“I don’t.” I shrug.
“We’re going to get to know each other and if there’s anything Isobel wants to try, I said I’d help her,” Dakota adds.
“Well, I’ll try to stop by and see how it’s going.” Lucian’s phone rings. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls it out and glances at the screen. “Sorry, girls, I’ve got to take this.”
“No problem,” Dakota and I say in unison.
I give her a small smile.
Lucian’s eyes soften for a moment before he turns, answering the phone with a stern greeting before walking out.
Dakota setsme up on a treadmill, and I walk in a steady rhythm as I watch Dakota move from one machine to the next. She lets me know that she has a trainer coming shortly.
She asks me a lot of the basic things. What’s my favorite color?Black.She tells me that’s not a color.So, blue.What’s my favorite TV show?I don’t have one, never had time to watch.Favorite movie?Same answer as before.Favorite food?Couldn’t really be picky since I didn’t have many options.
She has a small crease between her brows by the time her trainer arrives. Dakota twists her hair back into a tight braid. I stop the treadmill and move next to the boxing ring, dabbing my forehead with a towel and drinking some water.
Dakota steps into the ring with a tall, broad-shouldered trainer. He circles her like a shadow, barking commands that she answers with fierce precision.
Jab. Cross. Elbow. Sweep.
She moves like she’s done this a hundred times. I can hear the power behind each move.
My breath catches as I watch her land a brutal hook to the trainer’s padded side, followed by a low kick that knocks him slightly off balance. He grunts in approval, nodding for her to go again.
Lucian stops beside me. I can’t help the jump. His arms are crossed, as he watches his stepdaughter without a word. His expression was unreadable.
I can’t look away for long.
This was the same girl who’d passed the bread at dinner with a polite smile. Who looks like a walking doll. But here—she is something else entirely. Sharp. Unyielding. Fierce. She moves with a type of grace that is equally deadly.
“I didn’t know she could fight like that,” I say, a bit of awe in my voice.
Lucian glances at me. “She’s been training since she was ten. It started as a way to channel her energy. Now it’s part of her discipline. Her edge.”
I nod slowly, still watching Dakota drive her fist into the padded mitt with a satisfying crack.
A strange feeling tightens my chest. Not jealousy. Not envy. Something deeper.
Need.
“I want to learn.”
Lucian turns fully toward me.
“I want to learn how to do that,” I say, my voice quiet but firm. “To defend myself. To fight back. I don’t ever want to feel weak again.”
There’s a beat of silence. Then he nods once.
“Good,” he says. “We’ll start tomorrow.”
And just like that, something inside me shifts and clicks into place.
“That would be perfect.” I beam up at him. “Thank you.”
I’m tryingto copy the stretches Dakota showed me when Lucian steps in with a woman with wine-colored hair. They laugh and it dawns on me that I’ve never seen Lucian talk and joke like this with anyone.
I push myself up off the ground and rub my hands down my leggings.
