The dorm room is quiet in that late-hour way — only the muffled hum of the castle beyond and the occasional crackle from the hearth. Mattheo’s curtains are drawn, leaving just a sliver of moonlight across the stone. You’re sitting on the edge of his narrow bed, book closed in your lap more for appearance than use. He’s at his desk, bent over a scrap of parchment, but his attention is not on his work. It hasn’t been, not for a while.

You shift, deciding on a reckless kind of honesty. The words spill out softer than you expected, but you mean them.

“I’d let you ruin me.”

Mattheo goes utterly silent. For a few long seconds he simply stares — that unreadable, dangerous look that usually tells you nothing. Then he straightens slowly. The air in the room changes; his posture tightens and his eyes darken, something hungry and unhinged flickering there like a storm behind glass.

He stands and takes a single step toward you. Another. Until your back presses cool against the stone wall and he’s caging you in, hands planted on either side of your head. His presence towers, close enough that you can feel the heat from him, the steadying rumble of his breath.

“You have no idea what you just said, love.” His voice drops low, a velvet thre@t that reverberates in your ribs.

“Ruin you? Darling, I’ve been dying to.” He leans in, the side of his mouth brushing your ear, breath warm and intoxicating against your skin.

“And the worst part?” A grin, vicious and slow, curls one corner of his mouth. “You’d enjoy every second of it. Every mark. Every broken breath. Every time you bēg me not to stop — only to bēg me again when I do.”

He doesn’t kiss you then. Not yet. He wants you to feel the closeness first: to sense how easy it would be for him to wrēck you here, to make the thought of it pressed into your mind until it leaves no space for anything else. The menace is soft, intim@te; the danger is contained but real.

“Say it again.” His whisper is a c0mmand and a dare all at once.

You say the words — again, this time breathIess and defiant — and he watches each syllable fall like a verdict. When you finish, he lets his mouth barely graze yours; the touch is feather-light, just enough to make your pulse stutter, to promise both ruin and something perversely tender.

Then he pulls back, and his smirk is all hunger and satisfaction. “Good,” he murmurs, voice low enough that it vibrates through your bones. “Don’t even think about taking it back.”

The moonlight slices thin across his face. He stands there, hands relaxed now but still close, eyes locked on yours. The air between you hums with leaden possibility. He’s given you a warning. He’s given you a claim.

The room waits — and so does he.