89: Darius's POV

I knew we had probably broken more than a few boundaries with Ada. It was why I made her acknowledge she’d wanted me to fuck her before I had. We had been more rough and forceful than any of us had been before, but I needed to make sure she understood that she’d wanted us in that moment. I couldn’t guarantee she had originally wanted it when Nik started, but by the time Phoenix and I came into the room, Ada had been writhing with need. Her eyes had been glazed over, even as she cried. Now she was marked and fucked into submission for the evening. She knew who she belonged to.

Now, we had other matters to attend to. Nik had led us to the ports, where three ships were set to head out and run along an exchange route. He’d filled Phoenix and me in on the details of Adrian and Ada’s plans, and I hated to admit that I was impressed with both of them. Adrian had risked his life to try and make Ada happy, and I could at least acknowledge that it was an endearing trait. Ada had shown she had more guts than I think any of us had thought she had by planning an escape. Was her reasoning behind it selfless? Ultimately. If she’d thought it through, though, she would have realized it wouldn’t have worked.

We would have spent eternity looking for her.

My brothers and I approached the dock. A hooded figure was waiting on the dock beside the final ship that remained tied to the port. The hood kept swiveling, looking in every direction. When we were twenty feet away, Nik stopped the cloaking spell he’d been muttering between Phoenix and me. The hooded figure stumbled back as we suddenly appeared.

“Shit,” Adrian hissed, nearly falling off the deck.

The Beta caught himself. We stopped about five feet away from him. The moonlight was bright beside the water. With my wolf sight, I could make out every detail on Adrian’s face. At first, there was fear. The smell radiated off him. After a few moments of us standing in front of him, the smell and the expression changed. He rolled his shoulders back and stuck his chin up. He worked to even his breathing. Adrian bowed his head to us and then stood straight and held each of our gazes.

His voice was even, and I could tell from the tension in his hands that he was working to make sure it didn’t falter, “I won’t bother denying anything. If you’re here, you already know.”

“Smart man,” I stepped forward.

“Can you tell me one thing?” Adrian asked, eyes following me as I rounded on him. I placed my hands on his shoulders. To his credit, he didn’t flinch. Phoenix nodded and motioned for Adrian to speak. The beta sucked in a deep breath, “Did she set me up?” Nik shook his head. Adrian nodded slowly, “You know, I love her. I know she doesn’t love me, but I just wanted her to be happy.”

“We will figure out how to make her happy,” I growled, grabbing his neck.

Phoenix’s voice was soft as my brother looked at the Beta, “I wish this could end differently, Adrian. You’re a good man.”

“Better me than her,” Adrian said, standing up straighter, “My thanks for making this quick.”

None of us responded. His heart was racing beneath my fingers. I changed my position, placing my hands on either side of his head. He was taking his impending death honorably, and I would make it as comfortable as possible. It took one swift motion of my hands to snap his neck. His body fell to the ground as I released him.

I stepped over his body as someone peered over the side of the ship, “Are we good to set off, your Highness?”

“Yes,” I yelled out and leaned down.

My hands hooked beneath Adrian’s armpits. Nik stepped over and grabbed his legs. Phoenix watched as the two of us heaved him off the deck and into the water. The ship began moving from the dock as Adrian’s body floated on the top of the water, facedown. Regret pricked at the back of my mind. Had there been any other way? We could have simply told him to leave, let him off easy. I knew there was always a chance he would come back, though.

I looked at my brother and found myself wondering if either of them were feeling this way. Not just about Adrian, but about how we’d gone about marking Ada. Sure, she’d wanted us by the end, but we took away her choice. We’d forced her to have half of our mate bond completed before we even had answers to everything. We’d effectively bound her to us, and we didn’t even know what we were going to do.

We’d decided to share the crown equally. But there were so many factors to consider with every other move we made. For fuck’s sake, I was *married* to Elizabeth Jane. I wasn’t even sure what her title was now. We had pushed off coronations because of the urgency of situations and then Phoenix being missing... but now we needed answers. Would the three of us be crowned with Ada as our Luna? Would we all be crowned and keep her as our mate, but not as our queen? Fuck, would she even *want* us anymore?

What would happen if, because of the way tonight played out, she decided she didn’t want us anymore? We’d taken what we wanted and left her there, bleeding and fucked into submission. Newly marked. From what I understood about that, the marking was so intense that some people required days to recover. If that was for a single marking, what state had we left her in after three? What if she wasn’t interested in marking us? How would any of us fare with a half-completed mate bond?

Nik’s hand clapped my shoulder, and he sent me a rueful smile, “Your thoughts are very loud, brother.”

We walked over to Phoenix, who was shivering in the cool night air. I nodded as the three of us started back toward Oberon Castle, “We have a lot of decisions to make very quickly.”

“I might be able to help with some of those,” Phoenix pulled a yellowed scroll from inside his shirt, “I also know who kidnapped me. I’ll leave this with you two,” he shoved the scroll at Nik, “We can discuss it over breakfast tomorrow with Ada and Elizabeth. Tonight, I need rest.”

Nik gripped the scroll tightly and gave him a nod. We continued the journey to Oberon Castle, covered in the shroud of darkness, a brooding silence shared between us. It seemed that none of us were very happy with how the night had played out.