Page 42 of Ashes to Ashes

“You’re impossible.”

“I’m patient,” he says. “And clearly effective.”

“Keep dreaming, shadow prince.”

“Oh, I will.” His smile turns genuinely predatory now.

“What does your Colonel Graves really want from Velasca Academy?” he asks, voice dropping lower. “What’s his true objective?”

The direct reference to Graves sends adrenaline surging through my veins. I carefully craft my response, aware of the truth constraint pulling at my words like barbed hooks embedded in my tongue.

“I’m here as a cultural exchange instructor,” I say, maintaining eye contact despite the growing unease. It’s not a complete answer, but it’s not false either.

“How elegantly you dance around deception.” His smile becomes winter sharp. “Speaking truths while strangling their context. It’s almost... artistic.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t you? Because that heart rate suggests otherwise.” His eyes narrow. “You believe part of it yourself, which makes your evasion more... elegant than most. Like an elder fae, not a human.”

His hand suddenly rises to my face. I flinch instinctively, but he ignores my reaction, fingers hovering just above my cheekwithout touching. The cold radiating from his skin makes my eyes water, frost forming on my eyelashes. But then something flickers across his features—not the calculated prince, but something raw and desperate.

“I’ve spent three centuries perfecting control,” he whispers, his voice cracking slightly. “Never wanting anything I couldn’t have, never feeling anything I couldn’t suppress. And then you...” His hand trembles, frost patterns shifting erratically. “You make me want things that could destroy everything I’ve built.”

The admission hangs between us, vulnerable and dangerous. For just a moment, I glimpse the man beneath the prince, someone who’s been as caged by duty as I’ve been by lies.

“Tell me, what did they tell you about us before sending you here?” he asks, fingers hovering above my collarbone. “About what we are?”

“That you’re Fae,” I respond, forcing my voice to remain steady despite my racing heart. “Divided into courts with different abilities and traditions.” I sound breathless and not at all like my usual composed self.

“And what did they tell you about yourself?” His hand moves to my concealed arm where the thorn patterns pulse beneath my sleeve. He doesn’t touch the fabric, but the patterns respond anyway, brightening enough that their blue glow seeps through the material. “About why you were chosen for this mission?”

“My combat experience,” I say automatically. “My adapta?—”

“Your human specialists have a term,” he interrupts, his face now inches from mine. I can see individual flecks of silver in his otherwise light eyes. “Need to know basis. You weren’t told everything you needed to know, Professor Morgan.”

He switches languages suddenly, the words flowing with cold precision. “An bhfuil a fhios agat cé tú féin, iníon na cuirte fiáine?”

Do you know who you are, daughter of the wild court?

Understanding hits before I can mask it. My body responds before my mind catches up. The foreign words slam into my brain with the clarity of my mother tongue. His eyes narrow, victory flashing briefly.

“Interesting.” His voice drops to dangerous satisfaction. “No amount of human linguistics training explains that level of comprehension.”

“I’m a quick study,” I counter, the excuse weak even to my own ears.

“You’re a beautiful liar.” He steps closer, our bodies almost touching. “But your body tells the truth even when your mind won’t.”

His hand suddenly presses against the wall beside my head, arm forming a barrier that further restricts my movement. With his other hand, he reaches toward my arm, fingers stopping just short of touching the glowing patterns beneath my sleeve. The thorns respond to his proximity, tendrils of green-white light visibly reaching through the fabric toward his fingers like iron filings drawn to a magnet.

I’m not at all unaffected by his presence. I can feel my breath becoming shallow. My stomach twisting and heat pulsing through my body.

“What are you?” he asks, genuine curiosity breaking through his controlled demeanor.

The question reverberates through my skull like a bullet ricocheting inside bone, fragmenting into a thousand smaller questions that tear through gray matter.

“I’m Specialist Ashlyn Morgan,” I reply, but for the first time, the name feels false in my mouth. Incomplete.

Something flickers in his expression—frustration mixed with unexpected interest. “Not entirely,” he says softly. “Not anymore. Perhaps not ever.”

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