Chapter 195 Delusional Thoughts
ADRIANA
The balcony was his idea.
He had said it with the enthusiasm of someone who had rehearsed the gesture. His pride in everything he has achieved showed. I had followed him because the balcony was outside and outside meant more options than a throne room with guards at the door.
I stood at the railing and looked at what he had built and felt nothing romantic about it because it was not mine and I had never wanted it to be mine and the fact that he had spent twenty years apparently believing otherwise said everything about who Landon had always been.
He moved closer.
I moved two steps to the right without looking at him.
“You haven’t changed,” he said. “I mean that as a compliment. The years have done you beautifully.”
I said nothing. Below the balcony, the ground was a long way down. I did the calculation not because I intended to do anything with it but because I was always doing calculations now and old habits.
“We were good together, Drea.” I noticed it every time. “I gave you something your father and sister never did. I saw you. I was there for you when they were destroying you. Did that count for nothing?”
“Drea,” I said.
He blinked. “What?”
“My name. It’s Adriana.” I finally looked at him. “Drea was the girl you knew. I’m not her anymore.”
Something moved across his face. Irritation, dressed up quickly into something softer.
“Fine.” He leaned against the railing. “Adriana. You were my first love. You know that. And I know I made mistakes—”
“You slept with my sister,” I said. “In your bed. On my birthday. While I was in your apartment. That’s not a mistake, Landon. That’s a choice.”
His jaw tightened. “I was young. I was stupid. I’ve grown.”
“Have you.” I looked back at the view. “You abducted thirty children. You’ve been holding them for months. You’ve been feeding information to a spy in my kingdom. You’ve been using my fifteen-year-old son as leverage.” I turned back to him. “What exactly have you grown into, a full blown criminal?”
He pushed off the railing and took a step toward me. “I did what I had to do to get your attention. You were unreachable. Married to him, building your life, acting like what we had never existed—”
“Because it doesn’t exist anymore.” My voice came out flat. “What we had is dead. It died on the floor of your bedroom when I threw that ring back at you. I watched it die. I buried it. I built a life on top of the burial site.” I held his gaze. “You’re the only one who didn’t attend the funeral.”
He stared at me.
“You let him touch you.” His voice had changed — lower now, stripped of the practiced charm. “He’s not even a wolf. He’s a Lycan. He’s not our kind and you let him put his hands on you, you gave him children, you—”
“If I were you,” My voice came out sharp enough that he actually stopped. “I would choose my next sentence very carefully.”
The silence on the balcony stretched.
Then he laughed, but it was the wrong kind of laugh — jagged at the edges. “You always did that. That look. Like you could take someone apart with your eyes. I used to love that about you.”
“I want to see Leo.” I said it simply. “Today. That’s non-negotiable.”
“Tomorrow—”
“I want to see him, Landon.” I stepped closer rather than back. “You brought me here. I came. I’m standing in your kingdom, in your palace, on your balcony, having this conversation that I have absolutely no interest in having. I am here. Which means you got what you wanted. Now give me my son.”
He looked at me for a long moment and I watched him calculate.
“Tomorrow,” he pressed. “You’ll see him tomorrow. Tonight you eat dinner with me and we talk properly. Like two people who meant something to each other.”
“We never meant the same things to each other,” I said. “But fine. Tomorrow.”
I turned away from him and caught a guard’s eye.
“Show me to my room,” I said.
The guard looked at Landon. Landon nodded.
I walked away from him without looking back. He called something after me, a pleasantry dressed as a parting shot and I let it die in the air behind me and kept walking.
The room they gave me was at the end of a long corridor with two guards outside it, which told me everything about how much freedom I was actually being offered here. I went inside and sat on the edge of the bed and breathed and let myself feel all of it, the anger, the fear I was managing carefully so it wouldn’t show, the ache of being in the same building as Leo and not being able to go to him yet.
I pressed my fingers against my forehead and breathed in. Then I reached into the mindlink and found Elijah.
Not with words. Just his presence was enough. Letting him know I was there and upright. He responded immediately. I knew he was holding himself together and was furious and was doing both simultaneously, which was very him.
I let the contact settle into something steady and then I lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling and started planning tomorrow.
Landon thought he had me here.
He had no idea what he’d actually let through his gate.