Page 41

ASH

Ice crawls up my spine, dragging me from sleep like claws through silk. My hand finds the knife before my brain catches up—muscle memory from twenty-seven missions where hesitation meant death.

My fingers close around the familiar grip as moonlight blazes across my face—except it’s not moonlight.

It’s him.

Kieran sprawls in my chair like a king claiming territory, formal jacket hanging open, hair mussed, frost bleeding from his grip in fractals that mirror my hidden thorns. Cracks spider-web through his perfect composure—whatever’s eating him alive finally showing.

“You sleep like prey, troublesome thing,” his voice cuts through darkness with aristocratic precision wrapped in winter wind, each word carefully chosen despite the roughness. “Most imprudent. Such habits tend to be... terminal.”

Lightning forks down my spine, but I force my breathing steady. Military training versus whatever the hell this is—midnight visits from Unseelie princes who make the air crystallize just by existing.

“Breaking and entering. Pretty sure that’s still illegal, even for shadow princes with superiority complexes.” I sit up slowly, sheet pooling around my waist. At least I’m wearing a nightshirt and didn’t sleep naked. “Though I’m guessing laws are more like suggestions when you’re royalty.”

His mouth curves in something that isn’t quite a smile, cold and sharp as winter starlight. “The room granted me entrance. Or rather, the shadows did what shadows do best—they obeyed.”

The shadows. Right. Because that’s totally normal.

“Cut the mysterious bullshit, Kieran. What do you want?” His name tastes like winter storms and secrets I shouldn’t know.

“To conduct an experiment,” he says, rising. “Regarding what precisely you are beneath all that meticulously maintained human conditioning.”

My skin prickles with awareness as he moves closer. The pendant—I reach for my throat and find it bare. I left it on the nightstand after my conversation with Finnian, needing to think without its ice crawling through my veins.

“And you couldn’t make an appointment like a civilized person? Office hours exist for a reason.”

“I am not remotely civilized,” he replies with silken precision that makes my pulse spike. “Neither are you. Even by Fae standards, you represent something... unprecedented.”

He stops at the foot of my bed, shadows pooling around his boots like living things—restless, agitated, betraying whatever turmoil he’s hiding. This close, his scent hits me—winter forests and metal and something darker that makes the thorns beneath my sleeve writhe with want.

“Dress yourself,” his voice drops to gravel wrapped in velvet. “I intend to dismantle your defenses until truth bleeds through the cracks in your carefully constructed facade.”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“The most revealing lessons occur when one’s guard lies in ruins,” he observes, gaze dropping to where the sheet barely covers my chest. Molten honey pools low in my belly despite the arctic air.

But there’s something almost... pained in his expression before he locks it away.

“Unless you prefer to conduct this examination in your current state of undress. I confess myself... amenable to such arrangements.”

Heat crawls up my throat despite the arctic air. “Turn around.”

“Absolutely not.” The refusal hits like physical impact, challenge and possession distilled into pure authority. “I wish to observe you armoring yourself against what I represent.”

His knuckles go white where they grip his jacket, betraying the effort this control costs him.

I hold his stare as I slip from bed, movements deliberate as a striptease in reverse. His eyes track every inch of exposed skin before fabric claims it. The thorns beneath my skin pulse brighter with each heartbeat, responding to his attention in ways that should terrify me.

Instead, they sing.

“Training facilities are locked after hours,” I point out, pulling on tactical pants and a fitted shirt. “Academy policy.”

“Not to those who command the darkness itself,” he replies with aristocratic dismissal. “Unseelie princes possess certain... privileges that transcend mundane regulations.”

“Such as?”

“Access to any space shadows dare to touch,” his smile turns razor-sharp but doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Which encompasses everywhere you believe yourself safe, troublesome thing. Every corner. Every shadow. Every heartbeat.”

The words should sound like a threat. Instead, they land like a promise that sends electricity racing along my nerve endings. But underneath, there’s something that sounds almost like an apology.

“Why now? What’s this experiment really about?” I demand, lacing my boots with sharp, efficient movements.

His perfect composure flickers—just for a heartbeat—revealing something raw and desperate before he forces it back into place like slamming a door against hurricane winds.

“To confirm that beneath all that human conditioning lies something my father has spent centuries attempting to exterminate,” his voice drops to barely above a whisper, cracking slightly around the edges.

“That observing you makes me question every fundamental truth I have been systematically conditioned to accept since childhood.”

The admission hangs in the air like a confession, vulnerable and dangerous.

Then his composure snaps back into place, cold and controlled—but I caught that glimpse of the man beneath the prince.

“Training. Now.”

“And if your experiment proves me guilty as charged?” I ask, watching his jaw tighten almost imperceptibly.

“Then we shall both comprehend precisely how much danger you represent,” his voice cracks like breaking ice. “And how little time remains before that danger becomes... unmanageable.”

The fondness in that nickname contradicts the warning in his words, and I realize—whatever this test is about, he’s hoping to be wrong.

He moves to my door, shadows already gathering around his feet like eager servants. “Come.”

I follow him into the corridor, where darkness bends to his will like living silk.

The Academy sleeps around us, but under Kieran’s influence, shadows create pathways that shouldn’t exist —shortcuts through walls, passages that fold space until we’re standing before the training arena’s locked doors.

“Convenient trick.”

“Efficient application of available resources,” he corrects with that precise diction that makes everything sound like royal decree. He doesn’t touch the locks. Instead, shadows seep through the cracks like liquid night, and the doors swing open with silent obedience.

The arena materializes around us as we step inside, moonlight streaming through crystal windows and casting everything in silver and blue. But he seems more on edge here, movements slightly too controlled.

“No weapons,” he announces, shrugging out of his formal jacket with sharp, economical movements.

Beneath, his black shirt reveals the lean strength I’ve suspected—all elegant muscle and predatory grace.

“No magic. No pretense.” His eyes gleam with something between anticipation and dread.

“Simply you and I and whatever truth resides in your bones.”

I circle him slowly, my body cataloguing advantages while something wilder whispers about different kinds of conquest. He’s taller, with longer reach. But I’m faster, more compact, harder to pin down.

“When I win, what do I get?” I ask.

“Should you achieve victory, I shall answer one question with complete honesty,” he promises with formal precision.

“And when you win?”

His smile turns lethal, but there’s something brittle around the edges. “You shall comprehend exactly what you represent to me.”

Before I can ask what the hell that means, he moves.

Kieran flows like liquid shadow, closing distance with inhuman speed. I barely dodge his first strike, rolling left as his fist whistles past my ear.

He doesn’t pause, following up with a combination that forces me backward. His fighting style is brutal elegance—every movement precise, economical, designed to end conflicts quickly.

But I notice something. He’s testing me, not trying to overwhelm me. Like he wants to see what I can do—and dreads what he’ll find.

I duck under his guard, aiming for his ribs. He catches my wrist mid-strike, spinning me around until my back presses his chest. His arm locks across my throat, not quite choking but definitely controlling.

“Predictable,” he murmurs against my ear, breath cold enough to raise goosebumps. Among other feelings. “You fight precisely like a human.”

There’s relief in his voice—and that’s when I realize what this really is. He wants me to fight like a human. He needs me to be ordinary.

White-hot fury erupts through my veins. “Fuck that.”

I drop my weight, slip his hold, and sweep his legs. He goes down, but takes me with him, rolling until he’s on top.

“Improved,” he admits, pinning my wrists above my head with aristocratic satisfaction. But his eyes search my face with desperate intensity. “Though you continue to think in disappointingly linear patterns.”

His weight settles over me, and suddenly this isn’t training anymore. It’s something else entirely. Something that makes the thorn patterns beneath my skin blaze with heat that fights his cold magic.

“Get off.”

“Make me,” he challenges with silken authority.

The challenge ignites something primal in my chest. Royal power explodes through my nervous system like napalm in my veins.

Every cell screams alive for the first time in twenty-eight years.

My strength doubles, then triples. I buck him off with force that shouldn’t be possible, rolling to my feet as he staggers backward.

His eyes widen, and for a moment, pure devastation flashes across his features before he can hide it.

“There she is,” he says, voice hollow with something between awe and grief.

“There who is?” But I already know. I can feel it—whatever’s been sleeping inside me, stirring to life.