That's exactly what I was being trained for.
That's what those three weeks of commands and compliance and learning to beg were building toward.
Standing on that platform while strangers watched.
Kneeling at Vaughn's feet in front of the inner circle.
Using my mouth on him while they evaluated my technique like I was a performance instead of a person.
Proving I was his. Proving I was trained. Proving I was property perfected.
And I understand—really understand—why Vaughn couldn't go through with it.
Why he stood on that stage and rejected them instead of displaying me.
Why he chose me over everything he thought he wanted.
Because somewhere between the auction and the training and falling in love, I stopped being property and became a person he couldn't bear to hurt.
Couldn't bear to reduce to a performance.
Couldn't bear to share with sixty strangers who would see me as an acquisition instead of me, as Eden.
You can't love someone and treat them like property.
The two are fundamentally incompatible. Mutually exclusive.
That's what the Consortium never understood.
What Victor and Geoffrey and Richard and all of them will never understand because understanding it would require seeing acquisitions as people instead of possessions.
Love and control are opposites.
Real love means giving someone freedom to choose you.
Not training them until they have no other choice.
Not conditioning them until compliance is automatic.
Not reducing them to prove your power.
Real love means walking away from power when it asks you to hurt the person you love.
That's what Vaughn did.
He walked away.
He chose me.
He gave me freedom the moment he rejected that showcase.
And now I'm choosing to stay.
Not because I'm trained or conditioned or too broken to leave.
Not because I'm captive or controlled or have no other options.
But because I want to. Because I love him.
