Chapter 148 Let Her Go - Adele's POV

Chapter 148 Let Her Go - Adele's POV
The room fell silent as I looked around the room. Most weren’t paying attention to me and were studying Corwin’s face. The few who were looking at me were giving me looks of disgust. 

I didn't understand it, because I hadn’t done anything. For my entire life, I had been treated as if I were less than everyone else because I didn’t have magic and I had this mark on my hip. And now it wasn’t much different.

My gaze returned to Corwin, who was watching me with a steady gaze.

“I won’t have a problem awakening your magic,” he said firmly.

“What does that mean?” I asked quietly. “How are you going to do something they couldn’t?”

His expression didn't change. “It means that you have the potential to become more powerful than any queen who came before you, and I’m going to make sure you do.”

My stomach tightened. “And you think that will happen just because I have you?”

“No.” His gaze flickered briefly toward the woman at the table. “I think it will happen because you are a queen and this is a special time to be alive for you.”

The woman scoffed. “Don't listen to him,” she said. “He knows nothing about how this works. No one does.”

Corwin's eyes immediately snapped toward her. “I know enough.”

“No, you don't.” She pushed herself to her feet. “You know what you want. That is not the same thing.”

A dangerous silence settled over the room. I could feel Corwin's arm tighten around me.

“What I want,” he said slowly, “is to understand why a queen who was supposed to be dead is alive on the Isle while another was born. This hasn’t happened in centuries, and that time it was because the other queen died for a few seconds before coming back to life.”

Her expression fell, her eyes fluttering as if she didn’t believe what she heard. “How do you know about that?”

“You think you hid the history text that well, don’t you?” He laughed. “I found it.”

Her face went pale as she scooted her chair back away from the table and stood. “No, this…is impossible. You shouldn’t have been able to—”

“I did, and I read it all. Now, this is how things are going to go. You’re going to make me king,” he said, his voice almost a purr. “And I’m going to have the power of two queens for my own use.”

“I will never—”

“I never said I would take you as my mate,” he murmured. “So, calm down.”

I froze. My gaze immediately shifted to the woman. She looked just as shocked as I was.

Corwin wasn't talking about me. Not as his mate. Not even as someone he wanted.

He wanted my power and only that while taking Mira back.

That realization should have made me feel relieved. Instead, something inside my chest twisted painfully.

I didn't understand why.

I had never wanted Corwin to be my mate. I had spent days trying to get away from him and everything he represented. I had refused to marry him. I had told him more than once that I wanted nothing to do with him.

So why did it bother me to realize that he didn't want me either?

I swallowed and forced myself to look away. This had just gotten worse.

Just then, horns blew outside. I looked at the window, my eyes searching the sky, but I couldn’t see anything.

“They’re here,” he said softly. “And now you’re going to see them die.”

My stomach dropped. I turned toward him, staring at his face. “What? No.”

He didn't answer me immediately. His attention was on the windows, although there was nothing to see through them. The horns sounded again, and this time I could hear something beneath them.

Shouting. My heart began to pound.

“They need to leave. Go back!”

I knew they would never hear me, but I had to try.

“That won’t work,” he whispered against my ear. “They’re not going to hear you through stone. Now, let’s go meet them, shall we?”

He dragged me through the doors, keeping my back to his stomach all the way. I stumbled and almost tripped several times, but that never slowed him down.

“You can’t be serious. Corwin, think this through,” I begged. “Craven was on the Isle. You could have just left him alone.”

He laughed. “No, I couldn’t. As long as he lives, he is a threat.”

“On the Isle? He would never have left if you hadn’t taken me,” I argued.

He stopped so suddenly that I bumped into him. His arm tightened around my waist, keeping me pressed against him as he stared down the long hallway.

“That's not true.”

I frowned. “What?”

“Craven would have left, eventually.”

I shook my head. “No, he wouldn’t have.”

“You don’t know that. Your fate has always been to end up on the Isle of the Forgotten,” he said, his voice firm. “To be queen, you would have always had to come to the mainland. He was going to come.”

Everything sank in quickly. He was right. Craven would have come, and we were already planning to before all of this happened.

I hated that he was right.

He looked back as shouting filled the hallways. “Imagine that. They broke through.”

“No—”

He yanked me along with him again, cutting off what I might have said. It wasn’t long until we ran into other vampires, and then there was the front door, which was wide open.

And in the middle of the chaos were the seven men whom I had grown very attached to, especially one very particular vampire.

“Craven?”

His crimson gaze turned toward me, his face twisted in a way that I had never seen before. It was then that I realized he was walking in broad daylight with a ring on his finger.

Mira had gotten it right.

He dropped the man he was holding, his gaze flicking up to his brother’s. “Let her go.”