Page 2 of The Dragon 1
Not a gasp.
A moan—sharp and quiet.
Someone trying not to be heard.
My fingers froze in mid-reach, I turned my head toward the sound.
At the far end of the study, a woman was pinned to my father’s desk, it wasn’t my mother. His hands were at her throat, not squeezing hard, but just enough to hold her still.
His face wasn’t twisted with rage.
It was calm.
Focused.
Like he was reading her body the way I read my books—slowly, hungrily, taking in every line.
She looked up at him with her mouth parted and her eyes full of something I couldn’t name then, later I would call itsurrender.
Her fingers clutched the edge of the desk, knuckles white, yet not in fear.
Her dress had slipped from her shoulders, one silk strap dangled uselessly down her arm.
I remember all the sounds of that night. The sound of her breath; raspy, fast. The slick rustle of his suit. The low, guttural growl he made when she whimpered.
My heartbeat had thundered in my ears.
I didn’t understand what I was seeing, not really.
But I knew it was sacred.
Private.
A ritual of power wrapped in intimacy.
In that moment, I understood why my mother had always forbidden me from entering his study after dark—why she never crossed its threshold herself, day or night. She only ever glared at the door then hurried past it as if old ghosts might leak through the keyhole and cling to her skin.
Shocked and the book now forgotten, I backed away slowly and slipped out of the study.
However, right as I left, the woman let out a gasp.
Soft.
Shattered.
Sacred.
The kind of sound a woman made when ruin and rapture claimed her in the same breath—when hands didn’t just hold her, they unmade her.
It would take me years to understand what I’d witnessed.
Even then, I knew.
Power didn’t always roar.
Sometimes, it whispered.
Sometimes, it moaned.
