Page 161 of Ashes to Ashes

“Isn’t she? Tell me, after what we all just witnessed, do any of you still want her?”

The question lands like acid poured into an open wound, twisting until I can’t breathe. Not love her. Not protect her.

Want.

As if I’m still on the auction block, my worth reduced to utility, loyalty, obedience.

It’s like they’re projecting my own insecurities back at me, amplified by a thousand. My pain, my need to be wanted and loved. Reduced to this broken and bleeding moment.

But I’m not theirs anymore.

Not his. Not theirs. Maybe not even mine. But I’ll die before I let them put a price tag back on my soul.

In the gallery above, three pairs of eyes burn with different types of fury that make the air itself crackle with dangerous potential.

Kieran’s ice-cold calculation—shadows writhing around his boots as he leans toward his father’s obsidian throne. I catch fragments of whispered words, precise as blade strikes: “The human’s emotional signature reads wrong. Obsession, not love. And he reeks of iron suppression magic.”

Finnian’s rage—amber eyes blazing with protective fury that turns crystal fixtures molten. His hands shake as he processes what systematic suppression means: every headache I blamed on stress, every moment of disconnection I attributed to exhaustion, every time I seemed smaller, dimmer, less myself.

Orion’s primal devotion—gripping the gallery rail so hard stone cracks beneath his fingers. The guardian oath burns between his thumb and forefinger like a brand, ancient magic clawing at his bones as Academy barriers fight something older and angrier.

Three courts. Three approaches. Three men who see my destruction and choose different ways to burn the world down for me.

“Did you see how easily she killed that boy?” Graves continues, pulling up holographic footage that makes bile rise in my throat. “Greyson MacLeary. Age twenty-four. His only crime was existing in the wrong place when we needed a political statement.”

The numbers hit like hammers against bone—twenty-seven missions, forty-seven kills, eight years of being his perfect weapon. The scope crosshairs center on Greyson’s face. Laughing. Alive. About to die because I pulled the trigger without hesitation.

Without fucking hesitation.

“She didn’t question orders,” Graves continues, each word a nail in my coffin. “Didn’t consider alternatives. Zero psychological breakdown.” His voice carries decades of command. “Perfect weapon. Perfect soldier.”

My thorns writhe beneath my skin, responding to emotional agony with physical pain that makes me double over. Everything I’ve built with them—every moment of connection, every desperate kiss, every whispered promise—crumbling under the weight of who I really am.

A killer who destroys everything she touches.

“Twenty-seven missions,” he states with mechanical precision. “Forty-seven confirmed kills. She’s been my most effective asset for eight years.”

Asset. Not daughter. Not student. Not person.

Tool.

“The fascinating part,” Graves adds, moving closer until his presence looms over me like a thundercloud, “is how quickly she bonded to new handlers.” His concern sounds genuine, paternal. “Stockholm syndrome. Classic trauma response in assets with her profile.”

The implication hits like venom spreading through my veins.

Everything I feel for them is just trauma response. Conditioning. My feelings aren’t real—they’re programming.

“Stockholm syndrome manifests as intense emotional attachment to authority figures,” Graves explains to the assembled courts like I’m a case study he’s been observing. “The subject believes herself to be choosing her bonds freely, but she’s actually responding to carefully constructed stimuli.”

The doubt claws at my chest with razor-sharp talons. Eight years of Graves’ careful conditioning. Positioning himself as father figure, protector, the only person who understood my broken edges. Did he train me to seek that dynamic? To crave authority figures who would control my choices while making me believe I was free?

What if everything I feel is just programming? What if I’m not choosing them but just responding to familiar patterns of control disguised as care?

“The question,” Graves says with shattering gentleness, “is whether these gentlemen want a partner or a damaged asset who’ll attach to anyone who provides structure.”

Movement at the chamber entrance draws every eye. Davis drops to his knees beside the dais, and his voice carries that gentle tone I remember from late-night debriefings when the nightmares got too bad.

“Ash.” The way he says my name—like I’m something precious that might break—makes something fracture behind my sternum. “You know I’ve always cared about you.”