Pledged Silence

| CHAPTER TWO |

Breakfast the next day was rather awkward at the start. Archer and Moloch would catch each other's gazes once in a while and normally the human's facial expression was one that read 'do something to make this less awkward' which would make Moloch frown slightly, but as they talked more with Lilith, Moloch frowned more and got even more embarrassed.

"So, did you boys have a fun night?" Lilith asked halfway through breakfast, grinning widely at Archer while then looking at Moloch with a raised eyebrow, as if expecting a reply to her question soon.

Moloch nearly choked on his orange juice the second the question was asked, managing to keep himself from coughing out loud even though his eyes watered a bit from the effort.

Archer and Lilith shared a wicked smile seeing him struggle and almost as if on instinct or some weird bond, they both decided that they would have massive fun teasing the prince.

"Oh yes, quite the son to have there," Archer purred, leaning back in his chair slightly and crossing his arm over his chest, his face expression innocent while he ignored Moloch's suspicious gaze on him. "He's good at listening to orders."

As if on que, a loud pop echoed through the room. Moloch covered his burning face, not wanting anyone to see just how red it was and servants that stood around the room tried to stifle their laughter yet most of them were quite shocked, as the prince barely got embarrassed and not many people teased him like this.

Lilith licked her lips to hide her grin and looked back at Archer, her face one of deep amusement. "Really now?" she asked, acting slightly surprised by that. "He was quite a stubborn child."

Archer leaned forward against the table, his eyes swirling with mischievousness. "Please, Lilith, do tell," he said sweetly, sending the prince that sat across him a wide grin.

"Alright," Moloch interrupted instantly at that, needing this to stop before his mother started talking about embarrassing childhood stories that he didn't want to hear ever again, "I think that's breakfast done. Mother how long do you plan on staying?"

"Ah well, you see... I'm just loving getting to know Archer so much that I decided to cancel my plans," Lilith stated. "So I now have three whole weeks with you both." She smiled.

Moloch's faces turned stony at those words, Archer could see he was about to comment and he knew instantly he had to intervene before that happened. "Oh, that's wonderful! Right, dear?" Archer kicked Moloch under the table.

"I think so," Lilith commented, not even noticing the sharp look that Archer sent towards her son as she pushed food around her plate with her fork. "Also my stay means we could introduce you to the rest of he family at Eikko's wedding."

"Wait, a wedding? Eikko?" Archer asked and froze slightly at that before he sent a slightly pleading look towards Moloch, as if pleading him to say that there was no wedding.

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that, my sister is getting married," Moloch mumbled, not looking too happy about the whole thing.

"You didn't tell your husband about your sister?" Lilith hissed at Moloch, looking at him with a disapproving facial expression that basically screamed 'why the hell not?', and Moloch only shrugged being used it.

"What does it matter?" the prince asked, leaning back in his seat slightly and rasing his eyebrow at his mother; something he knew for a fact she hated when he did it. "I've got four other sisters anyway."

"Four?" Archer blinked, slightly shocked.

"And three brothers." Moloch grinned at him, showing off his pearl white teeth, but that only made Archer frown deeply as he thought about this whole mess. Who in the actual world had such a big family anyway?

Lilith blew out a frustrated breath. "Stop trying to traumatise him, Moloch," she ordered, giving him yet again a sharp look. "And you should have told him of your siblings." She put her fork down, but still continued staring at her son with a frown.

"Yeah, well, it was nice not being overshadowed for once," Moloch muttered, looking down at the table.

"Oh, stop being overdramatic," Lilith sighed, shaking her head slightly, not believing that he was talking about being overshadowed in a conversation like this.

"Sorry to interrupt his little argument, but could I borrow you?" Archer turned to Moloch, his face black. The prince nodded and the two boys headed to Moloch's office.

"You said this wouldn't last long," Archer said straight away. "Now we have to be 'married' for two weeks and fool your whole family. What are you going to do when I leave?"

Moloch froze slightly at Archer's words. What was he thinking? He should just tell his mother that him and Archer aren't married. But looking at the frowning human he realised he didn't want Archer to leave... so soon.

"Don't worry," he said instead. "After the wedding mother will probably go back to where she came from, meaning the family castle, this is really nothing that you should be concerned about, Archer."

The human sighed. "You can't keep lying to her," he told him, shaking his head slightly and looking around the office a bit, taking in the huge numbers of bookshelves and the desk that sat in the middle of the room.

"I know," Moloch muttered and thought for a moment. "Tell you what, how about I take you out tomorrow to make it up to you?"

"Like a date?" Archer mumbled suddenly feeling a bit awkward, shifting on his feet now and not looking straight at Moloch.

"If you want." Moloch scratched the back of his neck tentatively. He cleared his throat and looked straight at Archer. "Plus, mother will be ecstatic about this."

Putting his face in his hands, Archer sighed in what seemed like defeat to Moloch and he muttered, "Alright, whatever."

Moloch grinned triumphantly. Even though he knew that this whole thing was fake he couldn't stop the rush of excitement he felt about the now upcoming date.

"We should head back now, won't your mother get suspicious?" Archer grumbled, looking away from the grinning Moloch.

"Yeah, probably. Oh and one more thing." Moloch wrapped his fingers around Archers wrist pulling him closer. "Stop teasing me. It's not fair," he whispered to him.

"No promises." Archer grinned at him. "Wait... what do you mean not fair?" he called out a second later to the retreating figure as Moloch left him in the office.