Chapter 131 The Aftermath
Lila didn't sleep. She lay in her narrow bed staring at the ceiling, replaying the throne room scene over and over. Adrian's hand around Petyr's throat. The gold bleeding into his eyes. The barely controlled violence that had silenced an entire room.
“He was going to kill that man for me.“
The thought terrified and thrilled her in equal measure. She didn't understand her own reaction, the twisted emotions that made her heart race whenever she pictured Adrian's protective fury.
Near midnight, she gave up on sleep. She wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and slipped into the hallway. Her feet carried her through the palace corridors without conscious direction. Past the servants' quarters. Through the gallery overlooking the gardens. Toward the royal wing.
She should turn back. Should return to her room and pretend tonight never happened. But her body moved forward, pulled by something she couldn't name.
She found Adrian on a balcony overlooking the training yard. He stood with his hands braced on the stone railing, still wearing his formal dinner clothes. His white shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, his hair disheveled like he'd been running his hands through it.
"You shouldn't be here." His voice carried across the night air without him turning around. "It's late. The servants will talk if you're seen in the royal wing."
"They're already talking." Lila moved closer, stopping a few feet behind him. "The entire palace is talking. About what you did. About why you did it."
"I lost my temper. It happens."
"No." Lila's voice was firm. "You don't lose your temper over nothing. You're too controlled for that. Too calculating." She took another step. "So I'll ask again. Why did you do it? Why did you nearly kill a man for insulting me?"
Adrian's shoulders tensed. "He insulted someone under my protection. That's reason enough."
"Is it? You have dozens of servants. Hundreds of people under your protection. But I've never seen you react that way when any of them are insulted." Lila could hear her own pulse thundering. "It's just me. Only me. Why?"
"You don't know what you're asking."
"Then tell me." She moved closer still, standing beside him at the railing. "Tell me why you protect me one moment and hurt me the next. Why you order brutal training and then carry me when I collapse. Why you save my life and then tell me I'm worthless." Her voice cracked. "Tell me why your eyes look at me like I'm destroying you just by existing."
Adrian's hands clenched white on the railing. "Leave it alone, Lila."
"I can't. Because I'm remembering things. Pieces of a past I wasn't supposed to have." She turned to face him fully. "I found a journal. My journal from four years ago. And I remembered a cathedral. A wedding. Ice-blue eyes meeting mine across a crowd of people."
Adrian went completely still.
"I felt something that day. Something that shouldn't have been possible because you were marrying my sister. But I felt it anyway. A connection that made every nerve in my body light up." Lila's voice dropped to a whisper. "What was it, Adrian? What did I feel?"
"You need to stop." His voice was strained. "Stop remembering. Stop asking questions. For your own safety, you need to let the past stay buried."
"My safety?" Lila laughed bitterly. "I'm surrounded by danger. Gerrit tried to poison me with a training sword. Margot threatens me constantly. Aria assigns me tasks designed to break me. And you—" She stepped closer, close enough to feel his body heat. "You hurt me in ways none of them could. With your words. Your cruelty. The way you look at me like you hate me."
"I don't hate you." The words came out raw, torn from somewhere deep.
"Then what? What do you feel when you look at me?"
Adrian finally turned. His eyes blazed gold in the moonlight, his face carved with anguish. "I feel everything. Every moment of every day. I feel rage and longing and desperation and need all tangled together until I can't breathe. I feel the bond screaming at me that you're mine while my mind tells me to stay away. I feel torn apart by wanting to protect you and wanting to destroy you because if you don't exist, maybe the pain will stop."
The confession hung between them, raw and honest.
"The bond," Lila breathed. "You feel it too."
"I've always felt it. Since the moment our eyes met in that cathedral. Since the moment I realized the Moon Goddess had chosen you for me and I couldn't have you." Adrian's hands clenched into fists at his sides. "I married your sister that day knowing you were my true mate. I spent three years watching you from across rooms, wanting you, hating myself for wanting you. And then Celeste died and everything went wrong and they made me…"
He stopped himself, jaw clenching.
"Made you what?" Lila's heart pounded. "Adrian, what did they make you do?"
"Reject you." The words were barely audible. "They performed a ritual. Made us say words that would sever the bond. Only it didn't sever. It just bled. And I've been bleeding for four years while trying to hate you because hating you was easier than admitting what you are to me."
Tears streamed down Lila's face. "What am I to you?"
"Everything." His voice broke. "You're everything and I can't have you. I'm not allowed to have you. Because someone decided we were wrong. Someone decided the bond was a mistake. And I was too weak to fight them."
Lila closed the distance between them in two steps. She pressed her palms to his chest, feeling his heart racing beneath her hands.
"I don't accept that. I don't accept that someone else gets to decide what we are to each other." Her voice was fierce despite her tears. "Whatever they did, whatever spell or ritual or poison they used, it's breaking. I'm remembering. And I won't stop until I remember everything."
Adrian's hands came up to grip her wrists. Not pushing her away but holding her there, as if she were the only thing keeping him anchored.
"If you remember everything, you'll hate me. You'll remember what I said during the rejection. How cruel I was. How I let them blame you for Celeste's death. How I stood by while your family disowned you." His voice was ragged. "You'll remember and you'll never forgive me."
"Then I'll decide that when I remember. Not you." Lila's hands fisted in his shirt. "Stop protecting me from the truth. Stop pushing me away because you're afraid. Let me remember. Let me decide for myself what you are to me."
They stood frozen, faces inches apart, breathing the same air. The bond between them pulsed with desperate energy, pulling them together even as fear tried to push them apart.
"I don't protect you," Adrian said, but the words held no conviction. "I protect my reputation. My throne. My kingdom."
"Liar." Lila's voice was soft but certain. "You protect me because you can't help it. Because the bond won't let you do anything else. Because somewhere under all the cruelty and pain, you still feel what you felt in that cathedral four years ago."
Adrian's control cracked. One hand released her wrist and moved to her face, cupping her cheek with devastating gentleness. His thumb traced the path of her tears.
"You're going to destroy me," he whispered. "When you remember everything, when you know all I've done, you're going to hate me and it will destroy me."
"Then be destroyed." Lila leaned into his touch. "I've been destroyed for weeks. Join me in the wreckage and maybe we'll figure out how to rebuild together."
The moment stretched, taut and trembling. Adrian's eyes searched her face like he was memorizing every detail. His hand in her hair, his breath on her lips, the bond singing between them.
Then footsteps echoed in the corridor below. Guards on patrol. The moment shattered.
Adrian stepped back, releasing her. His expression closed off, walls slamming back into place.
"Go back to your quarters. This conversation didn't happen."
"Adrian…"
"That's an order, Lila." His voice returned to ice, but his hands still shook. "Leave. Now."
Lila wanted to fight. Wanted to demand he stop running. But she saw the fear in his eyes, the genuine terror of facing what existed between them.
So she left. Walking away from him felt like tearing out her own heart, but she did it.
Behind her, Adrian sagged against the railing. When he was certain she was gone, he let himself break. A sound escaped his throat, half sob, half growl.
She was remembering. She was going to know everything. And when she did, when she learned all the ways he'd failed her, hurt her, abandoned her, she would leave him.
And he would deserve it.