Horst isn't expecting to be hit at precisely that moment. He's usually drastically better at dealing with people than this, and congratulates himself on being not much of a man of violence. When Nuada moves up into his space, Horst has an opportunity to stop him, or move away, or at least try -- but where Nuada, in the same situation, might've prepared for a fight, Horst's instinct instead is to wait and see what he does. He is, after all, a vampire: it makes him a bit apt to risk afterlife and limb on the belief that nothing can really harm him.

His cheek stings where he was struck, and Horst stands there, blinking in surprise at having actually been hit.

When he gets over his disbelief, he finds Nuada still in his personal space, clutching him by his waistcoat. That doesn't bode well at all.

It's been quite a while since Horst has had cause to fear the dark, or the things that lurk in it -- before he became one himself -- but it does stir a flicker of memory or two: as a boy, scuttling up the stairs sideways like a crab once, so he could put his back to the wall for fear of an unknown assailant slipping a knife between his shoulderblades; Johannes crawling into Horst's bed to curl up in a tiny ball against his back after the first time Mother stopped letting him leave the lamp lit till he fell asleep; creaking noises in the gloom that father explained were 'just the house settling its bones.'

Horst lays a hand over Nuada's wrist where he's still holding him by the waistcoat and offers a cool, polite smile. "I think there's been some misunderstanding."