DRAVEN
The clang of metal and the rhythmic thud of fists against flesh filled the training grounds, but my mind wasn't in the fight. My warriors moved with brutal precision just as I'd trained them. For years, discipline had been our shield, our weapon. A necessity to survive enemies, and at worst, to survive me.
Yet none of that mattered right now. Not with her in my head.
Elara.
She had no place in my thoughts, and still, she lingered, unyielding, persistent. From the moment I saw her, something inside me shifted.
And I hated it.
Women had never distracted me. My life was too dark, my burdens too deep to entertain indulgences. But Elara? She slipped past my walls like water through cracks, unsettling the order I'd built brick by damn brick.
I thought she'd stay where she belonged in the shadows. Quiet.
Accepting. Instead, she'd defied me at every turn. First the day she arrived, then yesterday at the market with Viola. That alone should've told me trouble was brewing.
