CHAPTER 247: CHAPTER 247: HONEYMOON, APPARENTLY (1)

The hotel suite was quiet in the way storms are quiet, the air charged, waiting for the next strike.

The glass balcony doors were thrown open, sea wind sweeping through the room like it wanted to escape too. The ocean below was calm again, but it was the calm of something watching. Somewhere deep beneath it, Poseidon lingered, but not close; there was only so much divine rage one could share a coastline with.

Victor stood near the window.

He had shed the robes of ether, the crowns, and the skeletal radiance, but the god had not gone anywhere. The human shape was only a courtesy. His jaw was tight, his posture cold, and his eyes too bright to pass for mortal reflection. He hadn’t spoken since they returned.

Elias sat on the couch, one knee drawn up, his wrist resting loosely on it. The bracelet pulsed slowly in counterpoint to his heartbeat, a physical reminder of who held his life and whose life he held in return.

The silence stretched. It tasted metallic.

Finally, Elias spoke first.

"You can sit, you know. You’re making the room feel like a shrine."

Victor’s head turned slowly. "Do you want me to sit?" he asked, "or do you want me to calm down?"

His voice was low. Controlled, as if he let loose what was in his mind, it would cause more harm than he imagined.

Elias’s brows lifted. "Both would be ideal."

Victor didn’t move. "I am angry."

"Yes," Elias said simply. "I noticed."

Victor laughed, but there was nothing warm in it. "Do you even understand why?"

"I put myself in danger." Elias’s tone was clinical. "The obvious answer."

"No," Victor said. His voice sharpened. "You chose to believe that your life is expendable."

Elias blinked. "That’s not what I..."

"It is exactly what you did." Victor took a step forward. "You calculated that your death was an acceptable variable if it made my job easier. If it made Poseidon’s job easier. If it ended the threat faster. You gambled yourself because you decided it was efficient."

Elias tightened his jaw. "And it was."

"That," Victor said, voice rising, not loud, but breaking around the edges, "is not the point."

Elias stood slowly, knees brushing the coffee table as he rose. "Then tell me the point, Victor. Because from where I’m standing, Jonathan is gone, the city is intact, and the child is safe."

"You put your life and our child in danger to do what?" Victor’s voice was quiet now, like a fault line moments before it splits.

"To give more time to immortal beings?"

The wind from the balcony fluttered the curtains as if trying to make space between them.

Elias didn’t back down. "Jonathan was slipping. If he had fully anchored himself, you would have spent decades tearing the world apart to find the rest of him."

"And instead," Victor said, stepping closer, "you offered him your body as bait."

Elias didn’t retreat. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t so much as blink.

"I offered him a target," he corrected. "One I knew you would intercept."

Victor’s eyes flickered with rage, fear, and something far older than both. "You assumed I would reach you in time."

"No," Elias said, his voice like a blade drawn slow. "I knew."

Victor stared at him, really stared, as if trying to find where this arrogance came from or when it had replaced the man who once shook before the idea of divine attention.

"You had no guarantee," Victor said, each word sharp. "No calculation compensates for a god’s delay. For ether resistance. For interference. For..."

"Victor," Elias snapped, the control in his voice fracturing. "I was never in danger."

The room stilled.

Victor’s jaw tightened. "Say that again."

"I. Was. Never. In. Danger." Elias stepped forward now, their chests nearly touching. "You shielded me the moment you sensed him. You always do. You always have. I knew you would come. Not because of fate. Not because of duty." His breath trembled. "But because it’s me."

Victor’s expression darkened.

"You talk about trust," he said, "but what you mean is that you know I will not let you go. You relied on the fact that I would tear the world apart if anything touched you. That is not trust, Elias. That is you using my possessiveness like a weapon."

Elias didn’t deny it. He didn’t even look away. "Yes," he said. "I know you would burn down creation for me. And I used it. Because it’s true."

Victor’s jaw tightened. His hands flexed once at his sides, the tendons in his wrists standing out sharp.

"I have...," he said, voice low, "shielding you. Drawing wards around you. Removing threats before they ever reached you. Keeping you out of reach of gods who would look at you and see something they wanted." His eyes narrowed, hungry in their possessiveness. "Of course I cage what I want to keep."

Elias’s breath caught, but he didn’t recoil. If anything, his spine straightened.

"You’re not denying it," Elias said.

"I don’t need to deny it," Victor answered. "I have never hidden what I am."

"No," Elias said, "you simply expected me to become something else."

Victor’s stare sharpened. "Explain."

Elias took a measured, calm step forward.

"Before you," he said, "I survived by thinking first, seeing first, and acting first. I learned to move before danger saw me. I learned to be my own shield, my own weapon, and my own contingency. I did not have a god at my back. I didn’t have anyone."

Victor’s breath hitched. He remembered finding Elias in the state he found him in.

"You think," Elias continued, "that because you love me, because you protect me, because you would claim every part of me if I let you... I will forget how to move on my own. You want me to depend on you because it makes you feel that I am yours."

Victor didn’t respond. He didn’t even blink.

He didn’t need to, the truth was already standing between them.

"You’re right," Victor said at last, voice softer now, but far more dangerous for it. "I want all of you. Not the part that survives alone. Not the part that calculates and steps where I cannot see. I want the part that looks at me and knows I would destroy everything for you and chooses me anyway."

Elias exhaled, unsteady. "And I do choose you. Every day. But I will not stop being myself to make that choice easier for you."

Victor moved.