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ASH

“You look surprised,” Davis says, and the familiar voice hits me like ice water despite the suppression magic trying to muffle my reactions.

Davis steps from the shadows wearing jeans and a gray sweater, moving with that calculated precision I remember from the field—weight on the balls of his feet, hands visible, ready to react. The cologne hits me first—cedar and leather. My throat seals shut.

Three years of that scent meaning safety. Backup. Someone watching my six.

Now it makes my skin crawl.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I manage, though each word requires effort like speaking through honey.

His hurt expression is perfectly crafted—the same wounded look from every time I declined his invitations, deflected his advances, maintained professional boundaries he pretended not to see. “Three years, Ash. Doesn’t that earn me a conversation?”

Each step requires conscious effort, feet dragging across pearl floors like I’m walking through deep water. I press my palm to my chest where Orion’s warmth should live and find only hollow space.

Where are they?

Where is Orion’s rage, Kieran’s precision, Finnian’s quiet strength?

I press my palms to my temples, searching desperately for any trace of the bonds that should connect us. Nothing. The silence where their voices should answer makes my next breath catch like swallowing glass.

The beautiful chamber suddenly feels like a tomb, all pearl and crystal surfaces reflecting his approach from multiple angles. Everywhere I look, there he is—moving closer, patient as a hunter who knows his prey can’t escape.

“Did you really think they’d leave you alone for two whole days before your trial?” he continues, taking another step with the careful precision of someone approaching a wounded animal. “After everything we’ve been through together?”

Two days. The words slam into my sternum, driving air from my lungs in a violent rush. Two days trapped in this beautiful prison with him. Two days of whatever conditioning Amarantha has planned, with Davis as the primary instrument of my psychological destruction.

I try to back toward the door, but my body responds like I’m moving through thick honey. The magical conditioning makes resistance feel not just difficult but wrong, inappropriate. Like fighting back would be rude after all his care and attention.

“Davis.” My voice comes out smaller than intended, words forming slowly as if my tongue has forgotten their shape. “You shouldn’t be here.”

The hurt that flashes across his face is so familiar it makes my chest ache. The same expression from every time I declined his invitations, deflected his advances, maintained professional boundaries he pretended not to see.

“Shouldn’t I?” His voice carries that wounded tone that used to make me feel guilty. “Three years, Ash. Three years of partnership, protection, caring. Doesn’t that earn me a conversation?”

He settles into the chair across from where I stand frozen, making himself comfortable like this is a normal debriefing session. Pulls out his usual notepad. Crosses his ankle over his knee.

My body flinches before my brain catches up—muscle memory recognizing the familiar routine, the way he used to move before interrogations. Some instinct deeper than thought recognizing the predator beneath the comfort.

“You know what I kept thinking about during the trial?” He leans forward with that earnest expression I once found reassuring. “How beautiful you looked when you finally told the truth.”

Every nerve ending recoils in violent protest, but the suppression magic makes my body stay still even as my mind screams. The disconnect between forced compliance and internal horror makes nausea rise in my throat.

“The truth about being a killer?” The words taste like ash in my mouth, heavy with the weight of Greyson’s face in my scope’s crosshairs.

“The truth about being exactly what I always knew you were.” His voice carries warmth that makes my skin crawl despite the magical conditioning. “Powerful. Decisive. Willing to do whatever it takes to protect the people you care about.”

He stands slowly, movements deliberate and careful. His hands visible, palms open. The way he used to move in the field when civilians were spooked and might run.

“That boy you killed—Greyson. You didn’t hesitate because you’re cold. You didn’t hesitate because you understood what needed to be done.”

“Davis, stop.” But even this protest feels halfhearted through the suppression magic, like objecting to rain while standing in a downpour.

“I’ve been protecting you the same way,” he continues, close enough now that I can smell his familiar cologne—cedar and leather, scents that used to mean safety and now trigger every alarm I have left. “Three years of making sure you stayed safe, stayed human, stayed mine.”

The possessive pronoun drives a dagger between my shoulder blades. Not stayed with me. Stayed mine.

His hand comes up to touch my face, thumb tracing my cheekbone with possessive tenderness.

The suppression magic makes my body accept the touch even as my mind recoils in horror—skin staying still while everything inside me tries to crawl away from his fingers.

I should be pulling away, should be fighting, but the enchantments make compliance feel natural while resistance feels exhausting.

“You’re so beautiful like this,” he murmurs, thumb stroking across skin that feels numb and hypersensitive at the same time. “Peaceful. Not fighting me for once.”

“The iron supplements,” I manage through the magical haze that makes thoughts feel scattered and distant, words forming in fragments before dissolving. “You were... you were poisoning me.”

“I was protecting you from becoming something that would destroy everything good about you.” His thumb traces lower, across my lips, and the intimate gesture makes bile claw up my throat. “Those creatures filled your head with fairy tale romance, made you think you wanted to be a monster.”

“I’m not a monster.”

“No,” he agrees, both hands framing my face now with a gentleness that feels like violation. “You’re perfect. You’ve always been perfect. But they convinced you to want things that would ruin you.”

The suppression magic makes my responses feel dreamy, disconnected from my actual thoughts. When he steps closer, pressing me back against the pearl-carved wall, my body doesn’t resist the way it should. Can’t resist the way I desperately want it to.

“Remember our first mission together?” His voice drops to that intimate tone I once found comforting during post-mission debriefs. “You trusted me completely. Let me lead, let me protect you. We were good together, Ash.”

His hands slide down to my shoulders, then my arms, the touch growing bolder as the magical conditioning makes me appear compliant. Every movement careful and practiced, like he’s done this before. Like he’s been planning this moment for longer than I want to consider.

“You used to look at me like I mattered,” he continues, pressing closer until I’m trapped between his body and the wall. Heat radiates from him, familiar and wrong, making the beautiful chamber feel like a cage. “Before they poisoned your mind with magic and impossible romance.”

“Davis, please—” The words barely form, thoughts moving like molasses while my body stays perfectly still despite internal screaming.

“Shh.” One hand moves to the back of my neck, fingers threading through my hair with possessive familiarity. “You don’t have to pretend anymore. The magic is making you honest, stripping away the lies they taught you.”

He misinterprets my lack of resistance as consent, the suppression magic making my survival responses feel muted and distant. When his mouth moves toward mine, alarm shrieks through my nervous system, but my body feels like it’s wrapped in suffocating cotton.

“I love you,” he whispers against my lips, breath warm and carrying that familiar hint of mint he always chews during missions. “I’ve always loved you. In two days, after the trial fails and you realize what you really are, we can go back to how things were meant to be.”

Something in his tone—absolute certainty, like he knows exactly how the next two days will play out—cuts through the magical haze enough for clarity to surface. My eyes focus with sudden sharpness, thoughts clearing like fog burned away by sunlight.

“The trial won’t fail,” I manage to say, though the words feel thick and difficult.

“Of course it will.” His laugh carries cruel certainty that makes ice crystallize in my veins. “You’ll attempt to manifest treasures that don’t exist, exhaust yourself trying to channel power you don’t actually have, and prove once and for all that you’re human.”

“And then?”

“Then I take you home. Away from all this magical nonsense, back to a world where you can be exactly what you’re meant to be.” His hand slides lower, possessive and certain of his welcome. “Mine.”

The word detonates through my consciousness like a bomb made of pure fury.

Not his. Never his. No matter what the suppression magic tries to make me believe, no matter how compliance feels easier than resistance.

Fire detonates beneath my breastbone, burning through suppression magic like acid through silk. Heat races down my spine, pooling in my hands until my fingertips tingle with power that has nothing to do with Fae magic and everything to do with three years of rage finally finding its target.

“I belong to myself,” I snarl, and something deep in my chest flares with heat that burns through the magical conditioning like acid through silk.

“No, you don’t,” he corrects with that patronizing patience I’ve learned to hate, the tone he uses when explaining simple concepts to difficult civilians. “You belong to people who understand what you really need.”

When his mouth moves toward mine again, when his hands grow more demanding and possessive, heat explodes in my chest. Not the controlled magic I’ve been learning to wield, but something older and far more dangerous.

My vision blurs red at the edges, tunnel vision focusing on his face with laser precision. My heart hammers against my ribs like a caged animal desperate for freedom, pulse thundering in my temples until I can hear nothing else.

Every muscle in my body coils for violence.

The decorative crystal statue on the nearby table gleams in the chamber’s artificial light—a delicate sculpture of intertwined flowers that probably weighs three pounds and has several very sharp edges.

My hand moves before my conscious mind makes the decision, muscle memory taking over as training overrides suppression. The crystal sculpture fits perfectly in my palm, weight balanced like it was made for this moment.

The impact against Davis’s skull makes a sound like breaking glass mixed with something wet and final—sharp crack followed by the dull thud of bone giving way.

He drops like a stone, consciousness leaving him instantly. Blood pools beneath his head as his body hits the pearl floor, the sound echoing through the chamber like a punctuation mark on three years of manipulation.

The crystal sculpture shatters in my hand, leaving me with a jagged fragment that still pulses with Seelie magic and my own furious determination.

The moment Davis hits the floor, the suppression magic wavers—like a radio with a broken antenna, the magical interference flickers and fades. Sound becomes clearer, colors brighter, thoughts sharpening like someone adjusted the focus on reality itself.

My thoughts sharpen. The cotton-wrapped feeling lifts like morning fog burned away by sunlight. For the first time since entering this chamber, I can feel the thorns beneath my skin responding to my emotional state, warmth pulsing through channels that have been frozen for days.

“Never,” I whisper to his unconscious form, blood from the crystal cuts on my palm dripping onto the pearl floor in bright red drops that look like rubies against white marble. “I will never be yours.”

The chamber’s locks pulse with renewed strength, magical barriers humming with power designed to keep me contained. But for the first time since Amarantha’s guards dragged me here, I feel like myself again.

Dangerous. Powerful. Ready to fight.

I drag Davis’s unconscious body into the ornate bathing chamber, his weight heavier than expected but manageable with adrenaline singing through my veins like liquid lightning.

The marble floor makes moving him easier, and I wedge the door shut behind me, buying precious time before someone discovers what happened.

The blood on the pearl floor wipes clean with water from the enchanted basin, magical properties ensuring no stain remains. By the time I’m finished, there’s no evidence of our struggle except for the missing crystal sculpture and the scratches on my palm that pulse with their own inner light.

When I finally settle onto the massive bed to wait for the next two days, it’s not as the compliant prisoner they expect.

It’s as someone who’s remembered exactly what she’s capable of when pushed too far.

The suppression magic still mutes my power, still makes resistance feel difficult. But something snaps into place in my chest like a bone setting—spine straightening, shoulders squaring, breathing deepening as my body remembers how to inhabit space with authority instead of apology.

The artificial calm can’t touch the core of fury that burns steady and bright beneath my sternum, untouchable as a flame sheltered from wind.

I survived three years of Davis’s manipulation disguised as care. I survived the Truth Trial’s violation. I survived tonight’s assault.

In two days, I’ll survive whatever they throw at me.

And then I’ll make them all pay for underestimating what happens when you threaten something a Wild Court queen considers hers.

The trial may be rigged, the treasures may be hidden, and I may be walking into execution disguised as divine judgment.

But I’m done being anyone’s victim.

Time to remind them all why gods chose mortality in the first place—not from weakness, but from the absolute confidence that even without divine power, some things are worth any price to protect.

Outside the chamber’s pearl windows, the dark moon rises like a promise.

In two days, everything changes.