Page 141 of Rise of the Siren Queen
There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her. Nothing I wouldn’t destroy if she asked. Whatever and whenever she needed me, I’d be there. As her sword, her shield, or her shadow.
Always. And forever.
No god could save them if they tried to take her from me.
27
Chosen sacrifices
Iryen
The moment my power answered me fully, violently, I knew Adrian was here. The bond hissed to life like a blade drawn from its sheath, thrumming with his presence, steady and sharp in the chaos clawing through my skull. He was close. I felt him prowling the edge of the hall, his heartbeat pulsing in time with mine, his emotions slipping through the cracks in our connection like smoke: sharp, conflicted, tainted with guilt.
And then I saw him.
Tall. Unyielding. A predator cloaked in beauty. That dark blue tail, rippling behind him with effortless menace, like he owned every inch of ocean he moved through. Gods help the fool who mistook him for anything but lethal.
Our eyes met, and in that heartbeat, I tasted his guilt. Bitter. Raw. A wound that hadn’t closed. But it wasn’t his to carry. It had never been.Iwas the one who walked away.Ileft him behind in a storm I should’ve faced with him. And he came for me.
Adrian stepped into this chaos with blood in his mouth and vengeance in his veins, not just for me, but forwhat was mine. For my court. For my family. And for the pieces of me, I hadn’t realized I’d scattered behind.
He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t falter. He stood in front of me like a wall of fury, unmovable, relentless. And the monster in me admired him for it. Wanted him for it.
His claim should’ve enraged me.
But gods, the way he snarled at Draven, as if daring the bastard to even breathe wrong, while letting me deliver the finishing blow? It didn’t unnerve me. It thrilled me. Adrian didn’t cage me. He stood beside me andfed the fire.
And for a moment—just a fleeting, cruel breath—he made me forget what I’d lost.
Almost.
“Ronan,” I said, my voice a blade honed on grief and wrath, “chain her to the table.”
It wasn’t a request.
“Yes, my Queen.”
The title landed with a violent crack inside me, part crown, part curse. It echoed with the ghosts of those who had borne it before me… and itfit. Oh, how it fits. The throne wasn’t just mine now. Itowedme. This wasn’t justice. This wasa correction.Reclamation. This was me rewriting the story with blood and ice.
Thalor was rotting in whatever void his pathetic manipulation slithered into, and Ithra… Ithra wouldshatterso beautifully.
But Draven? He would suffer. He wouldwatchas everything he schemed for dissolved into dust, drowned in the very power he tried to possess.
I was the reckoning.
I was the monster they made.
And I’m done asking for permission.
“Adrian,” I murmured, my voice velvet over blades, “would you bea dear and get a chair for this traitorous snake?”
He smiled like sin and violence. “Of course, princess. Anything for you.”
I turned back to Draven, and there he was, still clinging to that arrogant glint, running calculations in those cold, twitching eyes. So sure he could outmaneuver me. Pathetic.
He was already losing.
I could smell it on him—the sweat of desperation masked behind composure.
