UNDER HIS RULE

CHAPTER SIX

“You are late, Ivy".

“Uhmm... it wasn't my fault. I overslept," Ivy said, already scanning the room for anyone who wasn't paired off with a partner, looking for some excuse not to be singled out.

"Late is late," Damien said flatly, not even glancing up from the pair he'd been observing. "You'll run the mats twice before we start, and you'll spar without a break between rounds. Consider it a courtesy — next time, it's laps until you can't stand."

Ivy didn't argue. *Asshole,* she thought viciously, careful to keep it inside her own head where he couldn't hear it. She dropped her water bottle and snack pack by the door and took off around the perimeter of the hall, the mat stretching longer with every lap than it had any right to. By the time she finished the second loop, her thighs burned and her breath came in ragged pulls, sweat already soaking through the back of her shirt before the actual training had even begun.

And then it hit her — there wasn't anyone left unpaired.

"Come take your stance with me."

The words landed heavy in the quiet of the hall, and every head in the room turned just enough to make it worse.

*You are cooked, Ivy,* Ash groaned, frustrated.

*Can you at least cheer me up?* Ivy shot back silently.

*...I've got nothing,* Ash admitted, entirely unhelpful.

*You're not helping matters,* Ivy grumbled, forcing her feet to move toward him anyway.

It was only as she got closer that she actually let herself look at him — really look. Broad shoulders, a build carved from actual discipline rather than vanity, abs visible even through the thin fabric of his training shirt. Dark hair, rough and slightly damp with sweat already, and eyes that held a color she didn't have a name for yet, something between storm-grey and something darker. Objectively, infuriatingly, he was *good-looking*.

She dropped the water bottle and snack pack without ceremony, letting them thud against the mat, and rolled her shoulders back.

She wasn't going to take it easy on him. Not because she thought she could win — she'd have to be delusional to believe that — but because rolling over without trying wasn't in her, not after everything Callan had drilled into her over the years.

He set the scenario himself: real combat, no holding back, no easing a newcomer into anything.

The first exchange came fast. He opened with a testing jab toward her shoulder, and she slipped sideways, boots pivoting exactly the way Callan had beaten into muscle memory years ago. A second strike followed almost immediately — low, aimed at her ribs — and she twisted out of range, feeling the air of it brush past her side.

*Good,* Ash murmured, some of her earlier sarcasm giving way to genuine focus. *Watch his shoulders, not his hands.*

Ivy did. She caught the next telegraph half a second before it landed, ducking under a hook that would have caught her jaw clean, countering with a jab of her own toward his ribs. It landed — the first blow she'd managed to land — but it barely registered against him, glancing off like she'd struck packed muscle instead of anything vulnerable.

She tried again — a sharper strike this time, aimed at the soft point just below his sternum, the exact spot Callan had spent months drilling into her as a weakness on any opponent. Damien caught her wrist before it landed, redirecting the force of it so easily that she nearly stumbled into him instead. She yanked free, resetting her stance, jaw tight with frustration.

He was tougher than Callan. She realized that within those first few exchanges — faster, heavier, more deliberate, reading her before she'd even fully committed to a strike, adjusting, redirecting, making her feel, for the first time in years, genuinely outmatched.

Still, she held her ground. She dodged a low sweep meant to take her legs out, rolling her weight forward instead of back the way instinct wanted, and slipped clear of a follow-up strike aimed at her collarbone. She managed a quick elbow toward his side in the same motion — her second landed hit, and the last one she'd manage — enough contact to feel bone under her arm, but nowhere near enough force behind it to make him so much as shift his footing. It was like striking a wall that happened to breathe.

She tried a different angle next, feinting high before dropping low toward his ribs, a combination Callan had made her run a hundred times against him in the backyard. Against Callan, it had worked more often than not. Against Damien, he simply stepped back a half pace, letting her momentum carry the blow harmlessly past him, and countered with a strike of his own that she barely managed to duck under.

Two blows landed, out of everything she'd thrown, and neither had cost him anything. Meanwhile every hit of his that connected left her ears ringing.

Blow after blow, she kept finding just enough space to survive them — not winning, not even close, but surviving, and for a handful of exchanges, that felt like enough. She caught a strike aimed at her stomach on her forearm instead, wincing at the impact but staying upright, and managed to slip a follow-up hook by dropping her weight low and rolling to the side.

For a moment, his pace even seemed to ease — the strikes coming a fraction slower, a fraction more predictable, like he was letting her find her footing before pushing further. She let herself believe it. Let herself think, foolishly, that maybe he'd decided to go easy on her after all.

She should have known better.

The next blow came without warning, faster than anything before it, aimed low and hard toward her side before she could fully process the shift in his stance. She twisted, too late, catching only half of the dodge she needed.

His fist connected solidly beneath her ribs.

"Arrrghhhh!" The sound tore out of her before she could stop it, pain exploding bright and sharp through her side as the impact sent her stumbling backward, breath ripped clean out of her lungs.