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She knew, then.

Somehow, my wife knew who she was to me.

I winked at her, and her smile only grew.

“Adrian . . .” Leo’s voice drawled slightly, his shock apparent.

“Hello, Leo. I have to apologize for my tardiness, your beasts attempted to hold me up at the door.” I grabbed my daggers hanging from my sides, the slide of their metal singing against their sheaths as I pulled them out, already crusted with putrid-smelling blood. “Now they lay dead outside, and the rest of them in this room will be dead soon enough.”

I looked at the creature standing behind Bryn, and to the few in the room; one hovering near a man half curled on the floor between Leo and Bryn. I didn’t recognize his face, but Bryn’s outward worry for the man told me all I needed to know. He was important to her.

Sigrid and Cal stood motionless with the other guards. Unseeing.

“It’s over, Leo,” I said, trying to figure out how I could break them from his control.

He laughed at me, not comprehending that he was caught and wouldn’t be leaving this room.

“How’d you do it, Adrian? How did you free your mind from me?”

“It was never under your control.”

Leo looked like I’d struck him across the face.

“I only ever wanted to be your friend, Leo. I only ever wanted to be a commander in your army. I used to look up to you, even though I was the older one, and now I’m this . . .” I felt the shadows slip from my fingers as power surged through the room. The Nullifiers disengaged by the remote in Charles’s hand as he entered behind me. “You took the most important thing from me. You left me no choice but to enter Delirium, and earn what was my blood right to have. The power I needed to defeat you with.”

It felt good to let out my night. To show Leo who I really was after years of using my own cloaking magic to hide this part of me from him.

Leo’s own shadows leaked from his hands. “Your blood right?”

“Yes . . . brother.”

Bryn looked stunned at my confession.

I never had the chance to tell her before.

Leo hissed as his hands flew open, night air shooting toward me. But I was ready, my own powers meeting his as I lifted my blades to block his attack.

I laughed cruelly. He still didn’t understand. “You can’t beat me. I’m stronger than you are now.”

I ran toward him, and he had the good sense to step back defensively and create a shield. I lifted my blades, bringing them down in a sweeping motion, cutting through his defense, my magic releasing, the impact hitting him square in the chest, sending him across the room.

The creatures shrieked in confusion as my men erupted through the doors, attacking them swiftly.

Leo launched his guards at them, and the guards of the other realms, removing their bindings, not caring if he sacrificed his friends to slaughter.

Sigrid and Cal ran toward the fight, husks of themselves under Leo’s command.

My men wouldn’t hurt them, though. I’d given them explicit orders not to. They were only to disable them enough so we could get them out from under Leo’s trance later.

I stalked slowly toward Leo, proclaiming my birthright boldly. “The blood of your mother flowing through your veins flows just as freely through mine. Before you, the queen gave birth, to me.”

“That’s impossible,” he sputtered. “I am the sole heir of Esmerelda.”

“You’re wrong. I never had any intention of claiming the throne, but your reign became destined to end the day you murdered my wife.”

Leo was on his feet, but I tackled him, discarding my daggers to beat my fists into his face, hot blood spraying my uniform as his nose broke beneath my knuckles. My rage consuming me, his blood coating us both.

I looked to Bryn, needing her to be okay with this.