Page 101 of Reforging Onyx

He died in the game, resurrected, and glared at the screen. He didn’t ever die. He needed to stop letting his thoughts wind around and around, but he couldn’t stop.

Dominic had tortured him and raped him so many fucking times, and Onyx had killed someone to protect both of them before allowing himself to be collared again. Not willingly, exactly; he hadn’t bared his throat for Dominic to secure the collar around his neck. But he had known what would happen when he got close like that.

Hadn’t he?

He should’ve killed Dominic.

He shouldn’t have taken the drug.

He should’ve fought.

He hadn’t.

Onyx curled up in the corner of the couch, closing his eyes. He didn’t sleep, didn’t want to sleep, but he didn’t know how to keep himself from crying. Pathetic. It was fucking pathetic, but all of the emotions were so much, and he didn’t know how to get through them with him in one piece.

He passed the morning drowsing and trying not to think, then throwing himself into the game to continue to try not to think.

When Shane dropped in to check up on him, he looked bleakly up at him but offered nothing.

Shane frowned slightly. “Gym?”

Surprise briefly flickered through him, but then he was on his feet. “Can we?” he asked warily. He didn’t know if Dominic would allow it, but he wanted it.

It was better than crying on the couch.

Shane shrugged. He glanced toward one of the corners of the room, then gave a quick wave in that direction. “We’re going to the gym."

The speaker on the intercom crackled to life. “Very well,” Dominic said.

Of course Dominic had the place so wired that it only took a gesture and a few words to get his attention. Which meant that Dominic had been paying attention to the rec room, and Onyx felt disgust and shame coil in his stomach when he realized that meant Dominic probably knew he’d been crying.

Fuck.

But this was a reason to go and get his frustrations out, to exhaust himself until he’d be able to sit beside Dominic on the fucking floor and not think about how thoroughly he’d allowed himself to be used the day before.

There was no lingering soreness to remind him of it, not with the vampire blood having been so fresh in his system, but that didn’t make it possible to ignore it.

Shane smirked at Onyx. “Let’s go.”

Onyx nodded, stepping out of the rec room and into the hallway. He breathed out slowly, then followed Shane to the gym. He hopped into the ring to stretch, staying quiet the entire time.

Shane stretched and warmed up while Onyx did. “Hand to hand or staves?”

“Staves,” Onyx said after a pause, getting back up to his feet and heading to grab the staves for them. He wasn’t angry, wasn’t driven by the need to get it out. He was all twisted up inside, but he couldn’t even blame Dominic, could he?

In the end, he’d consented.

It didn’t matter that he’d been coerced, that it had been inevitable. He’d still agreed to take the drug and let himself be lost to pleasure. He’d⁠—

He needed distraction. Badly.

Shane nodded, taking his staff from Onyx. “Let's start with the pattern I taught you and then we can work on the katas.”

Back and forth, they traded the fixed set of strikes and blocks, with Shane correcting Onyx’s form and the ways that he was holding the staff at times until they were flowing through the motions, the staves clicking together. There was a meditative quality to trading the patterns of blows, for all that it was the starting point of sparring.

“Good!” Shane said, breaking out of the form.

Onyx always drank in the lessons like a flower beneath the sun, and he put in all of the focus necessary to learn quickly. It didn’t mean he was flawless, but he picked it up as quickly as he picked up physical training, and hearing Shane’s confirmation that he was doing well soothed something inside of him.