Chapter 2: The Girl Who Thought She Could Say

The air inside his private quarters was suffocating — thick with humidity, cigar smoke, and tension too heavy to name.

Sarika sat stiffly in the carved wooden chair — her ankles crossed, posture upright like she was being judged. Her fingers clutched the end of her dupatta like it could shield her from the storm slowly brewing in the man watching her from across the room.

Captain Julian Rhodes didn’t sit this time.

He stood by the tall, shuttered window, moonlight cutting across his sharp features. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, uniform half-undone, collar open just enough to reveal the sheen of sweat on his chest. Arms folded, he looked like a king surveying something already his — or something that had dared to disobey him.

"You slapped me," he said, voice low and sharp like the edge of a hunting knife — controlled, but barely.

She didn’t answer. Her jaw clenched.

"I should have you arrested for disrespecting an officer of the Crown," he continued, stepping away from the window, boots echoing heavily on the polished floor. “Do you understand that, little girl?”

“I’m not yours to speak to like that,” she snapped, her voice trembling but clear. “I belong to no one.”

He laughed.

Bitter. Dangerous. That sound did not belong to a man used to being defied.

“No,” he said, almost to himself. “You belonged to me the moment you stepped into my gaze.”

He stopped in front of her now. The space between them was thick, electric.

Her chin tilted defiantly upward. Her eyes didn’t blink. Wide — not with fear, but with unfiltered rage.

And it made him want her more.

He crouched down in front of her chair, moving slowly — like a beast lowering itself before pouncing. His face leveled with hers. The scent of him — leather, musk, faint alcohol — surrounded her.

His hand rose — not to strike, but to stroke a line down the curve of her jaw, slow and deliberate.

She flinched hard and slapped his hand away, the sound echoing in the silence like a gunshot.

Big mistake.

In an instant, he grabbed her wrist — rough, unflinching — hard enough to make her gasp aloud.

"You think I’ll stop because you said no?" he said, voice dropping an octave, dark and molten. "I’ve bent entire nations, Sarika. Do you really think a girl with soft hands and sharp eyes can stop me?”

She kicked out — a sudden, desperate move — tried to bolt from the chair, but he was faster.

He shoved her roughly against the towering bookshelf behind her, dust rising in the wake. Books tumbled to the floor. His arm came up, barring her escape. His body pressed close, heat radiating from every inch of him.

She struggled — twisted — but he didn’t let her go.

“Let me go,” she hissed, breath hot against his neck.

“No.”

“Let me go, or I will—”

He cut her off, grabbing both her wrists and pinning them above her head, her back arching involuntarily.

“Or you’ll what?” he growled. “Tell me. Scream? Cry? Curse me in your sacred language?”

Her breath was ragged now, chest rising and falling beneath the thin cotton blouse that clung to her skin from the heat. Her braid had loosened in the scuffle, strands of dark hair clinging to her cheek. She smelled of sandalwood and something wild, uncatchable.

He leaned in, his breath brushing the shell of her ear.

“You can run, fight, slap me again — I won’t stop until you break.”

Then softer. Crueler. Almost tender.

“And I’ll make sure when you do... you’ll beg for more.”

Her eyes welled with furious tears — not from fear, but humiliation. Powerlessness.

“You’re a monster,” she spat, voice cracking.

He smiled. Slow. Cold. Unapologetic.

“Finally. Something true.”

And just like that, he let her go.

She stumbled back, nearly tripping on the fallen books, her breath heaving, wrists bruised and pride in tatters.

He didn’t apologize.

Didn’t offer a cloth. Didn’t ask if she was okay.

He simply turned his back, poured himself a glass of whiskey from the crystal decanter on the side table, the ice clinking gently like an insult, and said without looking:

“Come back tomorrow. Or I’ll send soldiers to fetch you.”

She didn’t move.

“Now leave,” he added, swirling the glass, voice detached.

“Before I change my mind and keep you here.”

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