Althor guided her to a worn armchair, his movements slow and deliberate. He knelt before her, his eyes soft with paternal worry. 'Let me see,' he said, taking her wrist—the same one Finch had held—and turning it over in his broad, capable hands. His thumb traced the invisible mark, his touch a mirror of the interrogation, but his intent felt different—assessing, claiming.

In the quiet, Clara understood: his gentleness wasn't an alternative to the others' predation; it was its own kind of possession. The firelight caught the silver in his dark hair. His room smelled of leather and him—clean soap, wool, that faint hint of butterscotch. A sanctuary. A trap. The definitions bled together here, under the velvet-draped windows that sealed out the world.

'Clara,' he said, his voice a low rumble. He didn't let go of her wrist. 'What in God's name are you doing in the staff wing at this hour?'

His face darkened, but the expression stayed soft, etched with concern, not anger. He never yelled. He never harsh. The contrast was dizzying. A flush crept up his neck, staining his tan skin. He looked down at their hands, her small one swallowed in his, and the blush deepened. This massive, fatherly man was blushing.

'Did someone send you here?' he pressed, his thumb still moving in slow circles over her pulse point. 'Did someone… push you to come?'

From the wall adjoining Professor Wilson's room, a low, rhythmic thumping began. A muffled gasp. A girl's voice, thin and pleading, though the words were unclear. The sounds seeped through the old stone like damp.

Althor’s eyes snapped toward the noise. His jaw tightened. The blush on his neck burned hotter. He looked back at Clara, trapped in his chair, and something like panic flickered in his paternal gaze. What was he supposed to do? Storm next door? How would he explain Clara Vance in his private quarters at midnight, listening to this?

The thumping grew more insistent. Clara felt her own face grow hot. A treacherous, unwanted heat pooled low in her stomach. The sound was awful. It was explicit. It was… arousing. Her body betrayed her with a sharp, shameful clench of interest. She saw Althor’s throat work as he swallowed.

Well, shit, Clara thought, a hysterical laugh bubbling in her chest. What a fucking situation. Trapped in the cozy lion's den, listening to the lion next door eat. Her internal monologue ran wild, a desperate joke to soothe the terror. How the hell do I get out of this one? Do I ask for a butterscotch? Critique the wall's soundproofing?

'You're trembling,' Althor murmured. He finally released her wrist, but only to place both his hands on the arms of her chair, caging her in. He was still on his knees before her. His proximity was overwhelming. The warmth of him. The scent. The sheer size of him, so close. 'You're safe here, Clara. With me. You know that, don't you?'

Do I? The question screamed inside her. This is his room. A grown man's bedroom. The massive oak bed creaked in the silence between the sounds from next door. She wanted to believe him. She ached to believe him. But her own mind turned traitor: that night in the prep room, pressed against his lap… was the hardness real? Had she imagined it? Was the deceiving warmth making her forget the truth?

But she remembered. She remembered the specific, rigid pressure against her thigh. Her body remembered it now, flushing hotter. Her consciousness was clear. Wasn't it? Althor was a gray area, a blur of kindness and threat, and everything was blending.

His gaze dropped to her mouth. His breathing had changed. It was slower, deeper. The sounds from next door painted the air with a graphic tension. His eyes were dark, pupils swallowing the warm brown. The paternal worry was still there, but beneath it swam something else—a raw, awkward hunger that matched the blush on his skin.

'I shouldn't…' he breathed, more to himself than to her. But he didn't move. One of his hands left the chair arm. It hovered, then gently brushed a stray wave of chestnut hair from her cheek. His fingertips were calloused. They traced the line of her jaw, down to her chin. The touch was devastating in its tenderness.

Clara couldn't breathe. Every nerve was alive. The danger was a tangible taste on her tongue, metallic and sweet. She should push his hand away. She should stand up. She did nothing. She watched his face, the internal war between the professor and the man.

'You confuse me, Clara Vance,' he whispered, his voice gravelly with a feeling he wouldn't name. His thumb brushed her lower lip. 'You make me forget the rules.'

He leaned in slowly, giving her every chance to pull away. The fire crackled. Next door, a low, male groan of completion filtered through the wall. Althor froze, an inch from her lips, his eyes squeezing shut in a wince of shared shame and acute awareness. When his eyes opened again, the hunger in them was naked. He closed the final distance.

His kiss was nothing like she imagined. It was soft. Questioning. Awkward and unbearably gentle. His lips were warm, slightly chapped. He kissed her like she was something fragile, yet his hand cupped her cheek with a possessiveness that belied the tenderness. It was the kiss of a man who wanted to consume and worship in the same breath. Clara's mind short-circuited. Her body responded before her thoughts could catch up, her lips parting under his with a soft, involuntary sigh.

He made a sound deep in his chest, a rumble of surrender. The kiss deepened, still slow, but with a growing certainty. His other hand came up, cradling her face, holding her as if she were precious. The heat of him surrounded her. The scent of him filled her lungs. The world narrowed to the soft pressure of his mouth, the rough pad of his thumb stroking her cheekbone, the terrifying, thrilling sense of being claimed by something she still couldn't define.

Clara broke the kiss with a gasp, scrambling back out of the chair so fast she nearly stumbled. Her heart was a trapped bird against her ribs. She hated this. Hated the heat pooling low in her belly, the unmistakable slickness between her thighs. He wasn’t hard this time—she’d felt the difference—but she was wet, and the knowledge was a humiliating burn in her cheeks.

“Okay,” she breathed, forcing a soft, shaky chuckle. She took another step back, putting space between them. “Okay, that was… a lot. The noise, I mean. From next door. It’s just… a lot.”

She was babbling. Playing it off. A playful, joking tone to soothe the screaming stress inside her. She paced backwards, one step, two, her hands gesturing vaguely. “Just a really weird, awkward situation, right? We can just… forget it happened. Obviously.”

Her heel hit something soft and unyielding. The edge of the massive oak bed. She froze. A cold realization washed over her. She hadn’t been looking where she was going. She’d backed herself right into it.

She gulped. The playful act died in her throat. She was cornered. Again.

Althor had risen from his knees. He stood by the chair, watching her. His face was flushed, his lips slightly parted. He saw her realization. He saw the panic flash in her eyes. He didn’t move toward her. He simply lifted a hand, palm open, a calming gesture.

“Clara,” he said, his voice a rough scrape. “Sit. Just sit. Before you fall.”

It wasn’t a command. It was a soft, paternal suggestion, layered with a shared, unbearable tension. She obeyed because her legs felt like water. She sank onto the edge of his bed, the quilted coverlet soft and dense beneath her. The frame gave a faint, telling creak.

And the noises did the rest.

From Professor Wilson’s room, the sounds painted a vivid, undeniable picture. A low, masculine groan of effort. The rhythmic, muffled thump of a headboard against the shared wall. A girl’s soft, pleading whimper—not of pain, but of something else. Then a shush, deep and tender. “Easy, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”

Clara’s breath hitched. She stared at a knot in the wooden floorboards. She had never heard it before. Not like this, not through a wall, not while sitting on the edge of a man’s bed. The sounds were clinical and intimate all at once. The whimpers, the groans, the wet, sliding whispers. Her body reacted with a traitorous, clenching heat. She was much, much more aroused than he was.

She squeezed her eyes shut. *Don’t mess this up. You cannot be having sex. Not here. Not like this. This is the locked door. This is exactly what Maya warned you about.*

She forced her eyes open. She tried to arrange her face into something neutral, bored even. She focused on her breathing, willing the flush from her skin. She crossed her legs, a subtle, defensive gesture.

Althor hadn’t moved. He was leaning against the high back of the armchair now, arms crossed over his broad chest. He was watching her. His gaze wasn’t hungry now. It was knowing. Deeply, painfully knowing.

He was thirty-eight. He was a grown man. He had heard these sounds before. He had, undoubtedly, made them. He could read the tight line of her shoulders, the rapid pulse in her throat, the way she held herself so still it looked like pain.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” he said quietly. The firelight caught the silver just starting at his temples.

“I’m not,” Clara lied, her voice too high.

A particularly loud moan filtered through the wall, followed by a string of soft, filthy praise. Clara flinched. Her nails dug into the quilt.

Althor’s jaw tightened. He looked away, toward the sound, a muscle ticking in his cheek. It was a look of profound weariness. And shame. When his eyes found hers again, they were soft with an apology she hadn’t asked for. “I won’t hurt you, Clara,” he said, the words simple and heavy. “No matter what you’re feeling. No matter what you hear. I won’t.”

The promise was a different kind of danger. It disarmed her more thoroughly than a kiss ever could. Because she believed him. In this moment, in this firelit room thick with the sounds of violation, she believed his restraint was absolute. And that made her want to test it. That made the ache worse.

Silence stretched, broken only by the crackling fire and the symphony from next door. Clara sat on the edge of his bed, a statue of conflicted want. Althor stood across the room, a sentinel of his own making. The space between them hummed with everything unsaid, and undone, and desperately, terrifyingly desired.