[BL]Hunted by the God of Destruction Chapter 20: Ruined date and family memories

The car slowed to a gentle stop in front of the dorms, its lights washing across the cracked sidewalk and the dull grey exterior of the building. The city, even now, still glimred faintly behind them, towers outlined in electric gold, windows blinking with lives still awake. Elias didn’t look back.

He opened the door with a soft click and paused, hand still resting on the fra.

"Thanks for the ride," he said, voice low.

Matteo didn’t reach for him. He never did when Elias looked like this, drawn tight across the edges, too composed to be touched.

"Anyti," Matteo replied.

"I’m sorry," Elias added, not looking at him. "For the night. For ruining it."

"You didn’t ruin anything, but..." Matteo said with his usual charm. "I will consider that we are even after my failure."

Elias chuckled, "That was ten years ago; when will you get over it?"

Matteo humd. "When I’m buried with the embarrassnt, maybe."

Elias allowed himself a faint smile, one corner of his mouth ticking up as he stepped away from the car. "I’ll send flowers."

"Send a better apology," Matteo called after him, but his voice was light, without pressure.

Elias lifted one hand in a vague wave without turning around. He didn’t look back as the car pulled away, its quiet hum swallowed by the city’s breath. The night felt heavier now, not colder, just... saturated. With what he couldn’t quite na.

The dorm building lood, utilitarian and silent, its keypad blinking red until he pressed his ID to the scanner. The door clicked open. Fluorescent lighting greeted him with all the warmth of a hospital hallway.

He didn’t bother turning on the light in his room. The shapes were familiar enough in the dark: the ss of discarded clothes, the laptop still charging on the desk, and the window half-cracked to let in the noise of the city below.

He dropped his coat on the chair, toed off his shoes, and collapsed face-first onto the bed without ceremony. The sheets slled faintly of clean cotton and sothing chemical, like cheap detergent and institutional funding.

His fingers curled into the fabric. The silence pressed in.

—

Elias didn’t bother with the light when he entered the room. The air inside was cool, still faintly perfud by the detergent from his last laundry run and the sterile scent of sealed windows. The chaos of his clothes, half-folded shirts, academic robes, and two different lanyards, spilled across the desk and the edge of the bed.

He didn’t touch any of it. He walked to the bed and collapsed onto it fully dressed, face down, the soft press of fabric against his cheek the only thing grounding him.

His body didn’t ache, but sothing inside did. A slow, aching pull, like thread being drawn from sowhere deep.

He closed his eyes.

—

It hadn’t been dramatic.

There had been no shouting. No slamd doors. Just a eting.

A room lined in silver-trimd scrollwork, the Clarke family crest hanging over the mantel. Elias had been seventeen, maybe eighteen. He couldn’t rember exactly, just that he was still short enough to look up slightly when his father spoke but old enough to recognize the distance in his eyes.

"You don’t attend service anymore," Jonathan had said, voice level. "You haven’t taken communion in over two months. Your assigned reading is untouched."

"And I’m not a believer from when I was fifteen. Tell sothing new, father."

Jonathan didn’t flinch, his amber eyes watching the son he didn’t want running his mouth.

"You were expected to follow the Doctrine until inheritance protocol. To finish what was laid out for you."

He said it the way one might recite a contract clause without feeling, only weight.

Elias sighed, running his right hand in the soft brown hair, longer than he was wearing it now.

"Father, there was nothing expected of ; honestly, we would be better if you and mother would just admit that you didn’t want . My sister is a dominant alpha; she is to be married to another dominant alpha. Anna already did the family’s duty to the Nun God."

Jonathan’s jaw didn’t move, but sothing in his expression pulled tighter. A small adjustnt. Barely perceptible.

"You were the balancing piece," he said at last, as if Elias had just misunderstood his role in a carefully plotted diagram. "Your designation made you eligible. Compatible. Politically useful."

Elias dropped his hand from his hair and let it fall to his side, fingers flexing once like he was bracing for sothing that had already happened.

"I’m not your toy to play with. Screw your Gods and everything they want. They need more than I need them."

Jonathan’s eyes narrowed, not with fury, but sothing colder. A calculation shifting behind amber irises like frost forming over glass.

"You speak as if you matter outside this house," he said, each word honed to draw blood. "As if being recessive isn’t a flaw to be tolerated. You’re alive because we allowed it. Because we thought—" He stopped, just short of saying sothing irretrievable.

But Elias already knew.

Because we thought we could use you.

He took a breath and laughed, low and bitter. "So there it is."

Jonathan’s expression didn’t flicker. "Do not mistake tolerance for acceptance. You are not Anna. You are not dominant. You’re barely oga."

Elias stepped forward, not to close the distance, but to make sure every word landed like a strike.

"Then do what you’ve been circling around for years. Disown ." His voice didn’t rise, but it cut. "I’ve heard every whisper. I’ve seen the looks. And you know what? Maybe it’s for the best."

He exhaled once, slowly, to clear the venom from his mouth before it beca sothing less precise.

"For anyone else, being a recessive oga would be considered a miracle. A gift. But for you? I’m just an inconvenience you can’t rewrite into dominance. I can’t change my biology to et your expectations, and I wouldn’t if I could."

Jonathan’s hands folded neatly behind his back.

"You were never expected to beco dominant," he said. "Only obedient."

Elias laughed, short and sharp. "Obedience isn’t a secondary gender, Father."

Jonathan’s jaw ticked, just once. "You speak like soone who doesn’t understand how fragile power is. You carry our blood, our na, if you think that shields you without loyalty, then you’re more naive than I thought."

"I’m not naive," Elias said, voice suddenly low, dangerous. "I just finally understand what I am without you."

He stepped back, letting the distance grow cold between them again.

"I’d rather be disowned than disposable."