(A/N: I will be giving character descriptions when it’s their arc of focus to avoid traffic, ya?)
Not wanting to sit there looking weird and quiet, Damon turned toward Agrat and asked casually:
"By the way, Aunt Greta... how did that date go?"
The entire table went just a little still. Everyone had been carefully dancing around the subject all evening. Agrat’s arranged dates were dangerous ground of topic people only poked when they felt brave enough, because her irritation could silence a room faster than any of Asmodea’s lectures.
The whole family had spent dinner walking on their toes around it, waiting for one brave soul to scratch the surface.
The brave soul had a system, a plan, and absolutely no shame.
He scratched.
Agrat set her glass down with a sharp little click. The soft blouse shifted with the movement, drawing the eye for half a second to the heavy, full shape of her chest before she spoke — and Damon’s eye went exactly where it was drawn, took its half second, and returned to her face with professional calm.
"I’ll tell you one thing for sure, Damon. I am never going on another arranged date Asmodea sets up for her stupid business arrangements."
Damon raised an eyebrow, voice light and almost lazy:
"That bad, huh?"
He said it nonchalantly, handing her the open floor and the volcano she’d been capping all evening erupted on schedule:
"Can you believe how low masculinity has fallen these days, Damon?" she asked, genuinely offended. Her lips pressed together, and the faint scent of her perfume reached him across the short distance, warm and expensive.
He nodded, already fighting a smile.
She launched into the story with rising anger — describing how her date had spent the entire evening trying to look "cool." The details were painfully try-hard: the forced low voice that kept slipping back up an octave whenever he forgot to maintain it, the exaggerated posture, the way he kept adjusting his cuffs like he was in a cologne commercial only he could see, the man taking pictures like he was some excited girl.
The man was always oversharing his feelings in the first hour, laughing too loud at his own jokes, getting visibly nervous and filling every silence while complaining about work, his ex and how "women these days" are, making a scene about the food texture to look powerful and sophisticated, filming the restaurant and himself, sending food back twice for attention.
Damon almost felt sorry for her but he didn’t even try to hold back and laughed out loud, unrestrained, rich and shameless.
"Don’t tell me he actually did the—" he started, guessing the exact flavor of cringe that matched her first complaint. "The ordering thing; ’The lady will have the salmon.’ you didn’t even ask you."
Agrat pointed at him, eyes flashing;
"The lady would have liked the steak, Damon. But no, apparently his suggestion was ’more elegant for a woman.’" She air-quoted with visible violence. "And that’s not even the worst of it. Just that? Oh no. He also decided a real man opens his own wine. Waved off the sommelier — waved him off, like shooing a fly — grabbed a three-thousand-dollar bottle, and fought that cork for two full minutes. Two minutes, Damon with veins in his forehead. That low voice completely gone. And when the cork finally surrendered—" her jaw tightened at the memory, "—it went off like a gunshot and he sprayed half the bottle across the table. Across fuckin’ me. Imagine a vintage red wine on a white dress."
The table lost it and Damon had to even put his fork down.
"Can you believe it? What’s wrong with these trust-fund men lately? Luckily Asmodea had booked out the entire hotel restaurant, so it wasn’t a full public spectacle... but the staff still laughed. The sommelier he’d shooed away had to bring me towels while biting his own lip not to laugh. The embarrassment was unreal. I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me."
Damon shook his head, still grinning, his eyes flicked briefly to the way her full breasts rose and fell with her frustrated breathing that heavy, indignant rhythm that was doing more for him than her date had apparently ever done for her.
"Actually, I can believe it. You should see the shit other guys do and say just to look "cool". The bar has fallen so low it’s underground and it has archaeologists are studying it."
Lilim sighed and shook her head. "And here I thought old man Belrose taught his grandchildren something."
Agrat scoffed, leaning back in her chair. The movement pulled her top tight across her chest for one glorious, criminal moment. "Grandchildren? Try his own sons. Do you know what his second son did at the gala last weekend? Slipped his number to the catering girl — while holding his wife’s champagne. She was standing right there, Lilim. Talking to the mayor’s wife not even three feet away."
The table dissolved into fresh gossip and laughter. Damon leaned back, smiling openly, letting the conversation burn around him while his gaze lingered on Agrat a beat longer than it should have.
’And that, my friends, is how you light a flame under an entire table.’
His question hadn’t been random. He knew exactly who the date was — Darius Belrose, soft, performative, the human equivalent of a limp handshake, and precisely the species of man Agrat despised.
Damon’d struck the match knowing the room was full of gas.
And if that wasn’t enough of an edge—
He had Predator’s Gaze fully active.
[Agrat Corvin Viremont]
[Turn-ons: Gentleman · Supportive Partner · Masculine · Possessive · Discretion · Wide, strong, sculpted body · Well-endowed]
[Turn-offs: Feminine man · Lazy · Poor body · Imperceptive]
Damon read the lists and had to stop his smile from turning into something that would require explaining.
Because look at that.
The speech he’d given earlier about his type had already brushed several of her bars. And in daily life when he was not this pervert plottting to fuck his entire household females? Damon was masculine and a gentleman!
Lilith had raised him that way and drilled it into him before he was tall enough to reach the good liquor.
Asking about her date, flowing with her rant, laughing at the right beats — that was the supportive-partner box quietly ticking itself, although she wouldn’t see it that but just her nephew enjoying her misery.
He couldn’t clear every bar in one night. Didn’t need to.
She expected nothing from her cute nephew, which meant every bar he cleared in the next days were going to land as a surprise, and surprises were how a 5 became a 50.
[Desire Meter: 05/100 — Good luck with that, Host. "Just my cute nephew."]
Damon’s eye twitched.
’Well, ain’t you a bitch, System.’ Five percent, and it came with commentary. ’Rub the salt in, why don’t you.’
[Thirst Gauge: 20/100 — Rarely thinks about sex or gets horny.]
’Kill me. Kill me already.’
Ninety sat on one side of the table, twenty on the other.
Eisheth was a forest fire looking for an excuse; Agrat was a locked cellar in winter. His cock, which had been enjoying a pleasant half-interested evening against his thigh, received the number twenty like a personal insult and reacted once in protest.
But then the panels kept going, and the cellar turned out to have a very interesting wine collection: