6. Eating Vegans Is Vegan
The penthouse shone with the kind of violent light that made bloodstains look like design choices.
Silas was draped across an armchair like an abandoned opera costume — all silk, stillness, and the faint sense that someone had died dramatically in him once. Possibly recently.
He hadn’t moved in hours.
The door clicked.
Rufus entered like a crime in a suit — collar sharp, teeth sharper, and cologne that promised a good time coupled with some blood loss. He moved like a man with somewhere to be and someone to ruin.
Unashamedly hot.
Untrustworthy.
Definitely with plans that involved regret.
And gods, why did he have to smell so intoxicating? Something dark and spiced and utterly engineered to make Silas notice things he’d sworn to ignore.
Silas didn’t look up. That was the tell—Rufus had his attention.
He inhaled deeply before he could stop himself.
“I’ve got dinner,” Rufus said casually.
Silas swirled his drink. Took a slow, pointed sip. “Tragic.”
Rufus smirked as he shrugged into a bespoke dinner jacket like it owed him money.
“Potential buyer. He’s sniffing around for a disruptive acquisition. I’m thinking of making an exit from the antiques e-commerce gig.”
Silas blinked once. “You’re selling the marketplace for haunted relics?”
Rufus adjusted his cuffs. “Marketplace for emotionally volatile objects with backstory. Don’t make it weird.”
“Says the weirdest of them all,” Silas snorted, still not looking up.
“I’m not weird darling, I’m exquisite”, he grinned with a smile that could get away with murder and charge for the experience.
“We’re out of interns,” replied Silas dismissively, clearing his throat as if it might dislodge the treacherous thought of Rufus’ fangs on his inner thigh. “Try not to eat anyone important.”
“That was one time.”
“Twice.”
“I thought you were vegan.”
“Eating vegans is vegan.”
Rufus crossed the room with the casual arrogance of a man who thought he was the whole plot, not just the protagonist.
His suit was indecently well-fitted, and Silas couldn’t help but admire his criminally sculpted exit strategy.
His hair had been made to suffer for beauty.
He was practically glowing.
Silas finally moved. Just a tilt of the head. Just enough to see him — all of him — and the tension curled like smoke through his chest.
Rufus tilted his head while looking in the mirror to sort his tie. “Jealous?”
“Of dinner? Or delusion?” Said Silas, placing his wine glass on a glass table with slow, deliberate precision and baring his fangs slightly.
Rufus smirked and adjusting his collar with studied indifference.
“You’re going through a lot of trouble for a buyer,” Silas said, voice like steel. “Trying to close a deal or seduce one?”
Rufus grinned. “Why not both?”
Silas rose, not because he had to — but because he felt like making a point.
He walked across the room — slowly, methodically —and looked him up and down. Sharp. Unapologetic.
He didn’t hide the look.
And Rufus didn’t miss it.
“Interesting strategy,” Silas added, leaning close to Rufus’s ear to whisper,
“Be careful you don’t give yourself to someone who can’t handle you. You might get bitten, pet”
Rufus turned then. Smug. Dangerous. Alive with it.
He leaned close — close enough to breathe on Silas’s lips — and whispered,
“Like you can, old man?”
Then brushed past him, the soft brush of silk thrumming in Silas’ ears like thunder, without waiting for the answer.
”Who is this new victim of yours anyway?” croaked Silas, as he stalked off towards the drink cabinet like he’d been offered a kale smoothie at an orgy.
”Lucien Vale” pronounced Rufus with glee. “Handsome, rich and a reputation for devilish debauchery”. He winked as he opened the door to leave.
“I’d kiss you goodbye but then one of us might catch feelings.”
Silas stood very still as the door closed shut, like a lid on a coffin.
And only then did he notice he hadn’t been breathing. Not that he had to, but he found it comforting.
Lucien. Never did Silas think he’d ever want to hear that name as much as he did right now.
And just like that—the tension in his chest eased.
“Good luck with that,” smiled Silas to himself, ominously.
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emotionally volatile objects with backstory - Now that is how you market.
“Eating vegans is vegan.” - As a vegan, I object, on very self-interested grounds.
The penthouse shone with the kind of violent light that made bloodstains look like design choices. / Rufus entered like a crime in a suit — collar sharp, teeth sharper, and cologne that promised a good time coupled with some blood loss. / Rufus crossed the room with the casual arrogance of a man who thought he was the whole plot, not just the protagonist. - These are some truly beautiful and precise descriptions. I salute you.