"Mathias? What on earth are you doing here?"
He lifted his gaze slowly. His eyes were webbed with scarlet veins, his lids heavy with the weight of exhaustion.
There was a haunting vacancy in his look—a fragile mask composed of equal parts bewilderment and cold indifference.
"What?" he murmured, the word thick and sluggish.
"Oh, you're awake."
It was as if the simple inquiry was a riddle far too complex for his clouded mind to unravel.
The truth was written in the air, sharp and undeniable. He had been drinking deep into the hollow hours of the night. While the empty bottles were damning enough, his presence here—drinking in her room—was a jarring anomaly.
"Yes, I am awake," she replied, her voice tinged with a growing unease. "What brings you here at this hour? Has something happened?"
He tilted his head back, draining another glass with a desperate swallow.
"No," he muttered. "Nothing happened."
Skeptical, Olivia rose from the warmth of her bed. She crossed the room toward him, her short nightgown offering little in the way of modesty.
She felt no rush to cover herself; after all, they were husband and wife, and the familiar sight of her body was a mundane fact of their shared life.
She reached out and firmly pried the glass from his hand.
"You don't look well. Stop this," she commanded. "Three empty bottles already, and you're still drinking like a man possessed. When will this habit end?"
A dry, hollow laugh escaped his lips. "The wine-obsessed queen herself is telling me to stop?"
Ignoring her protest, he reached for a fresh bottle on the table.
Anger flared in her chest. She snatched the bottle away before he could grasp it.
"I said that's enough! What is wrong with you? One more drunken stunt and I'm throwing you out of this room."
As she gathered the remnants of his binge to move them out of reach, Mathias sat in silent surrender, watching her every move. He let out a long, weary sigh.
"You'd best not wear that dress outside," he remarked suddenly. "It's... you know... inappropriate."
Olivia shot him a look of pure derision. "I've heard men lack a sense of fashion, but really? It's a nightgown, Mathias, not a dress. You truly are a hopeless case."
"But it's beautiful," he countered softly, his voice losing its edge. "I thought it was a dress. You look... beautiful in it."
She paused, turning back to him with a look of sheer disbelief. "Is that a compliment? Wow. That's a first."
"What?" he asked, a shadow of hurt crossing his features. "Am I really so terrible that hearing you're beautiful comes as a shock?"
The question hung heavy in the air. Olivia found no words to fill the silence. She reached for his hand, attempting to hoist him up.
"Get up. You're drunk. You need to wash your face."
But Mathias didn't rise.
Instead, he pulled her toward him with a sudden, firm strength, guiding her until she was draped across his lap. His arms locked around her waist, anchoring her to him.
Olivia froze.
In that breath, the haze in his eyes vanished. They were no longer drowsy or dull, but piercing and profound—brimming with a raw, aching sorrow.
"Olivia," he whispered, his voice trembling on the edge of a confession. "Am I... am I a bad husband?"
He didn't let her go. Instead, with a sudden, forceful pull, he drew her into his lap, his arms locking around her waist from behind like iron bands.
Olivia froze, her heart hammering against her ribs.
"Olivia," he murmured, his voice barely a breath against her skin. "Am I… am I a bad husband?"
She blinked, stunned into a state of sheer bewilderment. Doubt flickered in her eyes as she struggled to process his words.
"What? What are you saying?" she asked, her voice trembling with confusion. "You've clearly had far too much to drink—"
Before she could finish, he buried his face in the curve of her neck. His grip wavered—loosening one moment, then tightening the next, as if he were caught in a desperate tug-of-war between letting her go and clinging to her until he broke.
Seconds stretched into a heavy, suffocating silence. Then, he spoke again. His voice was ragged, carrying a fragile, almost childlike vulnerability.
"I don't know how to fix any of this," he confessed. "What happened this morning… your necklace, the one you cherished so much, gone… and the poison from that woman's tongue."
His hands tightened around her waist once more, a silent plea for anchor. "I just… I don't want to lose the little I have left."
His words hung in the stagnant air, weighted with the bitter dregs of regret.
Olivia remained still in his embrace, her initial shock fading into a weary calm.
"That necklace had its place once," she said quietly, "but it no longer matters to me. At least it served a purpose in the end. As for the Empress… that is between her and me. It has always been this way. There is no need for your guilt."
"I don't know whether to believe you or not," he muttered into her skin.
She sighed, a faint touch of her usual defiance returning. "Well, whether you believe me or not is entirely up to you."
Mathias's voice cracked then, buckling under the sheer weight of his remorse.
"Olivia… I—I never intended to hurt you. I never wanted to be the reason for your pain. I never wanted you to feel so lost… so lost that you would hurt yourself, like you did last night."
He pulled back slightly, his eyes searching hers with a haunting intensity. "Why, Olivia? Why did you do it?"
Her breath hitched. Her eyes widened, a cold wave of realization washing over her.
"I… you mean last night?" she whispered, her voice weak and frantic. "No. That's not what happened. You don't understand. I wasn't trying to… it was a misunderstanding. A terrible, horrible misunderstanding, believe me."
He remained deaf to her frantic denials.
With a sudden, fluid grace, he hoisted her slight frame into his arms as if she weighed nothing at all, forcing her to face him.
His hands—once the very definition of iron-clad composure—now trembled visibly against her waist. Olivia found herself drowning in his emerald eyes; the guarded distance was gone, replaced by a raw, bleeding vulnerability.
She was paralyzed by the sheer gravity of the moment.
"I know I am no saint of a husband," Mathias spoke again, his voice cracking, stripped of all pride. "Don't bother denying it. But I never intended for you to suffer. I swore... I swore I would never let my wife live the life my mother endured. Yet, here I am. Piece by piece, I am becoming the ghost of my father."
Olivia felt a sharp pang in her chest. This sudden liquefaction of his soul was something she had never dared to expect from a man like Mathias.
Her slender fingers moved of their own accord, reaching up to cup his cheek, her touch a fragile bridge between them.
"Mathias," she murmured, her voice soft but laced with a bittersweet ache. "Even if there is no love between us, I know you would never betray me. Those words you said... they were born of fire and rage, nothing more. I know there is nothing between you and that maid, or Isabella."
She held his gaze, her voice dropping to a reassuring whisper. "I do not fear that. When I look at you, I don't see your father."
Then, a shadow of doubt clouded her expression, her eyes searching his for a hidden truth.
"But tell me... is it the same for you? Do you still see him in me? Do I still remind you of my father?"
The air between them grew thin as she waited for the answer that would either heal her or shatter the night entirely. Mathias studied her with a searing intensity that made her breath hitch.
"You are singular, Olivia," he said, his voice dropping into a low, steady resonance. "You could never be a reflection of anyone else. You aren't your father's legacy, nor are you a shadow in this house. You are... simply you. My wife."
For the first time, he wasn't looking at her as a high-born pawn, a piece of a grand political game, or a strategic alliance. He saw her.
Olivia.
In that moment, her quiet ambition to be a 'better wife' finally felt like it carried the weight of a soul.
He pulled her closer, the movement sudden but devoid of any lingering roughness. His arms acted as a protective shroud, his eyes darting between her lips and her eyes, silently pleading for a threshold to cross.
"I want to touch you," he whispered, the request almost swallowed by the silence. "Do I have your leave?"
A nervous, breathless laugh escaped her. "I am already in your lap," she stammered, trying to mask her rising heat with a joke.
But Mathias didn't smile. He leaned in, his forehead brushing hers, his breath hot against the curve of her shoulder.
"I mean... that kind of touch. Is it permitted?"
A violent shiver raced down her spine as the weight of his intent settled over her. Her throat went dry, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
It wasn't the first time he had claimed her, but tonight, the air felt charged with something far more dangerous than duty.
After a long, heavy silence—in a voice barely audible—she breathed, "Ah... I suppose... it is permitted."
The words had barely left her lips when his mouth found her neck.
It began with a haunting tenderness that quickly deepened into a desperate, bruising hunger. He left a faint, crimson mark against her pale skin—a crushed petal of heat.
Olivia gasped, the sound caught between shock and a primal, awakening need.
His hands moved to frame her face, his thumb tracing the seam of her lips as if memorizing their shape. She felt intoxicated, drunk on the scent of him without a single drop of wine.
Then, he tilted her head back and crashed his mouth against hers.
There was no caution left, only a feverish, starving demand. It was a kiss born of fire and a long-starved hunger.