The dining hall stretched long and gleaming, built for power, not family. A chandelier glowed overhead, crystal shards scattering pale light across polished mahogany. The table could seat twenty, but tonight only five places were set.
Aresha sat at one end, her posture perfect, every movement deliberate. Across from her, Darius Nyx Vale had taken the head of the table. His presence was quieter than hers, yet heavier—as though the room bent subtly around his gravity.
Between them, the twins chattered, filling the yawning silence with childish joy.
"Papa, Aresha saved my fox!" Saleena announced, climbing onto her chair without care for manners. "She jumped in front of the car like whoosh! and scared it away!"
Darius's fork paused mid-air. His eyes lifted to Aresha, lingering. "Is that so?"
Aresha's lips curved faintly, though her eyes were steel. "The story is exaggerated. I merely stepped in. Nothing more."
Saleena pouted. "It was not nothing!"
Draven, ever quiet, added softly, "She moved before anyone else did. You didn't even see it, Papa."
The boy's calm voice carried a weight beyond his years. Darius's gaze deepened, but he said nothing. He simply resumed his meal, though his eyes flicked to her every so often. Watching. Measuring.
Aresha sipped her wine, unruffled on the outside. Inside, her nerves coiled. He wasn't hiding his attention anymore. He wanted her to feel the scrutiny.
Knives Hidden in Words
"Tell me," Darius's voice broke the silence halfway through the meal. It was smooth, unhurried, but the air sharpened around it. "What sort of work requires a woman like you to walk into danger without hesitation?"
The twins looked between them curiously, oblivious to the way the air thickened.
Aresha set her glass down carefully. He wants to draw me out. To see if I'll crack.
"I suppose," she said coolly, "the kind of work where hesitation means death."
Their eyes locked across the table. Neither blinked. The chandelier hummed faintly above, the children's small voices fading to background noise.
Darius's lips curved, the faintest ghost of a smile. "A survivalist, then."
"Or a realist," she countered.
A delicate clash of words, but both knew the game being played. His question wasn't casual; it was a blade probing for weakness. And her reply? Armor polished, flawless.
Saleena broke the tension with a giggle. "You two talk like riddles."
Draven tilted his head toward his sister. "That's because they're hiding things."
Aresha nearly froze, but caught herself in time. She turned to the boy, forcing a faint smile. "And what do you think I'm hiding?"
Draven's eyes—silver-grey, steady and unyielding—met hers. For a moment, she swore he knew.
"Not bad things," he said at last. "Just… heavy things."
The words slid like a knife under her ribs. Her heartbeat stumbled. How could this child cut so cleanly to the truth she had buried so deep?
Darius said nothing, but his gaze flickered briefly toward his son, then back to her. As if the boy's words confirmed his own suspicions.
A War Without Blades
The meal ended, dishes cleared away, the twins darting off toward their rooms with laughter trailing behind them.
That left only silence again. Silence and the storm between two adults who had seen too much of the world.
Darius rose from his seat slowly, deliberately. His height cast a long shadow across the table. "The children seem to trust you."
Aresha lifted her chin. "Children trust easily."
"Not these children." His tone was low, certain. "They do not offer themselves to strangers."
Her fingers tightened on the stem of her glass. His words weren't a compliment. They were an accusation in disguise.
And yet, beneath it, something else pulsed—an unspoken acknowledgment that she had already stepped into his world, into their lives, whether she willed it or not.
For a moment, they stood like that. Two forces circling, neither yielding, neither striking.
Then, without another word, Darius turned and left the hall. His footsteps echoed, steady, controlled.
Aresha remained seated, her breath measured, though her pulse thundered.
This was no ordinary man. He was circling her like a hunter, tightening his grip, stripping away layers she had fought to bury.
And damn him… she was letting him.