The haveli swallowed her whole.

Siya had imagined it, of course — every girl did. She had pictured the home she would walk into as a bride, had prayed for it to be warm, had pressed her palms together before the temple deity every morning since she was fourteen and whispered, let him be kind. She had not prayed for wealth or status. Only kindness.

But Pratap Singh's haveli was not warm. It was vast and stone-cold and ancient, its corridors lit by oil lamps that threw long shadows across walls hung with the heads of dead animals. The smell of old wood and marigold garlands followed her from the courtyard, where the last embers of the wedding fire had finally died.

She was eighteen today. Married today.

She did not know her husband's face well yet. She had seen him across the fire, through the smoke and the priest's chanting — a broad-shouldered silhouette, jaw like carved rock, eyes that did not soften even when the pandit told him to look at her. He had looked. But it was the way a man looks at land he has just acquired. Assessing. Unmoved.

Pratap Singh was thirty-eight years old. He had not wanted a wife. He had wanted the Shukla family's eastern farmlands and the water rights that came with them. The girl was simply part of the arrangement — quiet, they said. Obedient. From good stock, even if the stock had grown thin. He had agreed the way he agreed to most things: with calculation and without sentiment.

Now she sat on the edge of his bed.

The bridal chamber had been prepared by the household women — rose petals on the sheets, a brass lamp burning low on the side table, a glass of milk dusted with saffron sitting untouched on the dresser. Siya sat with her hands folded in her lap, still in her red lehenga, dupatta pulled over her head, eyes cast down. Her bangles clinked softly every time she breathed.

She was terrified.

Her mother had told her three things the morning of the wedding, whispering them quickly while pinning jasmine into her hair. Don't cry. Don't resist. Don't ask questions. That was all. No one had told her what to expect, not really. Only that it was a wife's duty, that it would hurt the first time, that she should be still and let it pass.

She pressed her knees together and waited.

The door opened.

Pratap filled the frame the way he filled every room — completely, without effort. He had removed his sherwani; he wore only a white kurta now, the top buttons loose, sleeves rolled to the elbows. His hair was dark with only the first threads of grey at the temples. He smelled of whiskey and sandalwood and something underneath that she could not name yet.

He stopped when he saw her.

She looked up — just briefly, just a flicker — and then looked away again.

Pratap exhaled slowly through his nose. He crossed to the dresser, poured himself two fingers of whiskey from the decanter there, and drank half of it standing up. He studied her reflection in the mirror. The red of her lehenga. The tremble in her hands she was trying to hide.

Just a girl, he thought. Someone's daughter, now mine to manage.

He felt nothing tender. But he was not cruel, either. He had never needed to be cruel — he had always simply taken what was his.

He set down the glass and turned.

"Look at me."

His voice was low. Not harsh. But it expected obedience the way gravity expects things to fall.

Siya looked up.

His eyes were darker than she had realised. Set deep beneath a heavy brow, unreadable. He watched her the way the portraits in the corridor watched her — like they had seen everything and been moved by none of it.

"What is your name?" he asked.

She blinked. Surely he knew. "Siya," she said. Her voice came out smaller than she intended.

"Siya." He repeated it like he was testing the weight of it. He moved closer, and she stiffened without meaning to — her whole body going rigid, fingers curling in her lap. He noticed. His eyes dropped to her hands and back up to her face.

"Have they frightened you?" he asked. "The women. What did they tell you?"

She didn't answer.

A sound escaped him — not quite a laugh. "That's answer enough."

He reached out and took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting her face up. His touch was firm. Practiced. The hands of a man who had touched women before, many times, and had never once been clumsy about it. Siya's breath caught in her throat.

"I won't hurt you," he said. It was not a reassurance exactly. It was a statement of fact, the way he might tell a horse he was about to ride that he did not intend to break its legs. "But I won't pretend either. You understand?"

She nodded, barely.

"Good."

He released her chin. He reached up instead and drew the dupatta slowly from her head, letting it fall behind her. Her hair was pinned up, jasmine threaded through it. He studied her face — properly, for the first time. High cheekbones. Dark eyes still bright with unshed tears she was too proud or too trained to let fall. A mouth that was pressed tight with the effort of composure.

Young, he thought again. Too young.

But she was his wife. And he was not a man who denied himself what was his.

He sat beside her on the bed. The mattress dipped with his weight and she swayed slightly toward him before catching herself. He watched that small involuntary movement with something that was almost interest.

"Have you ever been kissed?" he asked.

The colour that flooded her face was answer enough.

Pratap reached up and began, methodically, to remove the pins from her hair. One by one. She sat frozen as the jasmine came loose, as her hair unwound and fell dark and heavy down her back. He ran his fingers through it once — not gently, exactly, but thoroughly, the way he touched everything that belonged to him.

Then he kissed her.

It was not soft. It was not the chaste, careful kiss of a man trying to ease a frightened girl. It was the kiss of a man who knew exactly what he was doing and saw no reason to pretend otherwise — his hand coming up to cup her jaw, his mouth moving over hers with a slow, deliberate pressure that gave her no room to be uncertain about what was being asked of her.

Siya made a small sound against his lips. Her hands, still folded in her lap, tightened.

He pulled back just enough to look at her. Her eyes were wide. Her lips were parted. She was breathing harder than before.

"Again," he said quietly. Not a question.

And he kissed her again.