Claimed By A Midnight King

Chapter 41

Vivian’s POV

The training grounds were crowded when Dominic brought me there.

Warriors stopped mid movement. Conversations died mid sentence. All eyes turned to watch as the Alpha escorted his Solari mate to the center of the courtyard in full view of the entire pack.

It was deliberate. A statement. A declaration.

“She trains with us,” Dominic announced. His voice carried across the stone courtyard, reaching every warrior present. “From this moment forward, she’s part of this pack’s defense. Anyone who has a problem with that choice can leave.”

The silence that followed was suffocating.

No one left. But the hostility was immediate and palpable. Warriors exchanging looks. A few actually turning their backs.Others gripping their weapons tighter.

Rowan stepped forward without hesitation. “I’ll work with her.”

“No,” Dominic said flatly. “Kade will.”

Kade’s expression didn’t change, but I felt his resistance in the subtle shift of his massive frame. His jaw tightened. His shoulders squared. Every movement screaming that he didn’t want this responsibility.

“Of course, Alpha,” he said finally. His voice was controlled but the cost of that control was visible.

Dominic left me with him and returned to the tower without another word.

The moment his presence was no longer there to enforce cooperation, the dynamic shifted.

Warriors moved closer. Their energy changed from reluctant compliance to active hostility. Several of them “accidentally” bumped into me as they passed. One warrior, tall and muscular ,deliberately knocked a practice sword into my path hard enough that it skidded across the stone.

“Watch yourself, Solari,” he said. His voice was low enough that only I could hear. “Grounds can be dangerous. Accidents happen. People fall. Burn. Disappear.”

I picked up the sword without responding. My hands were shaking. Not from fear. From anger. From the effort of not letting my power respond to the threat.

Kade was watching. Not intervening. Just observing to see how I’d handle it. Assessing whether I was actually trainable or just a liability.

“What style do they teach here?” I asked him, keeping my voice steady.

“Shadow techniques,” he said. “Built for mountain fighting. Efficient. Brutal. Nothing fancy. Everything functional.”

He showed me the basic stance. His hands were large enough to completely cover mine as he adjusted my grip.

My muscles remembered something from deep down. Some part of me that had been trained before the suppressants had locked everything away. Some instinctual knowledge that my body had been waiting years to access.

My hands moved through the forms like they’d been waiting for permission. Like the sword was an extension of my arm instead of a foreign object.

The warriors noticed.

Their mockery shifted into something else. Not respect. But recognition. A shift from seeing me as completely helpless to seeing me as possibly dangerous.

The came at me with a real strike, not a practice one. Testing. Trying to prove I couldn’t handle actual combat. Trying to find the weakness.

I blocked it .

The impact jarred my arm down to the bone but I held the position. The sword didn’t waver. I didn’t flinch.

He attacked again, faster. More aggressive. Like he was trying to break through sheer speed.

I blocked that too.

“Enough, Brand ,” Kade said. “Everyone back to training.”

The warrior slowly let down his sword.

The warriors dispersed, but more slowly than before. They’d seen something. Some hint of what Dominic had claimed I could become. Some possibility that maybe, just maybe the bonding wasn’t completely insane.

As the day wore on, my power began to surface.

Not dramatically. There was no explosion or sudden manifestation. Just heat building under my skin. Violet light flickering in my vision like someone was switching a candle on and off. The sword getting warmer in my hands until the metal began to glow faintly.

By the afternoon, the training grounds were unusually quiet. Even the warriors who’d been most hostile were watching now. Waiting to see what would happen. Waiting to see if I would lose control and prove them right about me being dangerous.

Kade didn’t stop the training despite the obvious tension. He just watched. Evaluated.

During a water break, he approached me.

“You need to control this,” he said. His voice was low so only I could hear. He was studying the way my hands were glowing. The way the violet light was becoming more visible instead of just flickering. “Right now, it’s just leaking out. You’re not directing it. You’re not containing it. If you lose focus—if something triggers you hard enough…”

“It will burn things?” I asked.

“It will burn people,” he said bluntly. “And that will prove every fear this pack has about you. It will validate every concern. It will make the case for your execution instead of your integration.”

His words were harsh but not unkind. He was giving me the truth stripped of comfort.

“How do I control it?” I asked.

“Same way we control anything,” he said. “Practice. Focus. Understanding. You need to know your power like you know your own breath. Not fighting it. Not suppressing it like you did with the tonic. Just… understanding it. Being in conversation with it instead of war with it.”

He adjusted my grip on the practice sword again.

“The power responds to your emotional state,” he continued. “The more afraid you are, the more it leaks. The more angry you are, the more aggressive it becomes. You need to find the middle ground. Acknowledgment without surrender. Awareness without panic.”

As the sun started to set, I felt Dominic returning to the tower. His presence through the bond was turbulent. Angry about the council. Worried about the pack. Frustrated by the divisions he’d created by bonding with me.

And underneath it all was something deeper. A desperate need to believe he’d made the right choice. A wolf demanding certainty while his human half was drowning in doubt.

I let him feel my certainty through the bond. Let him feel that I was learning. Training. Becoming stronger. Let him feel that his choice wasn’t as catastrophic as it was starting to feel.

But what I didn’t let him feel was my terror.

Because watching Brand’s attack. Feeling the power surge in response. Understanding that I could have hurt him, that I could have burned him to ash if I’d let the power loose for even a second.

That absolutely terrified me.

I couldn’t afford to let Dominic know that the girl he’d bonded with was as dangerous as the pack feared. That his mate was potentially a weapon he couldn’t control. That every warrior who was questioning his choice might be right.

So I hid it. Buried it deep where he couldn’t feel it through the bond.

And I stood on the training grounds as darkness fell, my hands still glowing faintly, wondering if I would burn this entire mountain down before anyone could stop me.