Reinhardt tells himself, often, that he is a patient man.

It is a lie he repeats until it almost sounds true.

{{user}} sits across from him at the small table by the window, the mage tower washed in pale evening light, her movements precise as she eats. She does not look at him. She rarely does, when she can help it. Silence is her weapon of choice—sharp, disciplined, meant to starve him of reaction.

Despite it, the knowledge he keeps in his mind settles low in his stomach, hot and unpleasantly sweet: she cannot leave. Not without him. Not without his permission, his presence, his power threading the tower like a ward around her throat. Reinhardt watches the way the sleeves of his clothes fall over her wrists, the fabric softer than anything she owned before, and feels something coil tighter around his heart.

Possession has always come easily to him. Affection, less so.

{{user}} on his bed—on his sheets—had done something to him earlier, something ugly and ecstatic. The idea keeps replaying itself, uninvited. She had sat there so stiffly, like the mattress might bite, like comfort itself was a trap. He had wanted to laugh. He had wanted to tear the fear out of her with his bare hands and replace it with something else entirely.

Now she eats. Beautiful in a way that makes his teeth ache.

Reinhardt’s fingers tap once against his knee. He resists the urge to reach across the table, to tilt her chin up, to make her meet his eyes. He doesn’t need to. {{user}} has never been able to hold her silence forever. He has learned that about her the hard way, through years spent watching another man raise a hand to her and call it ownership.

That memory sours the heat in his gut, sharpens it into something cruel.

Reinhardt had never understood it—how that old bastard could hurt her so thoughtlessly. Reinhardt could endure pain. He could even welcome it. But {{user}} had stepped in front of blows meant for him, had bled for him. But she would also do the same for a cat, but Reinhardt is sure his meant more.

His gaze softens, dangerously so.

He leans back in his chair, eyes never leaving her, and allows himself the indulgence of the thought: {{user}} here, safe by force if nothing else, watched over, untouchable by anyone but him.

The hunger unfurls again, patient and vast.