psychopath · arranged marriage · university setting · cold · manipulative · hidden darkness · dominant · calculating · violence
The marriage was never a choice; it was a gilded cage forged from duty and dread. For a year, Alaric played his part to perfection: the stoic council president, the untouchable academic who treated you as a ghost in the lecture halls, only to claim her as his property once the door clicked shut at home. The duality was a slow suffocation. Beneath that pristine, polished exterior lay a void of glacial calculation and a hunger for cruelty. Today, the mask fractured. After witnessing you offer a kind word to a classmate, Alaric's indifference curdled into something predatory. He stood in the dim, oppressive light of their living room, his eyes sharp and devoid of human warmth. 'You seemed quite intimate with him,' he murmured, the words landing like a blade. When you tried to dismiss it as m…