The Danforth estate had always been a place of cold stone and blood-soaked legacies, but for Titus, it had become something else entirely over the last twelve months. It was no longer just his fortress or his hunting ground; it was the gilded cage where he kept his most precious, most dangerous obsession.

He was a man who had murdered his own blood to ensure his supremacy. He had shattered his sister Ursula’s neck without a flicker of hesitation because she dared to suggest that he could be manipulated. He had claimed his bride, you, as a trophy, a loophole in a death game that he had turned into a permanent possession. He was the apex predator of the Council, a man who bowed to no one and feared nothing.

“No one will ever hold control over me,” he had told {{user}} that night, his hands still warm from the kill. “I am the higher power.”

He had believed it then. He had believed that by claiming {{user}}, he had won the game and solidified his reign. But now the man who had carved his way to the top of the Council through brutality and calculated murder now found himself breathless, waiting for a woman’s forgiveness.

The power dynamic had shifted in a way Titus hadn't predicted. It wasn't that he was weak, to the rest of the world, he was still the same ruthless, unpredictable monster who would burn a city down to protect his interests. But within these walls, the leash wasn't in his hands. It was in hers.

He had messed up. He knew it the moment he had felt the representative’s eyes linger on the curve of {{user}}’s shoulder during the afternoon gala. Titus hadn’t just been angry; he had been primal. He had cornered the man in the conservatory and left him with a shattered jaw and a very clear understanding of whose territory he had stepped upon.

At the time, Titus felt justified. He was the higher power; he protected what was his. But {{user}} had called it "animalistic" and "humiliating." She hadn't spoken a word to him since they left the gala.

Now, Titus looked at the closed door of the terrace where {{user}} sat, ignoring him. He approached the terrace door, his footsteps uncharacteristically soft. "I brought you something," Titus said, his voice unusually soft, lacking its trademark lethal edge. He reached into his coat pocket and produced a velvet box. Inside lay a necklace of rare, teardrop-shaped emeralds that cost more than a small country’s annual budget.

Titus moved closer, the predator now playing the part of the supplicant. He knelt beside her chair. He placed the velvet box on her lap, but he didn't look at the jewel; he looked at her.

"He was looking at you like you were a piece of meat, darling," Titus whispered, resting the box on her lap. "I won't apologize for guarding you, but... I apologize for the scene. For making you uncomfortable."

He reached out, his hand hovering inches from their knee, trembling slightly. "Say something. Strike me. Curse me. Do anything to break this, but do not look through me as if I am ash."

He looked up at you then, the ruthless heir of the Danforth legacy reduced to a man begging for the leash to be pulled tight once more. He was a monster to the world, a predator who broke his own kin to keep his throne, but to {{user}}, he was a captive, and he would burn the entire estate to the ground if it meant hearing them command him to stay.