost track of the game. It had begun as a reminder of what power looked like. What it meant to own someone with hands, voice, hunger.
But the only one he'd wanted to unravel was no longer in the room.
Valen moved toward the hearth, pouring another glass of wine, though he didn't drink. The firelight kissed the rim, turning the liquid inside a deep, near-black crimson. For a moment, he watched the flames, unblinking.
He could still feel Elias's gaze on him sharp, steady, entirely unafraid.
That was what had shaken him.
Not desire. Desire was common. Predictable.
But restraint? The kind that trembled just beneath the skin, masked by discipline and pride? That was rare.
Elias hadn't flinched. Hadn't begged. Hadn't averted his gaze even when Valen had bared something near to his true nature in the act of possession.
He had watched.
And then he had walked away.
That's when , Valen realized, with a slow, curling hunger, had undone him more than any cry of pleasure ever could.
He set the goblet down.
For the first time in centuries, he wanted someone not because they offered themselves but because they refused to.
Because Elias had left the room still his own man.
Still untaken.
And that would not do.
Valen turned toward the hallway, footsteps soundless against the marble, the scent of Elias still lingering faintly rain, parchment, restraint. He wouldn't follow. Not yet. Not physically. But he let the desire bloom unchecked now, dark and coiling.
Because Elias hadn't left to escape.
He had left to breathe.
And that meant he would come back.
He always did.
Valen smiled, slow and terrible.
The game was working.
Tomorrow, the next question would be sharper.
More intimate.
And one way or another, Elias would break.
Not because Valen forced it…
But because he'd choose to.
The storm had come in quietly that evening.
It licked at the edges of the manor's windows with pale, trembling fingers. Rain streaked down the glass like ink bleeding through parchment. Somewhere beneath it all, the air held the scent of old roses and older hunger.
Elias entered the drawing room just before the hour turned.
Valen was already waiting, perched in the wingback by the fire. His posture was effortless, like sin draped in silk. Tonight, he wore nothing ostentatious, just black slacks, a shirt unbuttoned at the collar, and shadows that clung to his presence like jealous lovers.
Elias did not greet him.
He stepped inside, shed his coat, and took his usual seat across the hearth, posture as precise and composed as ever.
The silence was familiar now.
Valen sipped his wine always that near-black, ancient vintage and studied Elias without shame.
No mortal had ever stayed this long without breaking.
And yet Elias sat there. Poised. Unclaimed. But not unaffected.
There was heat in his stillness now. Barely leashed. And Valen could smell it.
He waited, as the rules dictated, for Elias's question.
Tonight, Elias leaned forward just slightly, fingers laced.
His voice was calm, but there was a note of something deeper behind it. Something personal.
"Why do you prefer men over women?"
Valen's smile didn't reach his eyes.
A pause, long and deliberate.
"Bold tonight" he said softly.
Elias didn't blink. "Truth for truth."
Valen set his goblet aside. He rose slowly, crossing the space between them without sound, then stopped just short of Elias's chair.
"You want the real answer" he said, voice low, "or the poetic one?"
"Whichever one costs you more."
Valen tilted his head, and for a moment, he looked centuries older. Not in weakness, but in weight. In memory.
"I don't choose based on flesh," he said. "I've had queens and soldiers. Poets and priests. Men and women, yes but it's never about their shape."
His gaze darkened, pupils blooming like ink.
"It's about power. Resistance. Surrender. And men"
He crouched, resting one hand on the armrest, the other ghosting just short of Elias's knee.
"Men are taught to never yield. Not to another man. Not to pleasure. Not to want."
Elias's breath hitched. Barely.
Valen smiled.
"So when they do... when their composure cracks, and they let go despite everything the world told them..."
He leaned closer, breath brushing against Elias's throat.
"It tastes like victory."
Elias's throat bobbed.
"And women?" he asked, softer now.
"They're not weak" Valen said. "But they're allowed to feel. To break. To cry. There's no shame in their surrender."
He pulled back, standing tall again.
"But when a man trembles for me... because of me... it's blasphemy. And I have always had a fondness for sin."
The fire behind him crackled louder, casting flickering gold across the lines of his face.
"And now" Valen said, voice silk-wrapped steel "my turn."
Elias nodded once, tightly.
Valen circled again, never touching this time.
"What would make you kneel?"
The question hung in the air like a blade waiting to drop.
Elias didn't answer. Not right away.
His jaw tensed. His hands gripped the armrest a little too tightly.
And then, a whisper:
"I don't know yet."
Valen smiled, slow and deliberate.
"Good" he said. "Then we still have time to find out."
The silence cracked first.
Not with movement, not with breath but with a smile.
Elias's, to be exact. Subtle. Sharp.
It wasn't amusement, not really. More like a warning dressed as wit. A blade hidden in laughter. He leaned back into the chair, ankle crossing over his knee with casual defiance.
"You really want to know what would break me that badly?" he said, voice dry as ash. "Is that what excites you? Finding the cracks?"
Valen didn't answer.
He didn't need to. His eyes, impossibly still, remained fixed on Elias with a hunger that had nothing to do with blood. No predator interrupted the prey when it was starting to bare its teeth.
Elias tipped his head slightly, eyes gleaming beneath the firelight.
"What are you hoping for? That I'll say pain? Fear? A collar around my throat and your hand in my hair?"
He shrugged, as if bored by the whole performance.
"That's too easy, isn't it? That's what Cassian gave you."
Valen's lips twitched at the corners.
"Careful" he murmured, "Jealousy is a bitter perfume."
Elias laughed under his breath. "Not jealousy. Observation."
Then, something in him shifted ,subtle, like the soft break in a violin string. His gaze met Valen's with something colder behind it now.
"I think what would break me" he said slowly, "is if I gave in... and it meant nothing."
Valen stilled.
Not visibly. Not overtly. But there it was , that faint pause, that stillness of something ancient that had been called out and didn't like it.
"If I surrendered" Elias went on, "and you didn't feel anything. If you just... used it. Filed it away with the rest of your century-long conquests. That would break me."
He stood.
The motion was fluid, slow, deliberate. Not a challenge but a statement. Elias walked past Valen without touching him, stopping at the hearth to pour himself a drink. The wine clung to the sides of the crystal glass like thick blood.
He turned back.
"I've read about vampires with obsessions" he said. "Desires they can't name. Some of them mistake it for hunger. Some for love. Most of them never realize it's just loneliness."
Valen's voice was velvet when it came. Low. Intimate.
"And what do you think mine is?"
Elias didn't blink.
"You think I'm the one being tested" he said. "But I think you're the one circling the fire, waiting to see if you can finally burn."
Valen's smile returned, slower this time.
Like a beast waking.
"Then let's see who catches flame first."