Page 5 of Reforging Onyx

“Punish him then." Onyx's voice was flat.

Dominic knew that Shane cared far more for the witch than he wanted to let on. It was something that he’d suspected before but had become more apparent in the last few weeks. Did Onyx feel the same way? It would be vexing to have to find someone new to fill the position of Onyx’s trainer and who could be trusted to keep his eyes on the witch without bonding too closely with him.

“Replacing him would be inconvenient,” Dominic murmured, his eyes lingering on Onyx as he weighed his distant expression.

“So… don’t?” Onyx shrugged like it didn’t matter, but Dominic suspected it mattered a great deal to him.

Dominic hummed thoughtfully as he took another drink of coffee. “Do you want me to replace him?”

“Does it matter—” Onyx bit his lip. “I don’t know."

Dominic nodded slightly to those sullen words. “Technically, what you did didn’t break the letter of our agreement, though it certainly broke the spirit of it. And given the nature of it, it’s also not something that I could exactly warn you about the consequences of before you do it. Which leaves me trying to decide them in the aftermath.” He took another sip of his coffee, studying Onyx. “What do you think I should do?”

Onyx shrugged after a long moment of silence, squirming in his chair. “I don’t know. You’re already doing everything you can to make sure it doesn’t happen again. You added that condition to our agreement. You’re making sure I don’t get to make it stop.” He took in another deep, shaky breath. “That’s bad enough.”

Dominic sighed. “Onyx, that doesn’t have to be bad. You can make it not be bad at all.”

“You keep saying that,” Onyx retorted. “But I know what you want. You want everything. You’re gonna pretend that you’re giving me everything, but you’re just taking what you want. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow.” His smile was brittle. “But someday.”

It was inevitable, if unfortunate, that Onyx had put that much together. But Dominic had known that Onyx was certainly not unintelligent. Uneducated, but not unintelligent. Dominic still wanted to teach him chess and see how he would do with the strategy of it.

But the fact that he had recognized the long game meant that it couldn’t stay the same. Dominic couldn’t keep guiding Onyx along the path he wanted while hoping the boy didn’t see the threads tightening around him when he already knew that the trap was there.

Dominic nodded. “Someday,” he agreed. “And you can choose how you get there. It doesn’t have to be this struggle and this despair. Pick the gilded cage instead of the iron one, Onyx. Pick the one that will let the embers inside of you burn brightly again.”

“Getting there means I lose,” Onyx said, standing up abruptly. “It means I lose myself. How can you expect me to just… be okay with that?”

Dominic didn’t react when Onyx stood, but he tipped his head slightly at the words. “Why would you have to lose? Onyx, I have said it time and again: I don’t want you broken. I don’t want you an empty shell. If I wanted that, I could do it, but that’s not the fire that draws me.”

Onyx stared at Dominic. “You want me to let you fuck me,” he said abruptly, his voice harsh. “You probably think you can even make me want it. I’m not like you. I don’t want men. If you want me to lie down and take it, guess what, Dominic? You lose who I am.”

Dominic shook his head. “Homophobia is learned, Onyx. It’s not innate. It’s not something that you just wake up one day to knowing that you hate men who take pleasure in one another. You don’t have to lose yourself to unlearn learned behaviors and ideas. And if you’re not attracted to men, what of it? That doesn’t stop the pleasure that I can bring to you, and you know it. Accepting that also doesn’t lose who you are. You are not lost because your body enjoys the things that I do to it.”

Onyx hugged his arms against his chest. “And in return? I get anything I want?” he demanded. “You want my body; you want some stupid fucking spark. And I get everything. Right?”

“Anything that I can reasonably provide, yes,” Dominic said. “There will be things that will need to be worked up to, since I will need to know that I can trust you, but if there are things that I cannot give you yet, that doesn’t mean that I never can.”

Onyx closed his eyes against the words briefly, then narrowed them at Dominic. “I’m not sucking your cock. Not now, not ever.”

Dominic studied Onyx for a moment, taking in his stance and the tension in his body and expression. Standing, he picked up the plates off the desk and moved to take them to a side table. “Lower your pants and bend over the desk, like you did in my office before.”

Chapter 3

Onyx

“What?” Onyx asked, more startled than anything at the command. “No.”

“Bend over the desk, Onyx. I’m not going to fuck you,” Dominic replied, like that somehow made anything better.

Onyx shook his head, taking a step back as his guarded expression came back up. “I’m not going to let you spank me. I’m not.” He’d pretty much told Dominic that he knew the inevitable end was for him to get fucked. Why would he bend over and take a punishment like this when obedience only brought him one step closer to that end?

Dominic frowned. “Onyx, this is the consequence for scaring me yesterday like you did. I don’t want to have to do worse.”

“I said no!” Onyx snarled, suddenly finding the anger he’d been missing since he’d first awoken and clinging to it. “I’m not letting you punish me for trying to escape you. You didn’t tell me I couldn’t do that. It wasn’t in the rules. You keep saying you’ll give me everything, that you want to see my embers… whatever. I’m not a little kid. I’m not—” He let out a frustrated sound, wishing he had better words for what was going on in his head, but he lifted his head and stared at Dominic with blazing eyes. “No.”

“I do want to give you everything, Onyx, and I plan on doing that,” Dominic said in that infuriatingly calm way of his. “And while you are not a child, you do still need discipline, and there are consequences for scaring me the way that you did. That is not something that I will allow to pass without response. Take the punishment so we can move on from this.”

Onyx’s eyes narrowed. “Stop saying my name like that. Stop doing that. Stop trying to— to—” Whatever it was Dominic was doing, he didn’t know, but he knew he didn’t like it, didn’t want it. He took another step back. “I’m not. I’m not.”