Page 4 of Reforging Onyx

He’d allowed the boy to keep distance between them, and that seemed to be making things more difficult as Onyx strove to keep him at arm’s length. Dominic was not going to allow that distance to stand, so perhaps it was better never to allow it to form at all.

The Rayne witch had proven that it would be impossible for him to bend in the ways that Dominic had desired, and even when Dominic had stepped back from his hubris to evaluate the damage that had been done, he had underestimated the depths of some of the fissures in Onyx’s psyche.

Worse, he was playing catch-up in identifying precisely where the cracks had begun to form.

He was going to have to force the issue by placing Onyx into weakened states and applying pressure — and relief — to break down Onyx’s defenses quickly, before those fissures spread in unpredictable ways.

It would test them both, and the risk of failure was higher than Dominic was satisfied with, but Onyx’s actions had taken the choice out of his hands. Dominic would not allow him to self-destruct that way. Either the Rayne witch would become wholly his, or Dominic would shatter him.

Onyx shifted again in his sleep, and Dominic soothed him with feather-light touches and murmured words until he settled again.

Dominic’s body — quite predictably — responded in the ways that one would expect with the warm body pressed against him, and a restless one at that. By the time a reasonable hour was coming around and Onyx started to stir, he was hard. It was a normal bodily reaction that he had no plans to do anything about; Onyx was certainly not ready to be fucked and wouldn’t be for some time.

If he thought Onyx wouldn’t respond terribly, he’d have been tempted to try to convince him.

But Onyx would not take it well.

When Onyx stiffened in his arms, he didn’t have a hard time guessing what might be first on the boy’s mind.

“I’m not going to fuck you,” Dominic said sleepily.

“Yeah,” Onyx replied, his voice equally as tired. “Let go of me.”

“Mmm,” Dominic grumbled into Onyx’s ear. “Not yet.”

He kept his face buried in Onyx’s hair, just breathing in the scent of him. His hand made slow, abstract movements, tracing over the skin of Onyx’s chest. Not to arouse, just to touch. His hand passed over Onyx’s abdomen and Dominic lightly squeezed his hip before reaching back up to unbuckle the wrist and thumb cuffs to release Onyx’s hands.

“Go shower,” Dominic told him. “I’ve removed anything from the bathroom that you might be able to hurt yourself with, and all of the glass has been rendered unbreakable.” Releasing Onyx, Dominic rolled onto his back to run his hands over his face and stretch as the younger witch bolted into the bathroom.

Dominic got out of bed and pulled underwear, loose pants, and an undershirt on.

Fortunately, he’d made arrangements the prior day so that nothing terribly important had been interrupted when Shane called him, but there had been some disturbance, and he sat down at his desk with his laptop to start sorting things out. He ordered breakfast, and when it arrived, Dominic realized that Onyx was still in the bathroom.

He’d heard the water turn on, and he knew there wasn’t anything in the room that Onyx could hurt himself with. He’d even set up extra sentinel wards that would alert him if Onyx tried to do something like drown himself, so that was unlikely to be happening.

Going to the bathroom door, he knocked on it. The water wasn’t running anymore, but Onyx still hadn’t come out. “Onyx? Breakfast is ready, and it's time to come out.”

There was a pause, then the door opened slowly.

Onyx shuffled out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

Dominic’s gaze checked over the Rayne witch thoroughly, looking for any indications of new damage or distress.

Onyx’s lips were pinched at the corners, and he wouldn’t meet Dominic’s eyes, but it didn’t seem like he’d tried to do anything to hurt himself again.

Dominic nodded. “Get dressed and then come eat.”

Unlike previous occasions, the breakfast plate wasn’t waiting next to Onyx’s side of the bed. It sat instead on Dominic’s desk, where an additional chair had been placed beside his own.

He was still deciding how specifically to address everything that had happened the prior day, but nothing was going to be said before they both had had something to eat. He watched as Onyx dressed, pulling on underwear, shorts, and even a t-shirt before joining Dominic at his desk.

Dominic took a few bites of food, and then sat back in his chair and sipped from his coffee while Onyx ate his breakfast.

“What happened yesterday won’t be repeated,” he said only after Onyx had finished eating and his plate was empty. “You will be monitored any time I am not with you to ensure that you don’t try something like that again.”

“Okay,” Onyx said simply.

Dominic nodded slightly, noting the lack of protest. “Shane, of course, will be punished.” He considered Onyx for a moment. Onyx would undoubtedly be angry with Shane for stopping him, but just how far did that anger go?