He did not release her arm when they returned to the study.
Rossie was vibrating, a plucked string humming at a frequency of pure terror. She was hyperventilating, her lungs aching, her vision blurred with unshed, panicked tears. She had been used. She had been seen. She had been emptied.
And he had called her magnificent.
Maher held her in place, his grip like a steel clamp on her bicep. He did not look at her, not at first. He stood beside his desk, eyes closed, savoring the moment. He was a predator, sated, the coppery tang of victory and power still fresh on his palate. He was high on her despair. The energy he had absorbed, the power he had demonstrated, was thrumming through him.
He looked... pleased. More than pleased. He looked content.
"The noise in your system," he said, his voice a low, calm rumble.
Rossie flinched, the sound vibrating through his hand into her arm.
His silver eyes opened, pinning her. They were bright, energized, and sharp as surgical steel.
"The panic," he clarified. "The spike of raw, animal terror. It was... useful. A powerful accelerant. But it is inefficient. It burns too hot and risks damaging the engine."
He was analyzing her. He was giving her a performance review.
"You are shaking," he observed, as if she were a piece of lab equipment behaving unexpectedly.
"I... I..." she couldn't form words.
"This," he said, tapping his own temple, "is where the true work lies. Your mind. It is untrained. It wastes so much potential. It sees oblivion and defaults to a vulgar, useless scream."
He released her arm, only to cup her chin, forcing her to look at him. His touch was not gentle, but it was not violent, either. It was diagnostic. His thumb pressed against her frantic pulse.
"You are in shock," he diagnosed. "Unacceptable. An asset of your value must be able to withstand the pressure of its own function. We must build a stronger housing for the core."
Rossie's mind, fractured and terrified, could only grasp one thing. Housing. Core. Engine. Asset.
He was going to modify her.
"No," she whispered, a pathetic, reflexive sound of animal fear. "Please..."
"You misunderstand." Maher's gaze was one of pure, cold pragmatism. He was not angry. He was a technician. "I am not punishing you. I am optimizing you."
He turned and walked, not to her room, but toward his own private chambers—a section of the penthouse she had never been permitted to see. He did not look back. He simply expected her to follow.
A tool follows its master.
Her shaking legs, moving on pure, hollow adrenaline, obeyed.
His chambers were nothing like the rest of the penthouse.
The public areas were white marble, glass, and sharp angles—a sterile, cold display of power.
This room was warm.
It was dark, paneled in ancient, near-black wood. The floor was covered in rich, deep-red Persian rugs. A fire—a real fire—crackled in a massive stone hearth. The air smelled of old books, cedar, and something faintly spicy, like ozone.
This was not a display. This was his den.
And in the center of the room was a vast, simple bed, draped in dark, heavy furs.
Rossie's terror found a new, sharper focus. Her mind, already broken, supplied the most obvious, human conclusion.
He had used her power. Now he would use her body.
She stopped at the threshold, her back rigid. "No. Not... not this."
Maher turned, halfway across the room. He registered her stance, her new spike of fear. He analyzed it. And then, he understood her primitive, human assumption.
A faint, almost invisible smile touched his lips. It was not amusement. It was pity.
"You think," he said, his voice laced with the driest, coldest contempt, "that this is about that?"
He gestrum, dismissing the entire concept of human lust with one flick of his hand.
"Child. Your flesh is a crude, temporary vessel. It is the least valuable part of you. I am not a brute like Tariq, wallowing in the mud of physical sensation."
He walked to the bed and sat on its edge. "I am interested in the core. The engine. And the engine," he tapped his own chest, "is exhausted."
RossWhat did he mean?
"You are running on empty," he stated. "You gave... everything... in that room. And I took it. Now, you are a hollow, vibrating shell."
He looked at her, and his silver eyes held a terrifying, clinical sympathy.
"I am going to refill you."
He held out a hand. "Come here."
She did not want to. She was terrified. But the authority in his voice, the power he had demonstrated, left no room for defiance.
She was a ghost. She was hollow.
She drifted forward, step by agonizing step, until she stood before him.
"Sit," he commanded.
She sat on the edge of the bed, as far from him as she could, rigid, shaking.
"No. That is useless." With an impatient sigh, he gripped her shoulders. "You are fighting the maintenance. Lie down."
Before she could protest, he pushed her. She fell back onto the heavy furs, her body lost in the softness. It was like falling into a warm, dark cloud.
It was the first moment of physical comfort she had known in weeks.
And it was agonizing.
She lay there, a sacrifice on his altar, staring at the dark, vaulted ceiling.
He did not lie down beside her. He simply sat, looking down at her, his expression that of a master artisan studying a complex, delicate piece of machinery.
"You burned too hot," he murmured, almost to himself. "The panic. The guilt. The fear of Ayumi. It was a fury of high-grade fuel. But a wildfire is wasteful. A furnace... a furnace is controlled. It burns at a steady temperature. It lasts."
He reached out.
Rossie flinched, squeezing her eyes shut.
His hand did not touch her body.
It rested, cool and heavy, on her forehead.
His thumb began to move, tracing a slow, steady, methodical circle on her temple.
It was not a caress. It was an act of calibration.
"You will not break," he stated, his voice a low, hypnotic command. "You will not shatter. You will endure."
And as he spoke, a new sensation flowed from his hand.
It was power.
It was his power. The same dark, ancient, cold energy she felt from him... but it was warm. It was the energy he had taken from her, refined, filtered, and now he was feeding a small, steady drip of it back into her.
It was a supernatural tranquilizer.
The violent, frantic static in her head began to quiet.
The terrible, high-pitched vibration in her nerves began to slow.
The hyperventilating panic in her chest eased.
Her body, pushed beyond all human limits, betrayed her.
It yielded.
A single, hot tear—not of sadness, not of fear, but of pure, profound exhaustion and confusion—slid from the corner of her eye and into her hair.
This was the true violation.
Not the cruelty. Not the violence.
This... this calculated intimacy. This invasive care.
He was healing her.
He was repairing his weapon.
"There," he murmured, his thumb still tracing that steady, maddening circle. "The engine is cooling. The system is stabilizing."
He looked at her, his silver eyes unreadable in the firelight. He saw her tear. He analyzed it.
"Do not mistake this, Rossie," he said, his voice soft, but utterly cold. "This is not kindness. This is protocol."
He leaned down, his face close to hers. The scent of ozone and ancient stone washed over her.
"You performed magnificently today. And you will perform again. And again. And you will not break."
His gaze dropped to her lips, and for a half-second, Rossie's stabilized heart seized again.
But he did not kiss her.
He simply watched her, his expression one of profound, possessive satisfaction.
He had found his engine.
He had mastered its fuel.
And now, he was learning how to maintain it.