Damien stood motionless, eyes closed, the air around him drawn tight like a chord waiting to snap. The subtle gravity dialed into the room pressed against his skin—not enough to crush, but just enough to provoke. Just enough to make his heart beat with that old rhythm.
The rhythm of threat.
Of violence.
Dominic remained still at the edge of the ring, voice low but unyielding.
"Focus on the moment it first surfaced," he said. "When something in you moved that had never moved before."
Damien didn't respond.
But in his mind, something shifted.
The canyon.
The way the wind had screamed between stone. The monster—its breath, its bulk, the shimmer of madness in its eyes.
It hadn't just attacked.
It had chosen him.
That moment—when the gap between death and defiance narrowed, when his instincts should've buckled but didn't—that was when it rose.
A pulse.
A hunger.
Damien's brow furrowed faintly.
"It's not just emotion," he murmured. "It's not rage."
