[BL]Hunted by the God of Destruction Chapter 34: Your domain

Elias didn’t answer.

Couldn’t.

His throat felt like it had been scraped raw from the inside, and every attempt at speech died sowhere behind his teeth. He stared at Victor for a beat too long, still trying to find footing in a conversation that had sprinted straight off a cliff, and realized, with sothing close to horror, that his fingers were still clutching the edge of the blanket beneath him like it might stop him from floating away.

His chest was rising and falling too fast from a kiss he never asked for but proved that Victor was right.

Victor had kissed him with the sole purpose of proving to him sothing he didn’t want to believe from words.

And worse, worse, his body had responded.

His mouth still tingled where Victor’s lips had touched it, where his tongue had slipped past Elias’s lips and left sothing marked behind. His breath caught again, and with it ca the ghost of Victor’s taste: alcohol, yes, expensive and smooth and old enough to hum in the bloodstream, but also him. That scent, clean, dark, and terrifyingly warm, had twined around Elias and still hadn’t let go.

And his body...

God.

His body was humming.

Not just with power, but with the residue of sothing more.

The divine energy that had torn through him still lingered, woven into his skin, crackling just beneath the surface like the aftershock of a storm that hadn’t quite passed. It left his fingertips tingling. His spine was too aware. His lungs were too full of a presence that shouldn’t be there but was.

Elias hated him for that.

He hated him for kissing him like that.

And worst of all, he hated the part of himself that had kissed back.

A tremor ran through him. Not violent, just enough to make his ankle throb, just enough to remind him he was still in his body and that body hurt. His mouth still tingled. His limbs still felt like they were holding too much heat in the wrong places. And sowhere in his chest, just under the sternum, he could still feel that pulse of Victor’s power, like a second heartbeat that wasn’t entirely his.

The silence stretched between them, elastic and sharp.

"I should hit you," Elias muttered finally, the words dry, cracked, and half-spat, like they’d clawed their way up his throat just to survive.

"You will be the only one hurt." Victor said, looking at Elias’s bandaged hands.

Elias raised his gaze.

And across from him, just far enough to make Elias feel cornered, Victor stood.

Stood.

Tall. Impossibly so. He wasn’t leaning on the chair anymore and wasn’t frad by velvet and gold like so poised statue on a wheeled throne. No, now he was upright, elegant in that unhurried, devastating way that only ancient things moved.

The lamplight kissed the edge of his sharp jaw and ran down the lines of his lean fra, all long limbs and broad shoulders dressed in quiet luxury. His robe fell open just slightly at the collar, revealing a glimpse of skin and a gold chain, too perfect to be accidental. His hair caught the glow, his posture unbending, still, the stillness of soone who didn’t need to posture to dominate a room.

His head was tilted, just a little. Just enough to study Elias the way one might study a rare discovery, sothing delicate, volatile, and undeniably theirs.

And his eyes, gods, his eyes, burned low and steady, two smoldering garnets locked on Elias with a certainty that made the back of his neck go cold.

"Why are you standing? Was your wheelchair only for show?"

Victor humd, unbothered, his hands in his nightrobe’s pockets. "No, I need it if I don’t want to burn this body down. A hustle, really..." He pinned Elias down with his gaze, so intense that it sent shivers down Elias’s spine. "But the kiss filtered so of the rogue energy I had and now it’s easier to move it."

Elias made a sound, barely a breath, not quite a laugh. Bitter. Sharp around the edges.

"So I’m a... filter now," he said, the words brittle and half-laughed, as if maybe if he said it aloud it would sound less horrifying. "A glorified magical air purifier with a kiss-to-clean function. How charming."

Victor didn’t move. Didn’t so much as blink. He just watched him, that unreadable calm carved into every angle of his face, like the kind of patience that outlived kingdoms.

"Technically a body and soul to clean function."

Elias dragged a hand down his face, like he could wipe away the mory of Victor’s mouth, the burn under his skin, and the words still humming in the air between them.

"Oh, that’s so much better," he muttered into his palm. "Soul filtration. Excellent. I’ll put it on my résumé. Can handle high-stress environnts, run a lab, and purify the divine rot out of unstable demigods with a single kiss. References available upon request."

Victor tilted his head again, as if Elias was being needlessly dramatic. Which, to be fair, he was, but not without cause.

"You’re still alive," Victor said evenly, like it was a favor Elias ought to be thanking him for.

"I was alive before your tongue ended up in my mouth," Elias snapped.

There was a beat of silence. Then, maddeningly...

Victor smiled. Quiet, devastating, and far too satisfied for soone who had just been called out for unsolicited magical snogging.

"Well," he said, voice smooth and dangerous, "you wouldn’t believe . So I brought proof."

He gestured lazily to the space between them, to Elias’s still-shaking fra, and to the way the room itself felt warr now, charged, like the walls were holding their breath.

"Isn’t this your domain?"

Elias let out a strangled noise, half laugh, half growl, that barely made it past his raw throat.

"My domain?" he echoed, disbelief laced through every syllable. "You kiss like a divine power socket and now you’re talking about domains?"

"You’re the one who stabilized ," he said gently. "You filtered the overload."

Elias stared at him. Blinked once.

"That’s not romantic," he said flatly. "That’s nuclear engineering with tongue."

Victor grinned, an actual grin, wide and unrepentant.

"And it worked."

The pillow hit him square in the chest.

Victor caught it one-handed, tucked it under his arm like ceremonial regalia, and looked annoyingly pleased about it.

"I hate you," Elias muttered, fingers still trembling against the blanket.

"No," Victor replied, tipping his head, eyes gleaming. "You just haven’t had ti to love yet."

The silence that followed was heavy enough to buckle stone, Elias didn’t feel the need to argue with the alpha in front of him.

Then, unbothered, annoyingly composed, Victor turned toward the hallway. "We should go."

Elias blinked. "Go?"

Victor glanced back. "Yes. You rember the part where assassins want your insides as souvenirs?"

"I just got here."

"And now you’re just leaving. You can sulk about it in my guest wing."

Elias dragged a hand down his face. "I’m not sulking."

Victor walked past him, brushing his fingers across Elias’s shoulder in a touch so casual it burned. "Of course not. You’re radiating reluctant doom like a noble cat forced into a new carrier."

He paused at the doorway. "Your coat’s in the hall. You can glare at all the way there."

Elias didn’t move at first. His body felt like it had only just begun reassembling after the storm Victor had poured through him and now it was expected to walk?

Victor waited. Not impatiently. Just stood there, tall and elegant and irritatingly amused, like this was all unfolding exactly as he’d pictured.

"I’m going to regret this," Elias muttered, finally pushing himself up.

Victor smiled like the devil welcoming a soul.

"You’re going to survive it," he said. "That’s a start."