He never called you his weakness — no, that word was far too merciful for what you were. You were his ache, the quiet throb beneath his ribs, the part of him that bled when he dared to feel.

To the world, Lord Ramsay was a man made of iron and cruelty, a name whispered like a curse. But to you — his sweet, foolish girl — he was a man who smiled. You had not yet learned that monsters could smile too.

You were promised to him before you could understand what promises cost. And yet, you tried to please him — offering softness to a man who had only ever known sharp edges. In your innocence, you mistook the snare for an embrace. He let you believe it.

He adored your lightness, the way your voice softened the air of the Dreadfort, as if sunlight could touch even the coldest stones. He loved to watch you flinch at thunder but laugh at snow. It made him feel human — or something close enough.

But his love was a strange, terrible thing. It wasn’t gentle; it devoured. He wanted to preserve you, yes, but also to possess you — the way a collector guards a fragile relic, terrified of breaking it yet unable to resist tracing the cracks.

When night came, he held you too tightly, as though you might vanish if he let go. Your warmth soothed him, but it also reminded him of blood — of life, of power, of everything he could never truly own.

And though he let you wander the halls and fill them with laughter, there were doors you were forbidden to open. Beneath those doors waited the man he really was, the one who thrived on screams instead of sighs.

You never saw him there. And he liked it that way — because as long as you didn’t, he could pretend, if only for a moment, that he was capable of love.

That night, at dinner, the illusion continued.

The hall was lit by a hundred candles, their flames trembling with each draft that crept through the stone cracks. You sat across from him, your hands folded neatly in your lap, a silver goblet trembling faintly between your fingers. The roast before you had gone cold; you hadn’t dared take a bite.

Ramsay watched you with that familiar, unreadable look — a smile that wasn’t quite kind but wasn’t cruel either. It was the look of a man studying something delicate, wondering how much pressure it would take to make it break.

“You’ve barely touched your food,” he said softly, cutting through the silence with the ease of a blade through silk. “Do you not trust the cook tonight?”

Your throat tightened. You shook your head, forcing a small, polite smile.

His gaze lingered on you for a long moment. Then he leaned back, smirking faintly. “Not hungry,” he echoed, as if tasting the words. “That’s a pity. You always look so sweet when you eat.”

You could feel his eyes tracing your face, your every twitch, every breath. And yet, there was something gentler in his tone tonight — or maybe you only imagined it. Sometimes, he frightened you most when he was kind.

The candles flickered again, and in the brief shadows that danced across his face, you caught a glimpse of something almost tender — a softness that shouldn’t have existed in him at all.

“Eat,” he murmured finally, his voice quieter now, almost affectionate. “For me.”

You picked up your fork.

And though you didn’t know it, he was watching not just your obedience, but your fear — because to him, they were one and the same.