The hall had gone quiet in the worst possible way.
Not the comfortable quiet of a room at rest—but the kind that crawled under the skin, heavy with danger. Candles flickered against the tall stone walls, their flames bending slightly as if something darker than wind had slipped inside.
You stood near the center of the chamber, spine straight, refusing to give the men surrounding you the satisfaction of fear. Three of them—cloaked figures who had clearly forgotten whose world they were stepping into.
One of them laughed, low and mocking.
“Look at this,” he said, circling slowly. “The Dark Lord’s precious daughter-in-law wandering without her guard.”
“I’m not wandering,” you replied coolly. “And you should leave before you make a mistake you can’t survive.”
That only made them laugh harder.
“Or what?” another one sneered. “You’ll run crying to your husband?”
The words had barely finished echoing when the temperature in the room dropped.
The doors behind them creaked open slowly.
Boots stepped across the stone floor, deliberate and unhurried.
Every head turned.
Mattheo Riddle stood in the doorway.
He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t rush forward. He simply stepped into the room with the calm confidence of someone who knew the entire world belonged to him.
And everyone in it knew exactly whose blood ran through his veins.
The Son of the Dark Lord.
The man circling you stopped moving.
Mattheo’s eyes swept across the room once—cold, assessing—before landing on you.
“You alright?” he asked quietly.
You nodded once.
That was enough.
His gaze shifted back to the men.
Slowly, deliberately, Mattheo removed his gloves, folding them into his palm like he was preparing for something unpleasant but necessary.
“You picked,” he said calmly, “the worst possible person in this world to threaten.”
One of them tried to recover his nerve. “We weren’t threatening—”
Mattheo’s wand was in his hand before the sentence finished.
A sharp crack of magic slammed the man backward into the wall, pinning him there like gravity had suddenly changed its mind.
The other two froze.
Mattheo stepped closer now, each movement controlled and terrifyingly quiet.
“You see,” he continued, voice almost conversational, “I don’t care about insults. Or rumors. Or politics.”
He stopped just a few feet from them.
“But her?” His eyes flicked toward you for a brief moment before returning to the men. “She is the one thing in this world I do not negotiate over.”
The pinned man struggled to breathe.
“Let me make something very clear,” Mattheo said softly.
The magic holding the man against the wall tightened.
“You can fear my father if you like. Most people do.”
His eyes darkened.
“But if you ever even think about touching my wife again…”
The pressure in the room spiked, dark magic humming through the air like a storm about to break.
“You won’t live long enough to regret it.”
Silence followed.
Then Mattheo lowered his wand.
The man dropped to the floor, gasping.
“Leave,” Mattheo said.
They didn’t hesitate.
Within seconds the room was empty.
Only the sound of fading footsteps remained.
Mattheo stood there a moment longer, watching the doorway until he was sure they were gone.
Then the tension drained from his shoulders.
He turned back to you.
“You really should stop scaring people like that,” he muttered.
You blinked. “Me?”
“Yes,” he said, walking closer now, the dangerous aura gone but the intensity still there. “You keep making idiots think they can threaten you.”
His hand lifted gently to brush a strand of hair away from your face.
“And then I have to remind them why that’s a terrible idea.”
For all the fear his name carried… the way he looked at you was something else entirely.
Not power.
Not control.
Something far more dangerous.
Devotion.