The council hall disappeared behind them, yet the tension remained thick, suffocating, heavy like smoke trapped in her lungs. Maya walked beside Dominic through a hallway that looked carved from darkness: towering marble pillars, iron boned frames, torches burning low like cold watchful eyes. Her footsteps echoed beside his, smaller, sharper, betraying the tremble she fought to suppress.
She did not ask where they were going.
He did not offer an explanation.
The evaluation was done she had bled for them, spoken before them, stood without bending. But she felt it deep in her bones:
The real war was only now beginning.
Dominic did not look at her even once. His shoulders were poised like a blade straight, cut with precision, posture of a man born to command rather than speak. His hands remained in his pockets, relaxed as if nothing in the world could disturb the equilibrium of his control.
When they reached the far west wing, he finally stopped.
The silence was thick as though the walls themselves held their breath.
"This is where your training begins," he said, voice low, crisp, void of warmth.
She stared ahead, refusing to let him hear fear in her breathing. He pushed open a heavy black door, iron hinges groaning a sound like something ancient awakening.
Inside the room, there was almost nothing.
No comfort.
No softness.
Just stone, shadow, and discipline.
A lone chair.
A desk.
A single lamp burning a harsh silver pool of light onto the polished floor.
It looked like a room designed not for living but for remaking.
Her throat tightened.
Dominic stepped behind her, voice brushing her spine like ice.
"You passed the council's test," he said, each word sharpened and measured. "But this house requires far more than a drop of blood and a shaking voice."
She inhaled slowly, lifting her chin despite the tremor hidden in her ribcage.
"And what exactly does this house require?"
Dominic circled her again unhurried, predatory, calculating. He did not need chains or threats his presence alone locked the room.
"Discipline. Control. Silence. Restraint," he listed softly, as if reciting scripture.
"And obedience."
She turned to him not afraid to meet his gaze even though fear was a pulse beating violently beneath her skin.
"And if I don't learn those things?" Her voice almost didn't hold, but it didn't break.
Dominic didn't blink.
"Then you die."
Not raised.
Not dramatized.
Just truth like stating the weather.
Her heart stumbled in her chest, and still she forced herself upright.
"I've survived worse."
He stepped closer too close.
Close enough she could feel his breath, smell smoke and expensive restraint in the air around him.
"No," Dominic murmured, eyes dark and unblinking.
"You haven't."
THE FIRST SESSION
He gestured to the chair.
"Sit."
The word was command, not request. Maya sat not because she obeyed, she told herself, but because she wanted to see what he thought he could do to her.
Dominic paced behind her, voice calm, cold, inescapable.
"You will keep your eyes on mine. You will not move unless I say. You will not speak without permission."
His tone was casual, but every rule was a cage.
He stepped in front of her.
"Look at me."
She did.
Minutes stretched into something unbearable.
Her eyes burned.
Her pulse pounded.
Dominic stood without shifting his weight, without blinking too long, without offering the smallest sign of humanity.
This wasn't physical training.
It was psychological warfare.
He wanted to own her mind before he ever touched her body.
She blinked once too late.
Dominic struck the desk beside her with a sharp crack of his palm.
She flinched.
One brow raised satisfied.
"Weak."
She swallowed, jaw tightening though her heart was racing.
He dropped a file loudly beside her she jolted again.
"Untrained."
He leaned down, voice quiet, almost gentle which made it worse.
"When you hesitate, it is fear speaking. When fear speaks, you lose."
She wanted to spit back at him, scream, challenge anything to feel less small beneath his gaze. Instead she breathed hard through her nose like a cornered creature refusing to bow.
"Then maybe stop trying to scare me," she said.
He froze slow, amused, like a predator savoring prey with unexpected teeth.
"Trying?" he repeated.
Maya regretted the word, But she held her ground.
"You look at me like you expect me to kneel," she said, voice tight. "But I'm still standing."
Dominic's jaw flexed once not with anger. With interest.
He leaned closer, fingers resting lightly on the arm of her chair, trapping her without touching her skin.
"You're standing because I allow it."
Her breath stuttered he noticed.
He always noticed.
"And one day," Dominic murmured, "you will break, Maya. Not with screaming. Not with pain. With silence."
Her skin prickled cold.
"You're too sure of yourself."
He smiled slow, dangerous.
"I'm sure of you."
HOURS PASSED LIKE PUNISHMENT
She wasn't allowed to blink for too long.
Not allowed to speak.
Not allowed to look away.
He asked questions with no correct answers designed to frustrate, confuse, shatter composure.
Her muscles ached.
Her eyes stung.
Her mind trembled like thin glass under pressure.
But she did not cry.
Did not beg.
Did not crumble.
Even though fear clawed at her from the inside like a trapped animal desperate for escape.
By evening, her voice was hoarse, her fingers trembling subtly in her lap.
Dominic stood in front of her, arms crossed.
"You will wake at five," he said.
"You will speak only when I require it. You will not question me. You will not disobey."
She exhaled brief, shaky.
"And if I do?"
Dominic's gaze lowered to her throat, her pulse, her defiant stare.
"You won't."
It was not a warning.
It was reality or his certainty of it.
She rose slowly, legs stiff, eyes still locked on his. Sweat clung to her hairline, the lamp casting hard shadow beneath her cheekbones.
"I hope you're better at breaking people than you are at scaring them," she whispered.
Dominic's expression barely shifted but she saw it.
The flicker.
A fracture in control.
Amusement edged with obsession.
"Maya," he said quietly,
"You survived today. Good."
He stepped closer not touching, but invading her lungs, her thoughts, her pulse.
"But tomorrow, the real training begins."
And for the first time, she believed him.
Her heart hammered, fear thrashing beneath her ribs violent, breathless, alive.
But her voice was steady when she replied:
"Then come and try."
Dominic watched her leave not with anger.
With hunger.
She was flame.
He was iron.
And neither would yield without burning.