Claiming Her Reign

chapter 17

xian'na pov

James’s presence in the Black Box was instantly overwhelming. He filled the space, eclipsing the technological hum of the room with the sheer, raw intensity of his Alpha power. He didn't look like a strategist or a king; he looked like a force of nature—a storm contained in muscle and bone.

I tried to push myself up, still weak from the battle with Kelvin’s drone. James didn't offer a hand. He simply waited, his silver eyes blazing with an impatient ferocity that bypassed my mind and spoke directly to my trembling spine.

“Get up, little sister,” James growled, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that promised agony. “Kelvin taught you how to use a shield. He taught you how to command the power with your thoughts. I don’t care about your thoughts.”

I struggled to my feet, bracing myself. “What is Phase Two?”

James gave Kelvin a dismissive glance. “Kelvin deals in data. I deal in blood. You spent twenty years being the maid—flinching, hiding, apologizing for your presence. That is a deeply carved instinct. The Shadow Beast doesn’t care about your power, Xian’na. She cares about your flinch. That split-second of human weakness is where she will strike and take your power.”

He cracked his knuckles, the sound sharp and menacing in the confined space. “We are stripping the maid out of you. My training has only one rule: You absorb the pain and turn it into power. You do not move out of the way. You do not block. You take the strike, and you make it your conductor.”

Yes! Xiuan roared in my head, finally delighted. This one understands the necessary sacrifice!

Kelvin, watching from the console, remained silent, his crossed arms indicating complete confidence in his brother’s method.

“First lesson,” James stated, taking a slow, predatory step toward me. “The flinch is weakness.”

I squared my shoulders, raising the internal silver shield that Kelvin had taught me to control. I braced myself for a strong punch to the chest—an impact I knew I could absorb.

James didn't punch. He moved with deceptive speed, snapping his heavy boot out in a lightning-fast kick that slammed into the side of my thigh, just above the knee.

The pain was instantaneous and blinding. It was not a dull impact; it was a focused, searing strike designed to incapacitate. My leg instantly buckled, and I fell onto the floor, gasping. I curled instinctively into a ball, clutching my throbbing limb—the pure, human reaction of defense.

“Wrong!” James roared, his voice laced with absolute contempt for my weakness. “That is the maid. The maid protects herself. The Queen protects her power. You focused on your leg, and your shield dropped from your chest.”

He hauled me up by my arm, forcing me to stand on the injured leg. “Listen to me: when pain hits you, you don't recoil. You push. Pain is the sensation of energy transfer. If you feel it, it means the power is moving. You must guide that moving energy and return it.”

I was sobbing from the pain now, but Xiuan was fighting through the tears, her metallic taste flooding my mouth. He is right. Use the strike, not the fear!

“Again,” James ordered, pulling back his fist. He was not going to hold back. This time, I knew the blow was coming to my face. I could feel the Alpha power gathering in his arm.

My human instinct screamed at me to close my eyes, to turn my head, to shield my jaw. But as the fist began its arc, Xiuan took over, not transforming my body, but fusing with my nerves.

Instead of flinching, I drove my injured leg into the ground, turning the pain into a desperate anchor. I released the shield from my torso and focused the energy not on stopping James, but on preparing an invisible counter-strike.

James's fist slammed into the side of my head. The world exploded into noise and white pain. I stumbled, my ear ringing, but I did not fall.

The very moment the pain registered, Xiuan screamed PUSH, and I focused the burning residual energy of the impact into my opposite hand and lunged forward, not with a punch, but with a wild, brutal shove powered by pure silver energy.

The force of my counter-shove hit James like a physical wall of compressed air. It was not a focused beam like my attack on the drone; it was a wild, desperate surge of Holy Power. James was thrown back five feet, sliding across the polished floor before stopping himself with a loud scrape of his heavy boots.

I stood in the center of the room, panting, dizzy, with one side of my face throbbing, but I was standing. The tears were gone, replaced by a fierce, wild adrenaline.

James got up slowly, shaking his head. He looked at the floor where he had slid, then back at me. A slow, terrifying smile spread across his face.

“Good,” he finally grunted, a strange note of pride in his brutal voice. “You used the hit. You didn’t flinch. You forgot to be the maid. Now, we do it again until the maid is dead.”

My body was no longer mine. It belonged to the training, to the pain, to the relentless, unforgiving precision of James’s lessons.

Don’t flinch. Absorb the hit. Return the power.

The mantra was all I had left. James continued to strike, never using his full Alpha strength, but always hitting the most vulnerable spots—the bruised ribs from Kelvin's drone, the tendons in my unbraced knee, the pressure points in my neck. Each blow was a lesson in physics, forcing the silver energy of Xiuan to rush to the point of impact, and forcing my will to redirect that energy back at him.

I wasn't defending; I was learning to use the pain as a conductor.

“Good!” James roared, hitting my shoulder and sending a jolt of pain down to my fingertips. “That was a five-point absorption. Now, counter!”

I lunged, not with my fist, but with the entire kinetic energy of my body, fueled by the rush of Holy Power that pulsed from the point of impact. I didn't try to knock him down; I just tried to match his force. Our impacts sent loud, cracking noises through the Black Box, sounds that should have shattered my eardrums but were somehow muted by Xiuan’s protective field.

Hours blurred into an endless cycle of agony and adrenaline. The maid was truly dying; the human instinct to hide and apologize was being replaced by a terrifying, cold ferocity. I was fighting, not for survival, but for dominance.

“Again!” James commanded, his face streaming with sweat, his own massive body showing the strain of constantly meeting and countering my developing power.

Just as I prepared to meet his next charge, the environment in the Black Box changed again. It wasn't physical. It was internal.

A chilling, invisible pressure descended upon me, a sensation of being suddenly and completely drained. It felt exactly like the terror of my nightmares—the sensation of the inverted cross siphoning my power. It was like a powerful vacuum attached directly to my soul.

“Simulation: Shadow Beast Siphon,” Kelvin’s voice cut in, sharp and urgent. “This is a mental attack, Xian’na. It is designed to strip the Holy Power faster than your body can produce it, leading to systemic shock. Fight the drain! Show her your power is not a well, but a constant river!”

The panic was instantaneous. I could feel Xiuan’s golden light dimming, receding. The silver shield around my body wavered and collapsed. My breathing seized. The pain of the physical blows was nothing compared to the sickening internal terror of power loss.

Fight! Xiuan screamed, but the voice was distant, weak. I am being pulled!

I tried to focus, to push back the encroaching void, but the more I resisted, the faster the energy seemed to rush out. My muscles locked up. I felt dizzy, my knees beginning to fail. This wasn't exhaustion; this was a calculated shutdown.

I saw James charging toward me again, but this time, he wasn't attacking. He was moving in slow-motion, his expression panicked. He was coming to stop me.

No… I thought, refusing to let the training end in failure. I used the last sliver of control I had, not to attack the siphon, but to protect my brain—to force the physical shutdown before the power could be completely ripped away.

I heard Kelvin’s shout—a raw, horrified sound. The total darkness returned as my eyes rolled back. The humming, the pain, the terrible vacuum—everything dissolved into a thick, comforting blackness.

I fell, not heavily, but like a stone sinking into deep water. The last sensation I had was the powerful, calloused hands of James catching me before I hit the ground.