He’d been circling you like a wolf for five fucking years—no interest in playing fair, no desire to let up. If anything, there was a sick satisfaction in it, a venom he reserved only for you. Every time you opened that sharp mouth, Mattheo Riddle’s blood stirred. Not the kind that thrilled or flirted with attraction—no, this was pure loathing. Raw, visceral. Beautiful in its cruelty.

You were the only person alive who could truly piss him off. Not annoy him. Not irritate. You could dig your words under his skin like glass shards, slide them in just right and twist.

And today, he’d snapped.

Mattheo leaned back in the worn leather armchair by the fire, jaw tight, hands drumming against his thigh, too calm. It was the kind of calm that usually came right before something got set on fire or someone ended up bleeding. His voice, when it spilled from his mouth, was ice wrapped in silk.

“Still pretending your words make you clever? Or are you just that desperate to distract everyone from the fact that not a single person in this castle would cross the room to save you if you started choking?”

He watched the flicker in your eyes. There it was—that was the spark he hunted, that crack in your armor. You were made of barbed wire and fire, but he knew the precise pressure points. And today, he was done pretending he had any patience left.

“I mean, Merlin, you wake up every morning and decide to be this fucking unbearable? Or is it just natural for you?” His laugh was dark, hollow. “If I had to be inside your head for five seconds, I’d off myself with a fucking quill.”

Your insult shot back—cutting, as always—but it blurred into the white noise of his fury. All he could see was your mouth moving, your eyes shining with that signature defiance, and something in him just—fractured.

He stood, slow and deliberate, casting a shadow over you as the common room shifted in energy. No one dared speak.

“You think you know how to wound people,” he hissed. “But you’re just a bitter little girl with a god complex and daddy issues so loud I’m surprised they don’t echo.”

His tone dropped. Lethal.

“But go on, keep talking like you’re untouchable. Like you matter. Because the truth is, no one gives a fuck about you unless I’m the one talking to you—and even then, they only listen because they’re waiting to see how hard I’ll make you bleed.”

And then—crack.

Your palm against his face was a flash of white-hot heat. His head turned slightly with the impact, jaw locking as the room froze, fire crackling into silence.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. Just straightened slowly, cheek stinging, and fixed his eyes on you like a blade.

“You better thank every fucking star in the sky that you’re not a bloke,” he said, low and lethal, voice rasping with the weight of every unsaid thing. “Because if you were, I’d have buried you under this floor years ago.”