Chapter 153 To Our New Queen - Adele's POV

Chapter 153 To Our New Queen - Adele's POV
They loved me enough to let me go.

My gaze moved past her, toward the chaos behind us. I could hear the sounds of fighting, the clash of weapons, and the snarls of vampires as they tore into each other. I could hear the men I had come to care about fighting for me.

And then I saw him.

Craven.

He was surrounded. Three vampires were attacking him at once, and he was barely keeping up. Blood covered his face, and one of his arms hung strangely at his side, but he was still fighting and trying to protect me.

Something inside me broke.

I didn't care what my destiny was supposed to be. I didn't care what the mark on my hip meant. I didn't care if I was supposed to be a queen or if I was supposed to have magic or if everyone who had ever told me I was nothing had been wrong.

I knew one thing. I wanted Craven.

My heart had chosen him long before I had been willing to admit it.

I turned toward Mira, tears still filling my eyes. “It's Craven.”

She didn't say anything.

“I choose Craven.”

The words came out quietly, but the moment I said them, something inside me shifted. I looked back at the men fighting for me.

They were mine.

Maybe not as mates. Maybe not in the way Craven was mine. But they were still mine.

They were the men who had come for me. The ones who had risked everything to get me back. They were the men who had stood beside Craven because they knew how much I mattered to him.

I couldn't abandon them.

“I choose Craven,” I repeated, my voice stronger this time. “But they are mine, too.”

Mira stared at me.

“They are my guards,” I whispered. “My men. My family.”

Something inside my chest began to burn. I gasped and grabbed my chest as the pain spread through me. It wasn't like anything I had ever felt before.

My knees nearly gave out, but Mira caught me.

“Adele?”

I couldn't answer her. The burning spread through my body, moving from my chest to my arms and then down into my legs. It felt as if something had been trapped inside me for my entire life, something that had been waiting for this exact moment.

Waiting for me to finally stop fighting it.

My mark burned. I screamed. The sound echoed through the room, and for one brief second, everything seemed to stop. Then the light came.

It exploded from me. There was no other way to describe it.

One second I was standing there, terrified and shaking, and the next, the entire room was filled with blinding white light.

Mira stumbled backward, throwing an arm over her face. I couldn't see or hear anything.

There was only the light, and then I felt something I never thought I would feel. Magic.

It wasn't something separate from me. It was me, and it had always been there.

I had spent my entire life believing I was broken because I couldn't use it, when the truth was that I had never known how to accept it.

I didn't need to understand it. I only needed to let it in.

The light grew brighter, and I reached for it.

Everything stopped. The fighting. The shouting. The weapons.

All of it.

I opened my eyes only to find a room that was very still. Every vampire froze where they stood.

One of them had his sword raised above Craven's head, but he couldn't bring it down. Craven stood beneath him, blood running down the side of his face, his crimson eyes fixed on me.

I stared at him for a minute, watching his eyes widen in surprise, but his reactions were too slow. And then I realized what I had done.

I had stopped them all. Every single person in the room was frozen.

Even Corwin.

He was standing several feet away, his eyes wide as he stared at me. For once, there was no smugness in his expression.

He looked afraid.

I slowly turned my head toward Craven's father.

He was frozen, too. His mouth was open as if he had been giving another order when my magic took hold of him.

I looked around the room. The men I loved were safe. Craven was alive. Mira was standing beside me.

And the vampires who had been trying to kill us could no longer move. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat.

I lifted my hand.

The magic responded immediately. The weapons fell from their hands. One after another, they clattered against the floor.

I stared at them, barely understanding what I was seeing. I had done that. I had actually done that.

I had magic.

A strange laugh escaped me, half a sob and half disbelief. “I did it,” I whispered.

Mira stepped closer to me as if coming out of a trance. “Yes,” she said softly. “You did.”

My gaze moved back to Craven. He was still staring at me.

There was something different in his expression now. Something I had never seen before.

Pride.

I took a step toward him. The moment I did, the magic around us shifted.

Craven was the first person I released. He immediately moved.

His hand dropped to his side as he crossed the room toward me. I barely had time to react before he was standing in front of me.

His hands came up to my face. “Adele.”

I reached for him, wrapping my arms around his waist. He pulled me against him.

For a moment, I forgot about everyone else.

I forgot about the battle, the king, and the fact that I had just awakened my magic. I only held onto Craven.

And for the first time since I had met him, I wasn't afraid of what choosing him meant.

I had chosen him completely, with no more doubt or hesitation. And I knew I would choose him again.

I pulled back enough to look at him.

“I choose you,” I whispered.

His crimson eyes searched mine. “You already did.”

My heart squeezed painfully. Behind him, the other men were still frozen. I looked at them.

One by one, I released them from my magic. They immediately moved, but none of them attacked. They simply stared at me.

I swallowed. “I don't know what happens now,” I admitted. “Well, except that I promise to help you find your mates. I want you as my guards…but more importantly as my family.”

Brantley stepped forward, a look of pain flashing across his face. All six of them had the same expression. It hurt to watch, but I knew that I couldn’t rob them of what they truly desired. I couldn’t love all seven of them equally. That just wasn’t in me, even if I were a queen. 

One man was more than enough for me, as silly as it sounded. I looked back at Mira as she walked toward her mates. She had chosen them all, and I commended her for that.

“We understand,” Brantley said softly. “We truly do, and while we would love to have a woman, a fated mate would be even better.”

“And I will help you,” I said. Then I turned my attention back to Craven’s father. “Is it—”

“End this.”

I waved my hand in the air, letting my power flow. I wasn’t sure how I knew what to do, but I let it work, letting it run through me and do what needed to be done.

My magic swept down the hallway and went beyond the stone walls of the Vampire Kingdom. It spread across the lands, renewing and letting the land know, along with its people, that a new queen had awakened. 

There would be no more violence. No more sending people to the Isle just because they didn’t fit in. There would only be peace, love, and a time for joy.

Craven held me closer as my power did its job. I felt weak and tired, but I let it do what I knew it had to.

And then once it was finished, I collapsed into his arms.

He pulled me close again, his lips mere inches from mine. “To our new queen.”