The corners of his lips twitch – and then a smile, and then a grin, and then a laugh like the elf has never heard anything funnier in his life.

Ophel laughs so beautifully that Voltur nearly forgets the insult.

When he calms down, a gorgeous flush to his cheeks, he remarks, “I do wish the young Miss Bridgerton the very best of luck in her endeavours.”

Elves are so very strange. He'd wonder if Ophel were deliberately doing this to disorient him, but apparently he's just like this. 

It's not, actually, very funny.

"It is not a joke to her. Nor to me, for that matter. Nobody else seems to believe that there is hope, but there must be a solution."

“Oh, there always is. There always is.” He stands. “Now, Your Grace, how about a tour of your marvellous estate?”

They cannot continue to speak freely in front of all these people, and clearly, there is much to discuss. Besides, Voltur eats like every meal might be his last. Understandable considering his background as a soldier, but rather distasteful to witness. The man’s plate already sparkles.

"No need to get up," he says lightly to the dwarves, and saunters out. 

This house was purchased from a fine upstanding family who "have no further use for it", which means they need the money because they backed the wrong side of the war in a big way.

It has all their effects and furniture - he paid extra for that - because Voltur thought that was the simplest way to fit in. 

It is extremely clearly not his house. He doesn't even know what all the rooms are for. 

His own quarters are a little different. Bedchamber moved to the furthest room from the stairs, lock on the dumbwaiter, heavy shutters on the windows, weapons concealed in interesting places. In the antechambers, a wide swept place for exercise, a little table with decanters and a little book of schoolboy's reading exercises. 

"Bringing me to your bedroom unchaperoned, Your Grace?" Ophel teases, peering around at the Duke's behest.

It is strange -- the bed seems perfectly untouched, as though preserved in a gallery. So where does the little bull sleep? Weapon after weapon, this place is more of a trap for the unsuspecting assassin than a resting chamber.

He raises an eyebrow at the third secret dagger he locates, this one sticking out from behind a pillow. "Ah, yes. The danger of trembling house-maids is rather well known amongst the ton -- although, customarily, it is for the vice of adultery rather than murder." The elf develops a wistful look in his eyes for a second, as if remembering some kind of pleasant half-memory. He absently trails his fingertips over the reading books. 

Oh by all the gods above and below surely he doesn't need a chaperone for - no, probably joking. Hilarious. 

"No housemaids allowed in here," he grunts. And they don't have the key and they think he sleeps somewhere else. "Only Talen, and if she wants me dead I'm already fucked." He fought and won a war against a dragon, he'd be dead already if he weren't paranoid. 

How curious.

“And yet you have invited me?” He meets his gaze, raising an eyebrow. “What a staggering display of trust. Your know very little of me.”

...

That is an excellent point. 

Why is he here?

...Well, he could probably take the elf. 

"You wanted to talk about something. Here's private."

Voltur gets the sense that he’s disappointed him, somehow.

He makes himself at home as his eyes scan the room. A fascinating Voltur-sized disturbance in the dust pattern, on the ground to the right, catches his attention.

“No – but there is much that you withheld from me at the dining table.” He smiles. “How are your wrists, little animal?” The insult is almost affectionate on his tongue.

He feels oddly naked standing here with the elf sitting there looking at him like that. 

There's warmth rising up under his collar, and he sharply rejects the urge to shift from one foot to another. And to rub his wrists self-consciously. 

"I've had worse," he says shortly. He still doesn't know why he did what he did in the elf's house, but there are no such enchantments here, he's sure of it. "What did you want to know?"

“You have had worse?” His eyes spark with the same kind of sadistic fire that Voltur remembers so well. “Tell me, where does the rejection from Miss Eloise rate on the scale of your past injuries?”

He glares at Ophel from beneath his brows. This is his home. The elf is not more frightening than the dragon, or the queen. He takes a step forwards. "I do not understand your interest in her. I met the woman a week ago; that we must be married because of the strange madness that afflicts the ton is a problem I intend to solve, or failing that a duty I intend to bear." It does hurt that she found the prospect so horrifying, but he's trying very hard not to think about that, though it does make sense that no real noble would actually want him once they knew him.

He takes Voltur’s wrists gently as he speaks, carefully rolling up those ducal sleeves to inspect the damage. Angry purple bruises are beginning to turn yellow at the edges. Ophel runs his thumb, ghost-like, over the marks he left.

“Do you think you could be happy with her?”

"Happy?" His face wrinkles in actual confusion - he hadn't thought of it. "I thought the aristocracy only ever married to get something out of it. Money or power, I mean. They're not supposed to, but they do."

“You told me, days ago, that you wish to be like them. You know nothing of who you are or what you want. You cannot even speak or read properly. It is no wonder she does not desire you.” The elf speaks in a low, sharp tone. He digs his fingertips into Voltur’s broken skin, sending waves of pain shooting up his arm. “Passive little creature that you are. Is that why you stayed on your knees, the other night? Is that why you took it?”

He's not even really conscious of it, but his hands move in a blur and suddenly he has the elf's dainty wrist pinned and twisted in one huge hand. 

His bones are so thin, so delicate. Like bird bones. He can feel them, how if he simply twitched his fingers he'd feel them feather towards the first break, just like that. He eases the pressure very slightly, and he speaks quietly. 

"I am the Duke Voltur Dragonslayer, elf. I know little of your pretty words and books and things young ladies like because I am stained in my own homeland's blood." He leans forwards, and the elf has to stumble back. "And I am learning the gentlemanly ways of the ton out of duty. Would you like me to stop?" 

Ophel’s breath falters. He looks up at the man before him, who holds his wrists perfectly in place with a single hand. 

The warrior shows himself at last.

Fear is not an emotion the elf often courts, nor is he accustomed to losing control – but here, now, it has been taken so easily from him, and his heart beats like the war drums that once lulled the Duke to sleep at night.

He exhales slowly through his lips, not even daring to flex his fingers. 

“It is a pleasure to finally meet you.”

It's like a veil has been torn from his eyes, as the old fire ignites in his veins. The elf is not so fearsome, like this, not so fearsome at all, the ancient gravity about him gone and replaced by this delicate helplessness, like a daisy in the morning dew. 

He's always been better able to speak with actions rather than words. 

And that is all the elf has - words, pretty ones, but only words. 

But he does crack a very small smile at that. 

He reduces the pressure a fraction more - just uncomfortable, now, not actually painful. 

"You have spoken a great deal of me, little of it true. What of you? You speak very rarely of yourself. Why even do... this?"

Is this how the deer feels, when it walks straight into the trap of his arrow?

“You did not ask,” he responds simply. The longer his hands are restrained, the further the flush creeps up his neck. “You… fascinate me. Dragonslayer.”

His tongue is not accustomed to being so loose. It grinds under the pressure, even as he speaks of one other than himself.

"Is that so." He's shifted a little now, less of a joint-lock, now just holding the elf's hands in a vice-like grip. He can feel Ophel's pulse, fast and bounding. "You never spoke of what you were doing here. Why leave Elfland? Why dwell here?"

His eyebrows lift. “Are you interrogating your guest now, Your Grace? Many would consider that rude.”

The elf is deflecting.

A small grim smile. "Not many people are like me. And I think you and I are beyond rude, aren't we? Answer me." Those last two words are hard like iron, the voice of cold command. 

Ophel grits his teeth and leans forward. He will not answer to a man. 

“Make me.”