Chapter 81 The Debt They Owe
Kira’s POV
The memory was Abby’s. And it came the same way it's been coming for some time now. Sudden, vivid and unwanted.
This one chilled me to the bones.
The memory didn’t just flash. It crashed into me like cold water dumped over my head while I was still burning from Adrian’s touch.
She was in here with them. Arabella.
Not at the head of the table. Not in a crop top and sneakers with a king’s hand on her thigh like she belonged to him.
She was on the floor.
The same grand dining hall. Same long oak table. Same vaulted ceiling that made every sound echo like judgment.
Except that night she wasn’t the king’s woman. She wasn’t even a welcomed guest.
She was one of the maids.
They’d dressed her in the thin black uniform…too short, too tight…because Lady Margaret had decided it would be “humorous” to make the worthless princess serve the nobles. The tray had been balanced between her teeth, metal biting into her gums, while she crawled on all fours down the length of the table.
Every few feet someone would reach down and take a glass or a napkin, fingers brushing her hair like she was a dog. Laughter had rolled over her in waves. Someone had tugged the tray so hard she’d almost dropped it…another had poured wine onto her back just to watch it trickle down her spine and soak the fabric.
And Adrian…
Adrian had sat at the head of the table the entire time.
Silent.
Watching. A nonchalant look in his eyes.
His face unreadable, golden eyes following Abby’s every humiliating movement. He hadn’t laughed. Hadn’t joined in. But he hadn’t stopped it either.
He’d just…observed.
Like she was an experiment. Like he was deciding whether she was worth saving.
Or breaking.
The memory clawed its way up my throat now, fresh and vicious. The exact same feeling crept back in…hot shame, cold rage, the sick twist of knowing everyone in the room once saw you as less than human.
My vision blurred.
A tear slipped free before I could stop it. Then another.
I felt it roll down my cheek, slow and traitorous.
Adrian’s hand…the one that had been branding my thigh…lifted instantly. His thumb brushed the tear away, gentle in a way that made my stomach lurch.
He flinched.
Actually flinched like he saw the memory too. Like the salt of it had burned him.
His eyes widened for half a second…raw, unguarded…and I knew for sure that he recognized it.
Somehow just by touching me, he knew exactly what I’d just remembered.
The next second he leaned in, nose brushing the side of my neck, inhaling deep like he could pull the pain out of me with his breath.
“Believe me, mate,” he whispered, voice rough and wrecked, “I’ll punish myself every single day for that night and many more. Every. Single. Day.”
His lips grazed my skin…soft, reverent, almost pleading.
“And when I find Bianca…the other one who made you crawl…I’ll make her serve you. On her knees. For as long as you want. Until she understands what it feels like to be nothing.”
His arms started to close around me, protective, possessive, like he could shield me from the past with his body alone.
“Please…”
The word cracked on his mouth as I felt him swallow hard.
And for one dizzy second, I swayed toward him.
Toward the warmth. Toward the apology. Toward the man who sounded like he was bleeding for me.
My heart stuttered like it didn’t have a choice.
My body wanted to melt into him, wanted to believe the regret in his voice, wanted to let him hold the pieces he’d helped shatter.
But then reality slammed back.
His touch.
Every time he touched me…his hand on my thigh, his lips on my neck, his fingers wiping my tears…I forgot a little more.
Forgot the courtyard. Forgot the crawling. Forgot the inhumane treatment.
Forgot the silence while Abby bled humiliation.
Forgot how easily he could watch me suffer and do nothing just as he did with Abby.
I jerked.
Shoved his hands off me so hard my chair scraped back an inch.
“Don’t,” I hissed, voice shaking. “Don’t you dare use your guilt to make me forget.”
He froze, hands hovering in the air like I’d slapped him.
I looked at him…really looked.
Gray eyes wide with something that looked dangerously close to pain.
Good.
Let it hurt.
I wiped my own tears away with the back of my hand, hating how they kept coming.
“You think an apology and a promise to punish someone else fixes it?” My voice cracked, but I forced it steady. “You sat there, Adrian. You watched. You could have ended it with one word.
One look. But you didn’t.”
I leaned closer, so only he could hear.
“And every time you touch me, every time you growl ‘mate’ like it means something, I lose a little more of the memory of how brutal you really were. How easy it was for you to let them break her.”
I swallowed hard.
“But I won’t forget. Not anymore.”
I straightened in my chair, spine rigid, chin up.
“They will all pay. You all will pay,” I said quietly, but loud enough that the nearest nobles probably caught the edge of it. “Margaret. Levi. The worthless family from the North. Every single person who laughed while she crawled. Who thought she was nothing.”
My gaze swept the table…Lady Margaret’s pinched face, the elders’ uneasy glances, the vampires still sitting quietly like ghosts…like they were watching a play.
“And you?” I looked back at Adrian. “You’ll pay the longest.”
Because you were supposed to be different.
Because you were supposed to protect her.
Because even now, part of me still wants to believe you will.
But I won’t let that part win.
Not tonight. Not ever again.
I held his gaze after the last word left my mouth.
For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to his eyes.
The gray was gone.
What stared back at me was something darker…raw and feral, like I’d torn open a wound he’d spent years cauterizing. Regret warred with something far more dangerous. Not denial. Not anger.
Fear.
Not of me.
Of what might become when all is said and done.
His jaw tightened, a muscle ticking like a countdown. His lips parted, breath hitching, as if whatever he was about to say carried the weight of confession…or damnation.
And then—
The heavy doors burst open.
The crash echoed through the hall like a gunshot and conversations died instantly.
Someone stumbled inside, face white with shock while he trembled. He dropped to one knee so hard it rattled the tableware, chest heaving like he’d outrun death and lost anyway.
“Your Majesty,” he gasped, voice breaking.