I call him the devil because he makes me want to sin
(and every time he knocks, I can't help but let him in)
Bruise drinks in the scent of him like a predator, the sickly sweet want of a boy looking for someone to command him, the easy prey laid out before him like a feast. He does not even need to pull onto the strings of the Fear, although they brush lightly along the edges of it, the reminder of everything he is capable of simmering just below the surface, empowering the arrogance in an already impossibly arrogant heart.
His gaze sharpens at the mention of his father, the interest cutting and quick, but the crushed velvet mouth remains still. It would be like his father to command this boy in front of him.
It would be like his father to drive the weak to their knees in worship.
Bruise considers him, peering over him like one might inspect an item to be bought. There is strength, perhaps, in the healthy and muscled body—but that does not interest him. Bruise had no need for physical violence, although even he could admit the allure in the cutting of flesh and the spilling of blood.
Instead, Bruise remains interested by the malleable mind that lies below the surface, pulsing and visible in the silence that stretches taut between them. That is a thing to take. That is a thing to make your own.
“Good,” he finally replies and there is the barest hint of a smile that is not quite a smile that begins to play at the edges of his cruel mouth. There is a hunger that begins to curdle in his stomach—the taste of wine that reminds you of an unquenchable thirst. There is a want for power that begins to tease at the edges of his mind, and the boy before him is nothing if not an invitation—an open door.
“Now you will serve me.”
It is not a question. Not a request. Instead, an order that he fully expects the boy to bow underneath, the weight of shackles against wrist and the press of yoke against neck. He steps forward, possessive, and presses his lips against the boy’s brow, teeth barely grazing the flesh—the taste of salt against his tongue.
“Kneel, Rapt.”
