Steven’s POV
I hated that I was awake before the alarm.
That was the first thing I noticed.
The second was that Dylan Worth was coming at nine, which meant my brain had apparently decided sleep was a waste of time when dread could do the job instead.
I lay there for a second, staring at the ceiling, listening to the quiet creaks of the house settling into morning. Beside me, Aqua was still asleep, one arm tucked under her pillow, hair spread soft over the blanket. Fang was coiled near the foot of the bed, still enough that anyone else might have thought he was asleep too.
He wasn’t.
I could feel him.
Waiting.
Watching.
Which, honestly, made two of us.
I let out a slow breath and sat up.
Today was going to be humiliating. I could already feel it.
Not because I thought Dylan was going to insult me or throw me around just for fun. Somehow, that would have been easier to deal with. No, this felt worse than that. This felt like he was going to stand there with his stupid calm face and point out every single thing I was doing wrong while acting like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
And the most annoying part?
He was probably going to be right.
Fang lifted his head slightly.
Your confidence is inspiring.
I looked down at him.
“Don’t start.”
I was agreeing with you.
“That’s worse.”
Fang’s amusement brushed the bond, dry and entirely unhelpful.
I rubbed both hands over my face and tried not to groan loudly enough to wake Aqua.
Nine sharp.
That was what Dylan had said.
Training field. Nine sharp.
Great.
Even my humiliation had a schedule.
---
By the time the clock hit nine, I was already out in the training field.
Aqua sat on one of the benches off to the side with a thermos and two cups, wrapped in one of her light cardigans even though the morning wasn’t cold. Fang rested near her feet for the moment, head lifted, while I stood in the middle of the clearing trying to look like I was not waiting for someone to judge my whole existence.
The field behind the house was quiet in that eerie, protected way I still wasn’t fully used to. The barrier shimmered faintly at the edges when the sunlight hit it right, barely visible unless you knew where to look.
Then footsteps sounded behind us.
Right on time.
Because apparently punctuality was genetic.
Dylan came through the back gate like he had been built to arrive exactly when expected and not a second sooner. Dark pants. Rolled sleeves. Hands in his pockets again.
That still annoyed me.
He looked around once, taking in the field with a quick sweep that somehow felt both casual and annoyingly thorough.
“This will do,” he said.
That made me frown.
“Will do?”
Dylan looked at me.
“It’s reinforced. Private. Open enough to move in.” He paused. “Yes. It will do.”
Aqua rose from the bench.
“Good morning.”
“Morning,” I muttered.
Dylan gave Aqua a small nod. Then he looked at me and, just like that, the version of him from yesterday was gone.
Not literally.
But the energy changed.
Less visitor.
More trainer.
“We begin with basics,” he said.
I blinked at him.
“I already know the basics.”
“Then this should be easy for you.”
I stared at him.
He stared back.
Fang’s amusement brushed the bond like a knife tip against glass.
Traitor.
Dylan stepped closer and stopped a few feet in front of me.
“Show me your stance.”
“My what?”
“Your stance,” he repeated. “How you position yourself before calling fire.”
I looked at him for a second longer than I should have, then planted my feet and raised my hands slightly.
Dylan said nothing.
Which somehow made it worse.
Finally, he walked a slow half circle around me, hands still in his pockets, and said, “Too narrow.”
I frowned. “What?”
“Your stance,” he said. “Too narrow. You’re unstable before you’ve even begun.”
That made my shoulders tighten immediately.
“I’m standing fine.”
“No,” Dylan said calmly. “You are standing like someone preparing to compensate for bad balance with power.”
Aqua went very still on the bench.
I looked at her, which did not help because her face had that carefully neutral expression she got when she was trying not to show which side of a conversation she agreed with.
Dylan stepped in front of me again.
“Widen your stance.”
I did.
He looked down once.
“Better. Still wrong.”
I exhaled through my nose.
“This is going to be fun.”
“That depends,” Dylan said, “on whether you enjoy being corrected.”
I stared at him.
He didn’t look smug.
That was the most irritating part.
He said it like it was genuinely practical information.
Dylan nodded toward my shoulders.
“You’re tense.”
“I’m not tense.”
“You are,” he said. “Your shoulders lifted before I even started talking.”
Fang’s dry satisfaction brushed the bond again.
He noticed too.
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
I did not look at him.
“I want everyone to stop having eyes.”
Aqua pressed her lips together.
Dylan only blinked once.
“Relax your arms,” he said. “Loosen your knees. Root your weight before you call anything.”
I did it because arguing was somehow becoming more exhausting than listening.
“There,” Dylan said. “Now show me.”
I held out one hand and called the fire.
It answered instantly.
Orange flame rolled over my palm, hot and eager and too familiar now.
Dylan watched it without flinching.
Then he said, “Again.”
I frowned. “That was it.”
“That was not it,” he said. “That was you calling fire. I asked you to show me what you can do.”
My jaw tightened.
Fine.
I compressed the flame, held it a second, then sent a short burst across the field. It landed cleanly enough against the reinforced ground.
Dylan watched the whole thing with that same unreadable calm.
“Well?” I asked.
He was silent for one beat too long.
“Your output is strong,” he said. “Your recovery is poor.”
That one hit immediately.
“I recovered.”
“No,” Dylan said. “You finished.”
I frowned harder.
“There’s a difference?”
“Yes.”
I almost laughed from sheer disbelief.
Dylan took one step closer.
“You stop after release,” he said. “You don’t reset your body. You don’t check your footing. You don’t prepare for what comes after. You fire like someone who assumes one strike ends the problem.”
That sat unpleasantly in my chest because, annoyingly, it felt true.
I looked away first.
Dylan noticed.
Because apparently missing things was not one of his hobbies.
“Again,” he said.
That continued for the next thirty minutes.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Every time I did something, Dylan found the flaw in it.
Too much force. Not enough control. Bad angle. Weak recovery. Unnecessary motion. Too much telegraphing before I launched. Too much power too early.
At one point, after I sent another blast harder than I should have, he finally said, “You’re using fire to cover mistakes.”
I rounded on him. “What does that even mean?”
“It means,” Dylan said, “that every time your form breaks, you answer with more output instead of better control.”
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
Then gave up, because he had already moved on.
“Again.”
By the time we stopped, I was sweaty, annoyed, and dangerously close to admitting he knew what he was talking about.
Which I hated.
Aqua poured water into a cup and handed it to me without saying I told you so.
That was probably for the best.
---
Day two was worse.
Not because Dylan was harsher.
Because now I knew what to expect and still could not stop getting irritated every time he was right.
He made me work on foot placement before I was allowed to use fire for more than a few seconds.
Actual foot placement.
I had not known it was possible to feel insulted by my own feet until that day.
“Too slow,” Dylan said.
I fixed it.
“Too stiff.”
I fixed it again.
“You shift your weight before you move.”
“Because I’m about to move.”
“Then do it without announcing it to the world first.”
I stared at him.
He looked back at me with all the emotional warmth of an expensive wall.
Then he stepped in, put one hand briefly at my shoulder, another at my forearm, and repositioned me with calm, efficient precision.
The correction was quick.
Professional.
And deeply annoying, because the second I tried the movement again, it felt easier.
I glared at him.
Dylan stepped back and slid his hands into his pockets again like he had not just ruined my mood by being helpful.
Aqua, from the bench, very carefully did not smile.
Fang, meanwhile, was enjoying himself far too much.
Your feet have been personally offended, Fang observed.
Not now.
They may need comfort.
Fang.
He rested his head back down like he had made an important contribution to my suffering.
---
By day three, training stopped feeling like one long insult and started feeling like something worse.
Useful.
Dylan was still irritating. That part did not change.
But once I got out of my own head for half a second and actually did what he told me to do, things worked faster than they had before.
My stance held better. My balance did not collapse every time I put more force into a blast. My recovery after using fire got cleaner. And when Dylan pushed me into more physical drills—dodging, pivoting, changing direction without losing my footing—I realized something I had not expected.
I was actually… decent at it.
Not trained.
Not polished.
But my body picked it up faster than I thought it would.
Dylan noticed too.
He did not praise me exactly.
That would have been too normal.
But at one point, after I finally got through a rapid movement drill without nearly tripping over my own pride, he said, “Better.”
That one word sat in my chest longer than it should have.
I hated that too.
Careful, Fang said. You almost enjoyed being praised by Dylan Worth.
I did not.
You held that “better” in your chest like a trophy.
Stay out of my chest.
Difficult. You keep broadcasting.
I looked toward him.
He looked back at me from beside Aqua’s bench, yellow eyes far too innocent.
Traitor.
---
By day four, I understood something about Dylan Worth that made him even more annoying.
He did not waste movement.
At all.
When he demonstrated something, it was clean. Direct. No extra flourish. No dramatic power display. No showing off for the sake of looking impressive.
Which only made it more impressive.
At one point he had me throw a fire strike at him from mid-range.
I did.
He slipped around it in one smooth step, raised one hand, and a green shield flashed just long enough to catch the edge of the second blast before it dissipated harmlessly into sparks.
Then he was suddenly inside my reach.
Not touching me.
Just there.
“Again,” he said.
I stared at him.
“How did you even—”
“You overcommitted.”
That was apparently answer enough.
He repositioned me again.
I tried harder.
He dodged cleaner.
I got more annoyed.
Aqua kept watching from the bench with that same quiet attentiveness of hers, one hand around her cup, eyes flicking between us every time my frustration rose high enough to be visible from space.
The worst part was that Dylan did not seem bothered by any of it.
Not my irritation.
Not my fire.
Not the way I got sharper every time he corrected me.
He just adjusted the drill and kept going.
Like my temper was part of the training.
Like he had expected it.
Like I was predictable.
I hated that word more than I wanted to admit.
---
By day five, I was improving.
I knew it.
Even if I didn’t say it out loud.
I could feel when my body moved right now. I could feel when my fire answered cleaner. I could feel when I got through a sequence without having to force my way through it.
That was the good news.
The bad news was that the second I got frustrated, everything still got worse.
Every single time.
If Dylan corrected me too many times in a row, my shoulders tightened. If I missed something I thought I should have landed, I pushed too hard on the next attempt. If he stayed too calm while I was sweating through my shirt and wondering why my legs suddenly felt like they belonged to someone else, I wanted to hit something harder just to prove I could.
And every time that happened, something under my ribs answered in a way I did not like.
Not words.
Not exactly.
Just pressure.
Agreement.
A low, dangerous satisfaction that only showed up when I stopped thinking and reached harder.
That was the part I did not talk about.
Not to Aqua.
Not to Fang.
Definitely not to Dylan.
Because if I said it out loud, they would all look at me like it meant something.
And I was not ready for it to mean something.
So I did what I had gotten annoyingly good at doing.
I kept training.
---
By day six, even Aqua could see the difference.
The training itself was helping.
That part was obvious now.
I moved better. Reacted better. Recovered better.
But I was still carrying too much in my chest, and it kept bleeding into everything else.
After one session, when Dylan was checking the barrier edge where one of my blasts had struck a little too hard, Aqua came out with drinks and handed one to each of us.
“Lemonade,” she said.
I took the glass and immediately looked at Dylan.
He looked at the lemonade.
Then at me.
I lowered my voice.
“Careful.”
One of his brows lifted slightly.
Aqua narrowed her eyes.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly.
It was not nothing.
Aqua’s lemonade was usually good.
Usually.
Sometimes it had a way of making my whole face regret trusting her.
Dylan, to my absolute betrayal, took a sip.
He paused.
I waited.
Aqua waited.
Finally, Dylan said, in the driest tone possible, “It’s good.”
I stared at him.
No way.
I took a sip of mine.
It was good.
Actually good.
Aqua’s eyes narrowed more.
“Why do you look surprised?”
“I don’t.”
“Steven.”
I lowered the glass.
“It’s just… you know. Sometimes it’s a little… adventurous.”
“Adventurous?”
“In a sour direction.”
Dylan looked down at his lemonade like he was now reassessing the risk he had already survived.
Aqua stared at me.
I cleared my throat.
“This one is great.”
“This one,” she repeated.
“Very great.”
Fang’s amusement brushed the bond.
Excellent recovery.
Not now.
Aqua kept looking at me for one more second, then took a sip of her own lemonade with the dignity of someone who knew she had won and was pretending not to enjoy it.
Still, that was the first moment all week that did not feel like correction, tension, or me trying not to take everything personally.
Just a strange little pause in the middle of all of it.
Aqua seemed to notice too.
She looked between us and said, “You are both getting along better than before.”
I nearly choked on the lemonade.
“We are not getting along.”
Dylan looked at me over the rim of his glass.
“I wasn’t aware we were in conflict.”
That was somehow even worse.
Aqua laughed softly into her own cup.
Traitors.
All of them.
---
By the seventh day, my body knew more than my pride wanted to admit.
I was not good.
Not yet.
But I was better.
And Dylan knew it.
I could tell by the way his corrections had shifted. Less basic structure now. More timing. More adjustment under pressure. More trying to make me stay clean when things sped up.
Which was exactly where I started slipping again.
When things were calm, I was improving. When I had time to think, I could fix things. When I remembered to breathe, I moved better.
But the second frustration entered the equation, something in me wanted to stop training and start forcing.
Dylan noticed every time.
He did not say much about it.
That was what bothered me.
He just watched.
Adjusted the drill.
Watched again.
At one point near the end of the session, I sent a quick sequence of smaller strikes cleaner than I had all week.
Dylan watched the last one land, then gave one short nod.
“There,” he said. “That.”
I blinked.
“That what?”
“That is what you look like when you stop fighting yourself first.”
That landed in a place I did not want it to.
I looked away.
Sweat ran down the back of my neck. My arms ached. My lungs felt overused.
But under all that, annoyingly, there was something close to pride too.
Because he was right.
Again.
Aqua rose from the bench when we finally stopped, and Fang slid a little closer across the grass, as if the end of the session gave him permission to inspect the damage.
Dylan stood opposite me, barely breathing hard.
I hated that too.
Then he looked at me with that same flat, measuring calm and said, “Tomorrow we do something different.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” Dylan said, “that I’ve seen enough of how you move when everything is predictable.”
I stared at him.
“And?”
“And tomorrow,” he said, “I want to see how you move when it isn’t.”
That did not sound comforting.
Aqua’s expression shifted slightly from the bench.
She had caught the tone too.
I looked at Dylan harder.
“What exactly are you planning?”
Dylan’s face did not change.
“We’ll see.”
Then he turned and started toward the back gate like the conversation was already over.
I stood there in the middle of the field, sweaty and irritated and far too aware that whatever came next was not going to be simple.
Aqua came over slowly, cup still in hand.
“What do you think he meant by that?”
I watched Dylan go, shoulders still loose, hands already in his pockets again like he had not just said something ominous on purpose.
“I think,” I said flatly, “that tomorrow is going to be incredibly annoying.”
Fang’s quiet satisfaction brushed the bond.
He knew something too.
Probably because he always knew more than was convenient.
I looked down at him.
“Don’t.”
He blinked slowly.
I said nothing.
“You were about to.”
I was considering patience.
“Try harder.”
Aqua’s hand found mine, soft and warm, and I let her take it.
For a second, I held on tighter than I meant to.
Tomorrow, Dylan Worth wanted to see what I did when things stopped being predictable.
And the worst part was, some stubborn, reckless part of me wanted to know too.