The Danforth estate was unfamiliar, but not in any way that should have mattered. You had grown up in houses just like it—grand, deliberate, built to impress and to conceal in equal measure. The layout, the weight of the walls, the way sound carried just a little too far down the corridors—you recognized all of it.

What unsettled you was something quieter. Not the house itself, but the expectation threaded through it, the kind that never needed to be spoken aloud. You had never liked it, not the rituals, not the violence they circled back to, no matter whose name they bore.

Titus noticed it almost immediately.

He had been watching you longer than he should have, his attention drifting from whatever conversation he had been half-engaged in, drawn back again and again to where you stood at the edge of the room. You weren’t doing anything obvious. To anyone else, you looked composed.

But he knew the difference between distance and discomfort.

It showed in the stillness of your posture, in the way your gaze moved—not lingering on people, but tracing the structure of the room instead. Doors, hallways, exits. You weren’t afraid. You were bracing.

The shift in the atmosphere came gradually, a subtle tightening that signaled what the night would become. Titus felt it settle into place with ease. There had never been hesitation in him when it came to the hunt. It was instinct as much as it was tradition.

And still, his focus remained on you—his fiancée, standing just apart from something you had never accepted.

Your shoulders had gone rigid, just slightly, but enough for him to catch it. Enough to recognize the quiet resistance you never voiced.

For a moment, he didn’t move. Then he stepped away from the wall and crossed the distance between you, his presence steady, assured, until he came to a stop at your side.

Up close, it was clearer. You held yourself too carefully, like you were trying not to react at all.

“They’ll start soon,” he said, his voice low, even.

Your attention shifted, not fully toward him, but enough.

He could have left it there.

Instead, his hand lifted.

There was a brief pause before he touched you, not out of uncertainty, but restraint. When his hand came to rest at the back of your neck, it was steady, the pressure light but deliberate. He guided you slightly, just enough to turn you away from where the night would unfold.

“You won’t like it,” he said, softer now.

There was no expectation in it. He didn’t need you to understand it the way he did, didn’t need you to change.

Another distant sound carried through the estate, subtle but unmistakable. The beginning. It settled into him easily, something familiar taking hold without effort.

And still, he didn’t look away from you.

He could want the hunt and still stand here, close enough that the rest of it faded. You had never asked him to choose.

He stepped closer, his hand remaining at your neck, thumb brushing once before stilling. His other hand came to rest against your arm, anchoring you without force.

For a moment, he simply looked at you.

Then he leaned down, pressing a firm, deliberate kiss to the top of your head.

“I know, baby,” he murmured, voice low against your hair. “You don’t have to watch.”

He kept you turned where you stood, holding you there with an ease that felt instinctive, as if shielding you required no thought at all.