Valen didn't retreat far just enough to force Elias to feel the absence of his mouth, the loss of that cool, deliberate pressure. He stepped around him like a predator circling prey that had already been snared, every movement measured, every silence calculated.
"You want the truth" Valen said softly, coming to stand behind Elias. "But truth is like blood ,taken too quickly and it leaves you dizzy. Drained."
Elias's eyes narrowed, but he didn't turn. "And you'd prefer I starve on half-answers?"
Valen's breath ghosted over the back of his neck, the faintest brush of lips just shy of touching skin. "No. I'd prefer you starve until you'd sell your soul for the rest."
Elias's pulse stuttered, heat coiling in a place that had nothing to do with desire for knowledge at least not the kind he'd admit aloud.
Valen's hand slid slowly up Elias's arm, fingers dragging just enough to make his skin hypersensitive. He didn't grip. Didn't restrain. He didn't need to. "Tell me" Valen murmured "what would you do for the answer? What would you give?"
"I'd give nothing" Elias said, though his voice betrayed a faint hitch. "You think you're in my head but..."
"I don't think" Valen interrupted, his tone almost indulgent. "I know."
His fingers reached Elias's shoulder, kneading once, before trailing down his chest with such maddening slowness that Elias's breath caught.
Valen leaned closer, lips brushing the shell of his ear without quite kissing. "I know you've been imagining it. Not the servants. Not their fate. Me. What I'd do if you asked too much."
Elias swallowed hard, refusing to confirm, but Valen could feel the truth in the tense set of his jaw.
"You're clever" Valen went on, his voice a velvet chain. "But cleverness is just another kind of hunger. And hunger" His mouth finally touched skin, just at the base of Elias's neck. ''is the easiest thing to exploit."
Elias's hands curled into fists at his sides. "You think I'll break first."
"I know you will" Valen said simply. "Because I've been breaking you since the moment you stepped through my door."
The words sank in like claws. Elias's chest rose and fell faster now, his thoughts a tangle of anger, want, and unrelenting curiosity.
Valen smiled against his skin, pulling away just enough to let Elias breathe and feel the gaping emptiness where that cold, electric presence had been.
"Tomorrow" Valen promised, already walking toward the door "I might give you a little more. Or I might give you nothing. You'll come either way."
And with that, he left Elias alone in the firelit room, the silence around him somehow louder than Valen's voice had been.
Elias hated him for it.
Hated him for making him desperate enough to admit, even silently, that Valen was right.
The manor was too quiet.
It was the kind of quiet that pressed against the ears, heavy and deliberate like something was listening, waiting, rather than absent. Elias lay in bed far too long, staring at the canopy above, replaying the same thought over and over. ''Where are his servants?''
He'd been here for days now, drifting from one conversation with Valen to the next like a moth circling flame. And yet not once had he seen another living soul cross the marble halls. No footsteps down the corridors. No hands replenishing the fire. No eyes peeking in from the shadows that weren't Valen's.
Not normal. Not in a house this size.
It was well past midnight when he slipped from bed, pulling his coat loosely around his shoulders. The air in the hallway was colder than his room, the kind of cold that carried whispers. His bare feet made no sound on the stone, but the firelight from sconces cast long, trembling shadows across the walls.
He didn't know where he was going. Only that he needed to find something ,anything that proved Valen wasn't the only creature under this roof.
The corridor opened into the main gallery, moonlight streaming in from the glass dome above. Every inch of the place gleamed like it had been polished only hours ago. By who? he thought, brushing a hand over the banister. There was no dust. Not a speck.
He moved toward the west wing, where Valen had once told him the private quarters for staff would be had they still been alive. The doors there were shut tight, brass handles cold to the touch. Locked.
Elias's jaw tightened. He rattled the first door. Nothing. Tried the next. Again, nothing.
The third, however, clicked open with an ease that startled him.
Inside...nothing. No furniture. No bedding. Just bare wooden floors and walls that smelled faintly of ash.
He was still staring when the hairs on the back of his neck rose.
"You'll catch your death in here" Valen's voice murmured from the dark.
Elias spun, pulse leaping. Valen stepped out from the shadowed corner as though he had been there the entire time, one hand sliding idly along the doorframe. Barefoot. Shirt unbuttoned to the sternum. His hair unbound and loose around his shoulders.
"You walk light" Elias said, masking his jolt with a wry tone.
"You listen poorly" Valen countered, closing the door behind them with a soft click. "This wing is off limits."
"Why?" Elias asked, matching his gaze.
Valen's eyes gleamed like a predator amused by the audacity of its prey. "Because there is nothing here you need to see."
"Which" Elias said, stepping closer, "is exactly why I need to see it."
The air between them tightened, drawn thin by something unspoken. Valen didn't move at first , only watched him. Then, deliberately, he began to close the space. His steps were unhurried, silent, like liquid shadow.
Elias held his ground.
By the time Valen reached him, the cold wall was at Elias's back. Valen's palm came to rest beside his head, trapping him there without force. His other hand hovered near Elias's collar, not touching yet the heat radiating from it slid beneath Elias's skin like smoke.
"You have a terrible habit" Valen murmured, his voice velvet and heat all at once. "You dig. And dig. And dig. Until you're ankle-deep in graves that should remain sealed."
Elias's breath hitched despite himself. "And if I'm not afraid of what I'll find?"
Valen's lips curved, slow and knowing. He leaned in, close enough for the faintest brush of breath against Elias's ear. "That is what makes you dangerous to me."
His fingers finally made contact, ghosting along the edge of Elias's throat not a grip, but a mapping. Elias swallowed, the motion brushing his skin against Valen's fingertips. The sensation sent a heat curling through his chest, sharp and unnerving.
"You're trying to scare me off" Elias said, voice quieter now.
"No." Valen's gaze dropped to his mouth before returning to his eyes. "I'm trying to make you understand that curiosity has a cost. And if I decide you're ready to pay it..." His thumb traced the line of Elias's jaw, a barely-there touch that set his pulse hammering. "You won't get to choose how."
Elias could feel his own restraint fraying at the edges, like parchment in firelight. "Maybe I've already decided."
Something flickered in Valen's expression. Hunger. Admiration. Possession.
He leaned even closer, until Elias could feel the faint press of his body, the whisper of fabric brushing fabric. "Then let me help you decide… properly."
Before Elias could reply, Valen's fingers slid up into his hair, not pulling, just holding him there as he tilted his head slightly, their lips so close that every breath felt shared. But he didn't kiss him. Not yet.
Instead, he let the tension coil tighter.
"You want to know where my servants are?" Valen's voice was a blade's edge wrapped in silk. "Ask yourself why you've never heard them. Why their rooms are empty. Why the fires light themselves and the halls remain spotless."
Elias's fingers flexed against his own sides, every nerve awake.
"And if I did?" he asked.
Valen's lips brushed the corner of his mouth not a kiss, just a promise. "Then you'd be standing exactly where you are now… except with nowhere left to run."
The way he lingered there ,breath mingling, body radiating heat made Elias's thoughts dissolve into something raw and wordless. Every instinct screamed to close that last inch, to break the careful restraint that kept them circling instead of colliding.
But Valen, damn him, stepped back.
Just far enough that the absence of his touch felt like an ache.
Elias exhaled shakily, masking it as best he could. "You're infuriating."
"I'm patient" Valen corrected, moving toward the door. "And I will have my answer when you're ready to break, not before."
The door opened with a quiet groan. He glanced over his shoulder once, eyes glinting. "And Elias?"
"Yes?"
"When you do break…" His smile was slow, unhurried, lethal. "I'll be there to catch you."
Then he was gone, leaving Elias in the cold, empty servant's room with his pulse racing and his curiosity burning hotter than it ever had.