Chapter 86: Training

Sienna could tell, the moment she opened her eyes, that she had been asleep for a very long time. Her whole body felt heavy in that particular way it did after too much sleep, her limbs slow to respond, the light outside the window already bright and full, well past morning.

She pushed herself up slowly, blinking against the sunlight, and glanced around the quiet room. There was no sign of Viktor, no sign of anyone at all. Just the soft, undisturbed stillness of a house that had clearly gone about its business without her.

She spotted one of Viktor’s shirts draped over the back of a chair, oversized and white, clearly forgotten there sometime the night before.

Without thinking much of it, she pulled it on over her head, the fabric falling loose around her thighs, soft and warm and smelling faintly of him, and padded barefoot out of the bedroom.

The hallway was strangely quiet.

She had grown used to the constant low hum of activity in this house, guards stationed at every corner, staff moving briskly from room to room, the occasional sharp voice barking orders somewhere down the hall.

But this morning, there was almost none of that. A few maids nodded politely as she passed, but otherwise, the house felt oddly empty, peaceful in a way it never usually managed to be.

She wandered down toward the kitchen, grabbing an apple from the bowl on the counter, and it was through the wide kitchen window that she finally spotted where everyone had gone.

Viktor stood out in the training yard behind the house, shirtless, moving through some kind of drill with quiet, controlled precision, his muscles shifting smoothly under a light sheen of sweat as he worked through a series of strikes against one of his men. Sienna froze completely, apple halfway to her mouth, her eyes locked helplessly on him.

She told herself to look away. She told herself, quite firmly, that this was exactly the kind of thing her mind had absolutely no business lingering on.

And yet her feet carried her forward anyway, drawn toward the back door as if pulled by something entirely separate from her own good sense, until she found herself standing at the edge of the yard, watching.

It wasn’t just Viktor, either.

The rest of his men were scattered around the yard as well, all of them, it seemed, shirtless too, going through their own drills and exercises in the morning sun.

Sienna’s eyes drifted, almost against her will, from one to the next, taking in the sight of it all with a kind of dazed, helpless curiosity she hadn’t fully expected.

Viktor noticed her almost immediately.

His eyes cut sharply toward the doorway, and within seconds, he barked a short, low command toward the rest of his men.

Every single one of them turned instantly, backs facing her, blocking her view completely, leaving only Viktor standing directly in front of her, effectively shielding the rest of the yard from her line of sight.

Sienna leaned slightly to one side, craning her neck to peek around him toward the other men.

"Hi," Viktor said, his voice cutting through her focus sharply. "What exactly are you staring at?"

"Me? Nothing," Sienna lied quickly, snapping her eyes back to his face, heat rushing into her cheeks.

Viktor’s mouth twitched, something knowing and faintly amused in his expression. Without a word, he reached out, took her hand gently in his, and guided it slowly to rest against his chest, tracing her fingers lightly over the warm, damp skin there.

Aria’s voice echoed suddenly through Sienna’s mind, unbidden and entirely unhelpful. Hot. Hot.

The word rang through her thoughts like a stubborn little bell she couldn’t silence, and for one embarrassing moment, Sienna felt herself drooling, quite literally, staring at him with an expression she was certain gave away entirely too much.

"This," Viktor said quietly, watching her face with obvious satisfaction, "is all you need to look at."

"And who said I wanted to," Sienna shot back, though the words came out weaker than she intended, her voice slightly breathless.

Finally, her senses caught up with her, sharp embarrassment flooding through the haze, and she pulled her hand back quickly, turning on her heel and marching back toward the house.

Viktor followed without hurrying, easily catching up to her long before she reached the door.

"You’re awake," he said, falling into step beside her.

"Obviously," Sienna muttered, still trying to will the heat out of her cheeks.

"Listen," Viktor said, reaching out to catch her wrist gently, pulling her to a stop just before she could disappear back inside. "I want to teach you how to protect yourself."

Sienna turned to look at him, surprised. "Why?" she asked. "I have you to protect me. You said you would always protect me."

"I know," Viktor said, and something shifted in his expression then, the easy teasing from moments before fading into something heavier, more serious.

"But after what happened the other day, when I saw that blood on the bed and thought it was yours, I nearly burned the rest of the city down looking for whoever did it." His jaw tightened, his grip on her wrist gentling even as his voice grew firmer.

"I don’t want that to ever happen again. I don’t want to spend one more second wondering whether I’ll get to you in time."

Sienna’s teasing annoyance melted away slowly, replaced by something quieter, something that ached faintly somewhere behind her ribs at the raw honesty in his voice.

"Okay," she said finally, softer now. "Teach me, then."

A small, satisfied smile crossed Viktor’s face, and for the first time that morning, it reached all the way up into his eyes.

"Good," he said. "We’ll start now. Go change into something you can move in. Meet me back out here in ten minutes."

Sienna hesitated at the doorway, glancing back at him one more time, at the sweat still glistening on his skin, at the strange, careful softness hiding just beneath his usual hard exterior.

Whatever warning Aria had given her about the danger of falling for a man like this, whatever tired reminder she kept repeating to herself about love being for the weak, none of it seemed to hold quite the same weight anymore, standing here in the bright morning sun, wearing his shirt, watching him look at her like she was something worth protecting with everything he had.

"Ten minutes," she said, and disappeared back into the house before he could see the small, helpless smile spreading across her own face.