UNDER HIS RULE

CHAPTER FOUR (Ivy's pov)

Wiping my hands with a napkin, I stood from the table and drifted to the sofa, letting myself sink into it while Grandma and Dad stayed behind, still deep in low, tense conversation about everything that had happened. Their voices dipped and rose in that careful way adults talk when they think they're sparing you the worst of it.

I didn't have the energy to sit through more of that tonight. I pushed myself up, ready to head to my room, when something in the air shifted.

A rough voice cut through my mind, low and clipped, entirely too pleased with itself.

*Clearing his throat. Training starts tomorrow. 8 a.m Prompt. Don't be late.*

I froze mid-step. "Wait... what?"

I turned back toward the sitting room, where Cormac was still lounging like the last hour hadn't happened at all.

"Training!" I said again, sharper this time, like repeating it might make it make sense.

"Oh, yeah." He didn't even bother sitting up straight. "You didn't get what I said earlier?"

"Got what, exactly?"

"You're going to be training with Alpha Damien." He said it so casually, like he was mentioning the weather. "Everyone under his packs does. That's just how it works now."

Something clicked, and suddenly his laughing fit from earlier made a lot more sense.

"But—" I shook my head, still trying to catch up. "Isn't it too early? I mean, I just got here."

"When you see him tomorrow," Cormac said, entirely too satisfied with himself, "you tell him that. Not me."

"Cormac—"

"And please," he added, smirk widening, "don't be late, my dear little sis."

"f**k," I hissed, already turning on my heel, done entertaining whatever amusement he was getting out of this. I stalked back to my room and dropped onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling I used to know by heart.

Training. Tomorrow. With *him*.

I hadn't even had a full day to get used to being back — to being a commoner instead of an alpha's daughter, to a house that felt half-familiar and half like a stranger's skin — and already I was being summoned, apparently without a say in the matter, to prove myself in front of a man I hadn't even met yet. A man whose name alone had turned my father into someone smaller than I remembered.

*He's efficient, at least,* Ash said within me, unbothered, already circling the idea with far more interest than I felt comfortable with. *No wasted time.*

*Or he just enjoys reminding people exactly where they stand,* I thought back.

*Maybe both,* she said, and I could have sworn there was something almost eager in it, some restless curiosity she wasn't bothering to hide. *We'll find out soon enough.*

I rolled onto my side, staring at the small crack in the wall I used to trace with my finger as a kid whenever I couldn't sleep.

I wondered, lying there in the dark, what Alpha Damien actually looked like. The pack rumors that had followed us even out at Grandma's — hushed, careful, half-admiring and half-afraid — painted him as something larger than life. Ruthless. Unshakable. The kind of alpha whose name people didn't say too loudly, just in case.

Somehow I doubted the rumors were exaggerated. Not after what he'd done to my father.

I thought about training instead, since that, at least, was something I understood. Whatever tomorrow brought, whatever this "everyone under his packs" system actually looked like in practice, I wasn't walking in there as some soft, sheltered thing for him to underestimate.

Callan hadn't spent years running me into the ground just so I could fold the first time someone new raised an expectation.

*Let him see what we can do,* Ash said, low and steady now, all her earlier amusement settling into something more focused. *Let him underestimate us. It won't last long.*

I almost smiled at that, staring up at the dark ceiling, feeling something in my chest that wasn't quite dread and wasn't quite excitement either — some tangled, uncomfortable mix of both.

Tomorrow at 8 a.m., I'd meet the man who'd taken everything from my family.

I closed my eyes, willing sleep to come faster than my thoughts were racing, and made myself one quiet promise before I let go.

Whoever Alpha Damien turned out to be — however powerful, however ruthless — I wasn't walking into that training ground as someone easy to break.