Elias found him near the exit, half-shrouded in the pillar's shadow, where the gallery lights bled into a bruised twilight, less illuminating, more concealing. The untouched drink in his hand felt like an anchor, his knuckles white around the glass, and his face was a raw canvas of concern that he wore openly, unvarnished, solely for Micah.
"There you are," Elias said, his voice a low thrum of relief before it tautened into something sharp, dissecting. "I turned around and you just… dissolved. Thought you'd pulled your infamous Irish goodbye."
Micah flinched, shoulders coiling tight as if caught in some illicit act. His gaze, a hunted thing, darted back towards the main gallery, where Lucien still stood, a dark star at the heart of the crimson-and-black canvas, effortlessly drawing orbits around him.
Watching.
Always watching.
"I was just—" Micah's words snagged, then exhaled in a defeated whisper. "Talking."
Elias's eyes, keen and unblinking, followed the trajectory of Micah's gaze with immediate understanding. He missed little. His focus narrowed on Lucien, lingering, absorbing: the coiled grace of his posture, the subtle tilt of heads towards him, the unnatural stillness he commanded within the swirling motion of the crowd.
"That guy?" Elias asked, his tone deceptively light, yet edged with a careful, almost predatory, warning. "Tall, broody, looks like he eats souls for breakfast and picks his teeth with bone shards?"
Micah huffed, a fragile sound of amusement escaping despite himself. "You're being dramatic."
"Am I?" Elias tilted his head, reassessing, his gaze peeling back layers. "Because from over here, he looks like he's flaying you with his eyes."
Micah's skin prickled, a cold awareness crawling beneath his clothes. "He was just… interested in the art."
"Uh-huh." Elias took a small, deliberate step closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur, a protective barrier. "And you looked like a deer standing on a freeway."
"I didn't," Micah muttered, but the protest was hollow, devoid of conviction.
Elias softened, his shoulder brushing Micah's in a quiet, grounding pressure that spoke volumes. "Hey. I dragged you here, remember? My fault. But you don't have to entertain gallery vampires to justify the night, especially not ones who look like they want to drain you dry."
Micah's mouth twitched, a fleeting ghost of a smile. He cherished Elias for this—for seeing, for intervening without making him feel small or foolish. Elias had always been a blunt instrument when necessary, a tender hand when it truly mattered.
"He just… understood it," Micah said after a moment, the words tasting like a secret shared. "The piece. What it meant."
Elias studied him then, his gaze piercing, dissecting. The faint, tell-tale flush rising in Micah's cheeks. The restless clenching and unclenching of his hands, as if recalling a phantom touch, a tactile memory.
"Okay," Elias said slowly, the word drawn out, heavy with implication. "That part's fair. Still doesn't mean you owe him anything more than a polite nod."
Before Micah could even frame a response, a shadow, cool and profound, fell across them.
"Micah."
Lucien's voice slid into the space between them, smooth and effortless as a blade drawn from its sheath without a whisper of sound. Elias stiffened, an immediate, visceral reaction.
Lucien smiled, a perfect, calibrated curve of his lips that held no warmth, only a chilling precision. "I hope I'm not interrupting."
Elias turned fully now, squaring his shoulders, a deliberate, immovable block of defiance. He was shorter than Lucien, but broader, denser, radiating a solid, earthy strength.
"We were just heading out," Elias said, the statement flat, a definitive closing of a door. Not a question.
Lucien's gaze flicked to Elias—cool, assessing, momentarily curious—then drifted back to Micah, warming, deepening in a way that felt possessive, selective.
"Already?" Lucien said, a hint of genuine regret, or perhaps just a masterful imitation, in his voice. "That's a shame."
Micah swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. "Elias drove."
"Ah." Lucien inclined his head, a gesture of practiced courtesy. "Then I suppose I should be grateful I caught you when I did, before your escape."
Elias didn't miss the phrasing, the subtle implication of capture. His jaw tightened, a muscle jumping beneath his skin.
Lucien's attention drifted again—a slow, deliberate descent to Micah's hands, clasped nervously, almost hidden, within his sleeves. His eyes lingered, calculating, appreciative, as if measuring them for a perfect fit.
Elias subtly shifted, a small step forward, blocking the direct line of sight without making it overtly aggressive. "We should go," he said quietly to Micah, his voice a low, urgent current. "It's late. You hate crowds. And that sculpture with the exposed ribs is giving you the thousand-yard stare, like it knows your secrets."
Micah hesitated, caught between the two men, a moth between two flames. Lucien waited, patient, unhurried, a predator confident in its quarry.
"I'd still love to see your work," Lucien said gently, his voice a silken thread weaving around Micah. "Another time, perhaps. Somewhere quieter, more intimate."
The invitation hung heavy in the air, weighted with unspoken implication, a promise and a threat. Micah opened his mouth—
—and Elias cut in, his smile sharp and brittle, radiating a false, blinding friendliness. "He's very busy," he said, his voice laced with protective ice. "Very private, too. He prefers his work to be… untouched by curious hands."
Lucien regarded Elias with renewed interest, the previous warmth in his eyes receding, replaced by something colder, sharper, a sliver of steel beneath the surface. "I admire privacy," Lucien said, his voice a low purr. "It's where the most honest things live."
A beat passed, stretched thin and taut. The air felt suddenly rarefied, difficult to breathe.
Micah nodded, finally, the gesture small and tremulous. "Another time," he echoed, his voice unsteady, a fragile plea.
Lucien's smile returned, small and knowing, a dark bloom. "Of course. I can wait."
His gaze lingered a moment longer than necessary—on Micah's face, his throat, the nervous pulse at his wrist, his hands—before he turned and stepped back into the swirling crowd, seamlessly absorbed, a shadow dissolving into shadows.
Only when he was truly gone did Micah realize he'd been holding his breath, a silent, desperate gasp for air.
Elias let out a slow, measured exhale, as if releasing a suffocating weight. "Okay," he said, the word clipped. "So. That guy is intense. Like a black hole wearing a tailored suit."
"That doesn't mean he's dangerous," Micah said, though the words felt less certain, brittle on his tongue.
Elias didn't argue. He just looked at him, his gaze heavy with unspoken warnings.
"Listen," Elias said carefully, as they began to navigate the thinning crowd towards the exit, their footsteps echoing faintly. "You don't have to trust my instincts. But I've known you a long time, Micah. And you don't get that quiet, that… hollowed out, unless someone's gotten under your skin and started to burrow."
Micah's fingers curled, a phantom warmth still buzzing there, a faint echo of a touch that had never happened. "He made me feel… seen. Truly seen, not just observed."
"I get that." Elias stopped near the heavy gallery doors, turning to face him fully, his expression grim. "I just don't want 'seen' to turn into 'studied.' Or worse. Like you're a specimen."
Micah frowned, a knot forming in his stomach. "Worse how?"
Elias hesitated, his gaze sweeping over Micah's face, as if searching for something missing, something already taken. "Like… like he's trying to consume you."
The words struck Micah not like a blow, but a splinter driven beneath the nail, precise and lingering.
Outside, the night air, keen as a surgeon's blade, sliced through the gallery's cloying perfume, flaying it from his skin. Micah drew it deep into his lungs, a cold, clean balm attempting to mend the fissures opening within him.
Across the glass, Lucien stood, a statue carved from shadow and intent, watching them recede. His stillness was not passive; it was the coiled tension of a predator, the absolute focus of a collector.
Micah did not look back again. He couldn't.
But even as Elias's hand, a warm, anchoring weight, guided him toward the car, a chilling certainty settled in Micah's bones.
Something vital had been meticulously cataloged, every curve and contour mapped, every vulnerable seam memorized.
Not lost. Not yet.
But claimed.