CHAPTER 86: CHAPTER 86: SORRY

Victor didn’t raise his voice.

He didn’t have to.

Because the moment the words left his mouth, the ether in the room stirred like a beast roused from slumber, coiling low around the base of the greenhouse with the slow, insidious elegance of something that had no reason to hurry.

It began subtly, almost politely, like a trick of the light, an edge of red against the glossy marble, a flicker near the table leg, and then it wasn’t subtle at all. It wasn’t light. Vast. Hungry. Uncontainable.

The air itself thickened with it, scarlet and endless, a living tide pouring from the very center of Victor’s body, his skin humming with energy so old it shimmered. It stretched across the room like a sea of blood polished into glass, creeping across the floorboards, up the sides of chairs, and weaving into the cracks of the greenhouse structure like it had always been meant to live here, like it was returning home.

Elias felt it first in the pressure behind his ribs, that faint catch of breath that wasn’t quite fear but wasn’t not fear either, more akin to the primal, bone-deep knowledge that something in the world had just shifted and it would never return to what it had been.

He stared at the way the ether moved, at the impossible texture of it, at the weight of it, and at how it didn’t glow so much as it devoured the light around it. His hand, still resting near the tray, tensed slightly as if bracing against the shape of something immense. Something divine. Something that had stopped pretending.

And Victor... Victor, who had always been composed and sharp and half a mystery, was now fully, terribly, himself.

The God of Destruction didn’t snarl or roar. He simply existed in a way that erased doubt.

The chandelier above them gave a low, pained creak as the glass ornaments began to sway, the very structure groaning beneath the weight of the ether now thick in the air like a second atmosphere. Even the reinforced glass of the greenhouse, built to withstand everything but time, seemed to lean inward, like it understood it was in the presence of something older than architecture. Older than history.

Jonathan Clarke stepped back.

That one step, the subtle recoil of a man who had built his identity on certainty and control, was all Victor needed to know. His smile didn’t change, but something deeper in his eyes shifted, sharpening until those infernal crimson irises looked less like eyes and more like judgment carved into fire.

"I see," Victor said at last, and though the words were soft, the air tensed around them, like the room itself had braced for impact.

He rose with the kind of unnatural grace that no mortal body should have possessed, and yet here he was, unhurried and upright, every movement echoing with balance and menace, like the earth had learned to support him out of fear.

Jonathan opened his mouth, but the ether surged again and this time Elias flinched, just slightly, just enough to draw Victor’s attention.

The red flood paused.

Victor turned his head, but with something else in his eyes. Recognition. Understanding. And something like guilt.

He saw Elias, still sitting at the table, pale fingers curled slightly around the edge of his plate, and he saw what he hadn’t meant to show.

The god, unchained.

Victor exhaled once, and the ether pulled back as if drawn by gravity, slipping away from the walls, retreating beneath the cracks, leaving only the residue of divinity behind like smoke on a glass.

He straightened his collar and turned once more to Jonathan, whose defiance had already begun to splinter into unease.

"There’s no need to speak further," Victor said, now calm again, voice clean as polished stone. "I do not require explanations from men who only remain faithful when they’re given something to hold in their hands."

He didn’t wait for a reply.

"Adam."

The door opened instantly, like it had already known.

Jonathan turned to see the butler waiting, hands behind his back, face unreadable.

Victor didn’t look.

"You may escort Mr. Clarke out," he said, not unkindly. "I believe he’s seen enough."

Jonathan tried once more to look at Elias, but Elias, this time, didn’t flinch, didn’t fidget, and didn’t break.

He simply met his father’s gaze like a mirror that no longer reflected him, and then looked away, dismissive, before reaching for his cup again, fingers steady around the delicate porcelain, the movement casual enough to be cruel.

Adam stepped forward in silence, his presence a signal of formality more than force, but Clarke understood the boundary now. He didn’t argue. Didn’t bow. He just turned, shoulders stiff, as if unwilling to show the limp in his pride, and walked out the same way he came in: uninvited.

The door closed behind him with the soft, padded certainty of closure.

Only then did Elias let his breath escape, slowly, too slowly, like it had been lodged under his ribs for the entire length of the encounter, caught between muscle and bone where no one could see it tremble.

His hands remained still on the table, but his forearms had gone cold, clammy against the cool surface beneath the velvet cuff of his pajama sleeve. His spine was straight, perfectly held, but his pulse thudded traitorously in his throat, too loud in the aftermath, too aware that his body had registered what his expression had refused to admit.

Because the ether hadn’t just filled the room, it had pushed into him, scraped against the lining of his nerves, and wrapped around his chest like a second set of lungs not his own.

And now that it was gone, now that the pressure had receded like a tide from flesh and marrow, Elias felt hollowed. Worn out. Not afraid exactly, but... cracked.

He blinked down at the table, at his half-drunk coffee and his untouched toast, and felt something in his chest twitch, shallow, sharp, and unmistakably human.

He didn’t know Victor had that much power.

He’d known the legends.

But he hadn’t felt it. Not like this. Not the divinity pressed against his skin, not the storm folded into a man’s bones, not the unspeakable weight of something that should not belong to the same world as mornings and coffee and silk pajamas.

He had never once doubted that Victor was dangerous.

But this... this was more than danger.

This was what danger feared.

And he was trembling.

"Elias."

The voice was quiet.

Softer than it had any right to be.

He didn’t lift his head, not right away, not until the footsteps crossed the floor with that same smooth, impossibly soundless grace, and then Victor was there, next to the chair, tall and shadowed, the glow of morning caught in the strands of his hair and the softened edge of his cheek.

Elias looked up.

And saw not a god, but the man beneath it.

Victor reached down without ceremony, without command, and slid one arm around Elias’s back, the other beneath his knees, and lifted him gently from the chair like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Elias let him.

His hands twitched at first, unsure whether to resist, unsure if pride was worth the effort now that his body still buzzed from the force of power he wasn’t built to carry, but when Victor held him closer, carefully, like something fragile and furious and beloved, Elias exhaled again and let his hands rest against Victor’s chest.

"You’re trembling," Victor murmured, more observation than concern, but there was apology in it too.

"I know," Elias said, voice hoarse and quiet.

Victor adjusted his grip slightly, letting Elias lean into the warm, steady line of his chest, and pressed a kiss into his hair, slow, reverent, almost chastised.

"I’m sorry," he said, like the words had waited too long to be spoken. "I didn’t mean to startle you."