Lucien's POV
Love?
So Adrian is in love.
I almost laughed when the words slipped through my mind. The thought alone felt absurd, the mighty King Adrian, the stoic ruler who never allowed his heart to show, who never once blinked when blood was spilled before him, now undone by that cursed emotion. Love. How poetic. How foolish.
I sat shirtless before the fire, my mother's hands pressing the steaming cloth into my torn flesh. The pain lanced through me, but it was a small price to pay for the news I'd just received.
"Hold still," Duchess Isolde murmured, her voice like silk wrapped around a dagger. Her touch was delicate, but her eyes, those cold, calculating eyes burned with wicked satisfaction. "We've finally gotten a hold of Adrian. He's cracked. His days as king are over."
She smiled then, that slow, sinister smile that turned her beauty into something inhuman. "The fall of a god, my son. The beginning of an empire."
I exhaled, my lips curving. "Of course. It's over."
