CHAPTER 116: CHAPTER 116: PRIORITY

Elias kept his gaze locked on the screen, jaw tight, but his voice was steady. "What are you going to do with this?"

Victor didn’t answer right away. Instead, he crossed to the cabinet set into the far wall, glass and steel gleaming under the lamplight. He opened it with the same patience he carried into battle and drew out a decanter of dark amber liquor, pouring two measures with unhurried precision.

Elias’s irritation rose with every second of silence, but he didn’t break it. Not yet.

Victor returned, holding one glass out with the ease of a man who expected it to be taken. Elias accepted, though his eyes flicked once between the drink and Victor’s crimson stare before lifting it to his lips. The liquor burned, sharp and honeyed, as though it was meant to coax answers from his tongue before Victor’s.

Only then did Victor speak, voice smooth. "What I want to do is nothing." He swirled his own glass, the ice catching faint light. "Let Matteo walk. Let the hand behind him tighten its grip until it snaps."

Elias’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses. "But?"

Victor’s smile was thin, humorless. "But I was listening long before you were in my bed. Before you even set foot in my house." He turned, leaning his hip against the desk, gaze distant for the first time since the footage began. "I told myself I didn’t care. That men make their wars and reap the ruin of them."

The amber caught red in his eyes as he tipped the glass back, swallowing once before lowering it again. "And then someone called for me. Not the way mortals pray to gods they don’t believe in, but like a voice screaming across a burning city. Ruo. She called first."

Elias stilled, the name hitting sharper than the liquor.

Victor’s voice dropped lower, threaded with something heavier than amusement. "Then her brother. Samael. The clever one." Victor’s tone shifted, lower, thoughtful, as though tasting a memory that carried more bitterness than sweetness. "He didn’t believe in me, but he used the old words anyway. Desperation makes even skeptics kneel." His mouth curved faintly, though without joy. "And I answered. Piece by piece, I began to move. Quietly. Strategically. Long before you walked into my life."

Elias’s brows drew tight. "How? Ruo told me she hated the Numens. She never wanted to set foot in that mansion again."

"Understandable." Victor’s gaze flicked toward the frozen frame on the screen, Matteo, mid-stride, caught in sterile light. "The family is and always has been a viper’s den. I never cared if they served me or spat at me. People have free will, and I don’t take it from them."

Elias’s jaw tightened. His voice was soft, but his eyes were sharp. "You didn’t really give me a chance."

Victor looked at him then, the weight of his crimson gaze steady as stone. "You are my fated mate," he said simply, with no hesitation. "And when the choice came, you believed me. Not Matteo."

A pause stretched, taut as a wire. Elias’s lips pressed into a thin line before he exhaled. "...Fair."

Victor leaned back against the desk, studying him like the word itself was a prize. "Fair," he echoed, savoring it as though it were rarer than victory.

Elias’s hand tightened on the glass, the reflection of the frozen screen catching in his lenses. Matteo’s figure stood mid-step, unnatural in its ordinariness, and the longer it stayed paused, the more wrong it seemed.

He finally broke the silence, his voice cutting clean. "So what now? You listen to Ruo, to Samael, to anyone desperate enough to call your name and you let this keep walking?" His chin tilted toward the image. "Or do you plan to remind them you’re still a god?"

Victor’s smile curved faintly, the kind of expression that made promises without saying them. He tipped his glass, watching the amber swirl like blood under light. "Gods don’t remind. They’re remembered."

Elias’s jaw flexed, irritation flickering through his composure. "That’s not an answer."

"No," Victor agreed softly, finally setting the glass down with a quiet click. His crimson gaze caught Elias’s, unblinking, steady. "I have some rules to follow, and some I made myself. One of those is that I don’t directly intervene in the destiny of others, but people that follow me can."

Elias’s brow furrowed. "Reach for you? The dissidents aren’t kneeling. They’d see you buried before they’d ever bow."

Victor’s mouth curved faintly, without warmth. "Correct. The dissidents don’t call for me, they curse me. But desperation breeds its own faith. Ruo wasn’t loyal, but she wanted protection. Samael wasn’t a believer, but he wanted power strong enough to tip the scales. Both hated the vipers’ nest they lived in, and still, when their world closed in, they used the old words. That’s the difference."

Elias exhaled sharply, adjusting his glasses with a push of his finger. "So you let them bleed for your attention."

Victor leaned closer, his hand brushing the desk beside Elias’s, close enough to bridge the space without touching. His voice dropped, velvet dark. "I gave them the choice. Choice, Elias, is the only currency that matters. They chose me despite their hatred. The dissidents chose to defy me. That line will always burn bright."

The footage played on behind them, Matteo’s body moving with steady, unnatural purpose. Elias’s gaze flicked toward it, his reflection caught in the glow, but his words stayed fixed on Victor. "And what if their fight comes straight through me?"

Victor’s crimson eyes glinted, the black stone of his ring catching faint light as he lifted his hand. "Then they’ve already lost. Because the one rule I never bend is this: my mate is not collateral."

Elias set the glass down, the sharp click against the desk cutting through the hum of the screen. His jaw flexed once, then stilled, as if he’d come to the end of all his carefully stacked arguments.

He crossed the small distance between them in three strides, the air shifting with the resolve in each step. Victor didn’t move, he only watched, crimson eyes steady, unblinking, like he’d been waiting for this moment longer than Elias had.

Elias’s hands settled on his shoulders, fingers curling just enough to anchor himself in place. He tilted his head, pushed up onto his toes, and pressed his mouth to Victor’s.

Victor’s breath left him in a low sound, caught between surprise and satisfaction, before he returned the kiss, steady and consuming, as though he’d known Elias would come but savored the moment all the same. The bond pulsed, strong, alive, and Elias let it, without trying to name it anything other than what it was.

When he pulled back, his forehead rested briefly against Victor’s, his breath uneven but his eyes still dark and sharp behind his glasses. His voice was low, even, but carried the kind of steel that hadn’t bent even in that kiss.

"You’re the only one who’s ever treated me like a priority," he said, matter-of-factly, as if it were a truth carved out of stone. "I fought it. Gods, I fought it every step. But right now? I don’t want to anymore."

Victor’s hands rose, slow, reverent, one settling at Elias’s waist, the other brushing the line of his jaw. His mouth curved, dangerous and tender all at once. "Then stop fighting."

Elias huffed, a laugh breaking sharply through the haze, and leaned back just enough to meet his gaze head-on. "Fine. But I still want to burn those red socks."

Victor’s answering smile was devastating, teeth catching the light, and he pulled Elias closer. "You can burn them on my floor if it pleases you. But you’ll wear them first."