CHAPTER 216: CHAPTER 216: DINNER (2)

Ego chuckled softly, crimson eyes glinting. "He means continuation, Samael. Something you’ve been remarkably skilled at avoiding."

"I avoid drama," Samael said smoothly. "Not reproduction."

Ruo raised her hand, deadpan. "False. You attract drama like gravity attracts meteors."

Connor snorted into his drink. "And none of us survive the impact."

Ego sat back in his chair, his expression unreadable but faintly amused. "Perhaps this dinner is good for us. I haven’t seen the three of you in the same room without divine intervention in years." His eyes slid back to Elias, who had been trying, unsuccessfully, to pretend he was part of the furniture. "Tell me, Elias. Does he still try to manage everything like a military campaign?"

Elias’s lips twitched. "Every morning. There’s a schedule for breakfast and he tortured me with training for the past two months. Lucky me, now I deal with morning sickness and not training."

Ruo almost spit out her wine. "Morning sickness? Oh, this is getting better by the second."

Connor leaned forward, his grin turning feral. "You’re telling me the man who schedules his breathing forgot to schedule that?"

Victor didn’t even blink. "It was planned," he said flatly.

Elias shot him a look that could have melted metal, too bad the . "Planned? You mean you planned it. I was merely collateral."

Samael covered a laugh with his hand. "Careful, little brother. Your mate sounds dangerously close to realizing what he signed up for."

Victor’s eyes flicked toward him, the faintest spark of warning in the crimson. "He knew what he was doing."

Elias muttered, "Debatable."

Ego’s low laugh rolled through the air again, soft but cutting through the chatter. "You two are delightful," he said. "The last time I saw your brother argue like this was with a council of military alphas. He didn’t let any of them walk away."

"Is that supposed to reassure me?" Elias asked, raising a brow.

Ego smiled. "If you’re still sitting here, it means he’s already decided you’re worth more than the air he breathes."

That quieted the table for a moment. Even Ruo looked away, swirling her wine to mask the faint warmth tugging at her mouth.

Connor exhaled. "Well, this dinner just became emotionally expensive."

"Don’t you have news too?" Ruo said, raising her glass, she was hellbent on distracting Ego’s attention from her at any price. "You know, something about a Creator left loose?"

Connor froze mid-sip, the rim of his glass still pressed to his mouth. For a man who could bluff through treaties and divine politics with a smile, that single pause was almost comical.

Samael’s grin sharpened. "Ah, yes. The Creator problem," he drawled. "I was wondering how long it would take before someone mentioned the elephant currently breaking the laws of existence for fun."

Victor leaned back slightly, unbothered, his crimson eyes glinting with the faint satisfaction of a man whose own scandal had just been replaced with a much larger one. Elias could feel the change, the tension around Victor unwinding, the air easing, and his pheromones smoothing into calm smoke and ozone again.

Ego’s attention, however, shifted like a spotlight. "The Creator?" he asked slowly, voice lowering to something dangerous. "Uno." The name fell heavy in the air, quiet but absolute. "Still alive?"

Connor cleared his throat, setting the glass down. "Technically, yes."

"Technically," Ego repeated, his expression unreadable but his eyes gleaming with the cold interest of a predator who’d just caught a new scent. "And interacting with a mortal. That’s... interesting."

Ruo raised an eyebrow, wine glass dangling between her fingers. "That’s one word for it."

Ego ignored her. His gaze moved between Connor and Victor. "Do either of you have any idea what it means for him to take an interest in a human? The Creator does not waste his attention on accidents. When he looks at someone, it’s because he intends to rewrite something, either them or the world around them."

Connor shifted, his usual composure cracking for half a second. "Jonathan Clarke isn’t just a mortal, apparently. Uno’s been... studying him."

"Yes, but last time I checked he was interested in you... romantically." Victor landed the bomb in the room while Elias elbowed him.

"And you used me as revenge for Uno touching your mate fate." Connor shot back.

The air in the room froze.

Even the faint hum of the chandelier above seemed to falter.

Ego’s gaze shifted from one to the other like a man watching a particularly fascinating duel he hadn’t authorized but had no intention of stopping. Ruo, on the other hand, was already biting her lip to hide a smile. Samael looked positively delighted, swirling his drink like this was the best entertainment he’d had all his life.

"You used Connor for revenge?" Ruo repeated, savoring the sentence like fine wine. "Oh, this keeps getting better.

Elias dropped his fork. "Here we go."

Victor didn’t even blink. "Uno deserved it."

Connor laughed, sharp and humorless. "That’s not a denial."

Ego leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled, crimson eyes gleaming with dangerous amusement. "Let me understand this correctly," he said. "The Creator, one of the most powerful beings in existence, fell for you." His gaze flicked to Connor, assessing. "And my son decided to use that as a weapon."

"Don’t make it sound unplanned," Victor said smoothly. "It was strategic."

Connor’s jaw tightened. "It was personal."

Elias groaned softly, pressing a hand to his face. "Please tell me this is not another divine pissing contest."

Samael raised his glass. "Too late."

Ego’s laugh broke through the tension, deep, rich, and sounding far too approving. "Oh, I like this. I truly do. My son weaponized heartbreak." He looked at Victor, pride flickering like lightning behind his eyes. "Efficient."

Elias turned to Victor, incredulous. "Efficient? You emotionally traumatized someone’s god out of spite!"

Victor tilted his head, unrepentant. "You make it sound petty."

Connor let out a disbelieving sound somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. "It was petty, Victor. You wanted Uno to feel what you did... what Elias almost did."

The silence that followed hit like a pulse. For a moment, even Ego’s amusement dimmed, and Ruo glanced down at her wine, her smirk fading into something thoughtful.

Elias exhaled, softer this time. "So... you got your revenge."

Victor’s voice was filled with the steadiness of a man without regrets. "I got justice."

"Justice," Connor echoed, lips curling. "Is that what we’re calling divine manipulation now?"

Samael whistled low under his breath. "He’s not wrong."

Ego’s smile returned, faint but cutting. "He’s also not dead. That counts for restraint." He looked toward Victor, then Elias, then back to Connor with something almost like curiosity. "But tell me... what does the Creator do now? Nursing a bruised ego, or plotting the next act of universal idiocy?"

Connor shrugged. "Both. He’s watching Jonathan Clarke."

Ego’s expression sharpened, interest reigniting. "The mortal connected to your omega’s bloodline. Hm. Perhaps Uno hasn’t lost his sense for irony."

Victor’s hand brushed against Elias’s under the table, grounding him. "He won’t touch him."

Ego smirked faintly. "Of course not. Not while you’re watching."

The silence stretched, taut but electric, before Ruo broke it with a sigh. "So," she said dryly, raising her glass again. "In summary: the Creator’s in love, Connor’s collateral, Victor’s petty, and dinner’s cold. Did I miss anything?"

Elias muttered, "Just my will to live."

Victor smiled faintly beside him. "You’ll get used to it."

Samael chuckled. "No one gets used to this family."

Ego lifted his own glass, the faintest spark of approval in his eyes. "To that," he said. "And to the first dinner in decades that didn’t end in blood... only a mild existential crisis."

Ruo clinked her glass against Elias’s. "You’re officially one of us now," she said, smirking. "Congratulations."

Elias gave her a look of despair. "Is it too late to annul this?"

Victor’s smile deepened. "Far too late, love."