Page 55

Your Majesty?

Adrian

Tension and an awkward silence filled the walk back to my bike.

It wasn’t peaceful. It was thick and oppressive, uncomfortable, tainting our date.

And fuck, that scene back there? The last thing I needed.

Not now. Not when we’d finally carved out something that felt like stability between us. Fragile, yes. But real.

Those two bastards? They cracked that fragility wide open with a smile.

That fucker Lorenzo—just thinking his name made my jaw tighten.

The way he stared at her was like she was a prize he could win, like she was born on this earth to be taken.

It lit a fire in me I didn’t bother to extinguish.

I didn’t enjoy sharing. Not glances, not intentions, and definitely not her.

She wasn’t his to look at.

A sick heat coiled in my gut at the memory, twisting tighter with every step. My hands clenched and unclenched at my sides, itching for violence I couldn’t justify. Not yet. But one misstep from him, one wrong word, and I’d gladly bury that smug bastard six feet under with a smile on my face .

And the worst part? A small, selfish part of me was relieved she was leaving soon. Safe, far away from scum like him. Away from all of this. Even though the thought of her being gone, of not hearing her voice, not touching her skin, gnawed at something deep and raw inside me.

But I’d rather ache than see her hunted.

Let the whole damn world come for her. I’d tear it apart before I let them have her. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her.

“Who were they?” Iryen’s voice was soft as I passed her the helmet, but there was a firmness beneath it, demanding answers, and the irony wasn’t lost on me. Before, I was the one demanding answers—hell, I still am—but the way she held her ground out there earned her some truth.

I exhaled sharply, fingers dragging through my hair as if I could claw the frustration out of my skull. I turned to her, eyes lingering on every line of her face as if it might anchor me, like it might stop me from going back inside and doing something irreversible.

This wasn’t how lunch was supposed to go.

I hadn’t envisioned blood boiling under my skin or ghosts clawing out of the past like vultures circling. No, I’d imagined her, just her. Smiling. Relaxed. Ourselves, if only for a fleeting moment. A damn date. Simple. Human. A rare breath of peace in the chaos we call life.

But that went to hell the second they showed up.

My ex. My former best friend. A pair of walking betrayals dressed like people I used to know. Of course, they would choose today to resurface, to drag their poison-stained history right into the middle of something I actually gave a damn about.

I clenched my jaw, the familiar burn of old wounds reopening beneath my ribs. I hadn’t asked for redemption, but I’d wanted this . Her. Just a night without war, without weight. And they took it from me, like they always did.

I looked at her again, and the rage dulled, leaving only that gnawing edge of desperation and desire. I wanted to forget. Wanted to take her far from all this and never look back.

But I knew better.

“Lorenzo,” I started, the name rotting on my tongue like it never should’ve belonged there, “was someone I used to call a friend. Closest thing I had to a brother.”

The words scraped out like glass. “We grew up side by side, carved through the same circles. I trusted him with things I didn’t even admit to myself—my doubts, my ambition, the parts of me that didn’t fit the world I was born into. He knew everything.”

Iryen stepped closer. Silent. Steady. Her gaze locked onto mine like she already sensed the shadow behind the words.

I almost stopped there. Almost.

“He betrayed me.”

The words landed hard, heavier every time I said aloud. I swallowed down the bitterness clawing up my throat.

“And the woman… with him. Sophia.”

I watched her face, not out of paranoia, but because I needed to know. Needed to see if she flinched. If any part of her recoiled from the jagged ruin of who I’d been.

“She wasn’t just a passing thing. I thought…”

My jaw clenched.

“She was mine.”

A flicker. I caught it, the flicker in Iryen’s eyes. Barely there, but real. The shift from passive to poised. Then it vanished behind that perfectly practiced calm. But I’d seen it. And some feral, dark corner of me relaxed, just slightly. She felt something. She cared.

“Sophia and I were together for nearly two years. I was going to ask her to marry me. The ring hid in my drawer. ”

The silence was suffocating.

“I came home early from a trip. Stupid, really. Wanted to surprise her. And I did.” I scoffed under my breath. It sounded like someone else’s laugh. “They were in my bed. Him and her. Like it was theirs. Like I never existed.”

Iryen’s eyes burned, not just with sympathy, but with something sharper. Rage. A mirror of my own.

Good.

I didn’t need her pity. Didn’t want her sorrow. I wanted her on my side.

They broke something inside me that night. Something I never planned to put back together. Not until her .

“That’s horrible. I’m so sorry, Adrian.”

Her voice was soft, a whisper trying to soothe the storm. And her eyes, those fathomless, knowing eyes, searched mine like she could carry the weight for me. But I couldn’t feel sorry. Not even a little.

If that hadn’t happened, I never would’ve met her.

The fury that used to live like fire under my skin had dulled.

Replaced by something hotter. Hungrier. A burn that didn’t just consume, it claimed.

Whatever scars their betrayal carved into me, they’d led me straight to this siren who now stood so close, her presence peeling back every wall I thought I had left.

Maybe it was all meant to fall apart, so I could end up here. With her. Mine siren.

“It was,” I said, voice like steel under velvet. “I confronted them both. Sophia stammered through some pathetic excuse, said it was a mistake, that she never meant for it to happen.”

I leaned in, just slightly, watching the shadows shift behind Iryen’s gaze.

“But Lorenzo?” My lip curled. “He didn’t even bother. Just stood there. Smirking. Like he’d won something.”

It was the moment I stopped being the man I was. That smirk. That look. Like I was nothing but a discarded piece on his game board.

Iryen’s expression cracked, an elegant mask slipping, revealing the storm beneath. Her eyes narrowed, waves dancing just beneath the surface. She stepped forward, fingers curling around my arm like she was claiming me. Marking me as hers in return.

Gods, she was stunning when she was angry. All that control wrapped around something primal.

And she burned for me.

“What happened after that?” she asked, her voice low and dangerous.

The air cooled. The same shift I’d felt at the restaurant, like her anger, altered the very atmosphere. Her eyes shimmered, not with tears, but with promise. Vengeance. Retribution. My little siren wanted blood on my behalf, and that twisted something deep in my chest. Dark. Savage. Satisfying.

“I cut them off,” I said, jaw clenched, fists tightening at my sides. “Cut them both out of my life. Cold. Clean. I didn’t want to breathe the same air.”

I stared past her for a moment, to a place I never enjoyed revisiting.

“But Lorenzo made damn sure I didn’t forget. He started showing up everywhere. Always with that smug, empty stare. He wanted me to snap. He was begging me to give him an excuse to bleed.”

Iryen’s hand tightened, grounding me. Steadying the chaos in my veins with a touch. Just hers.

“You didn’t deserve that, Adrian. No one does.”

“I know.” I pried her hand from my arm gently, deliberately, and brought it to my lips. A brush of skin.

“Come on,” I said, smirking as her cheeks flushed with the most delicious crimson. Her control fractured. “ I’m going to make up for that back home.”

She blinked. I leaned in close, voice barely above a growl.

“I’m cooking pasta.”

The blush deepened. She was so damn cute when she blushed.

And she was coming home with me.

I swung a leg over the bike, and she slipped on behind me, her hands wrapping around my waist and sending a charge through me that went bone deep. Her touch was electric, sparking an ache that settled low and steady, more intense with every beat of the engine.

The drive back felt entirely different from before, no thrill of freedom, only the weight of realization carving itself into me, deeper with each mile.

I’d never felt a need this fierce, this consuming.

It was maddening, like craving air itself.

The thought of her, close enough to touch yet feeling miles away, left a hollow ache I couldn’t explain.

I needed her in a way that went beyond reason.

The elevator doors slid open with a soft chime, and I froze mid-step.

There, waiting at my door like a storm cloaked in silk, stood my mother.

“Mom?” I said, voice sharper than I intended. “What are you doing here?”

Her spine straightened. That regal stillness in her posture, the kind I’d always chalked up to years of etiquette and wealth, tightened.

Then her gaze slid past me as if I were nothing more than a shadow, locking onto Iryen.

Her eyes narrowed, not with suspicion… but recognition.

A cold, assessing gleam sharpened her features before she turned her attention back to me.

I’d always known my mother was striking.

Slightly tanned skin, wavy chestnut hair that fell in effortless waves, hazel eyes flecked with gold like mine, but colder, older.

Her beauty wasn’t soft. It was the kind that could slit throats with a smile.

Petite, delicate, lethal in her own right.

She had a grace that came from power, the kind you didn’t earn.

You were born with it. And suddenly, I realized something terrifying: she and Iryen weren’t so different.