Page 54 of Rise of the Queen

I needed her to know, without a doubt, that I wasn’t going anywhere and that I was never going to send her away from me for any reason ever again. I was tired of waiting for the perfect moment to ask her, so I made my own perfect moment.

The guys did a great job of acting completely normal and coming up with a reason to not go to the house until after dinner. Once there, they all pretended to be very tired and went straight to their rooms, leaving me and Sephie to go upstairs on our own.

She walked into the bedroom, immediately surprised by the candles and the roses that filled the room. She walked a few steps into the room, taking it all in before she turned back to me. I was nervous. I never get nervous. I took the ring out of my pocket as quietly as possible, got down on one knee and waited for her to turn around.

“Adrik, this is beaut …” She didn’t finish her thought when she turned toward me. Her hand went up to cover her mouth, her eyes wide. I couldn’t help but smirk at how cute she was when she was speechless. It didn’t happen often.

I also couldn’t stay on my knee for very long. It meant I couldn’t have my hands on her. Unacceptable. I stood up, grinning at my inability to keep my hands off of her. I pulled her to me. She, of course, immediately picked up on my amusement.“I like this better too,” she said quietly, as I took her hand and slid the ring on her finger.

“Sephie, I’ve known I was in love with you from the first moment I laid eyes on you. But with each day that passes, you’ve proven that the love I have for you knows no depths or no bounds. I fall more in love with you each and every day and I want to keep falling in love with you every single day for the rest of this life. And every life after. Will you …”

She cut me off. She pressed her lips to mine before I could finish. “Don’t ask stupid questions,” she said, smiling against my lips. I couldn’t help but laugh as I kissed her back. I felt the warmth spread over my entire body, warmer than usual even, and I knew her answer was yes. But that didn’t mean that I didn’t want to hear her say it. I leaned my head back to look at her, about to ask her if that meant yes.

She smiled her wide smile at me. “Of course I will. I want you to be stuck with me too,” she said, her arms around my neck. Her eyes were the deepest depth of the ocean blue when she said it, making it mean that much more to me. I wrapped my arms around her, picking her up off the floor, hugging her to me for a few moments.

I felt her let go with one arm, as she held her hand up to look at the ring as I held her. “Holy shit, I’m gonna have to have Bubba’s help to build muscles big enough to carry this thing around all day long.”

I laughed.God, I love her.

“I wanted it to be very obvious to anyone and everyone that you belong to me, solnishko.”

“Message received,” she said, hugging my neck tightly once more.

Chapter Nineteen

Sephie

After finally exhausting ourselves thatevening, we fell into a tangled mess together on the bed and fell asleep. I knew he wasn’t going anywhere. I knew I wasn’t going anywhere. But there was a bigger part of me than I realized that felt so much more secure now that he’d made it official.

And boy did he make it official. This ring had its own zip code. But it was absolutely perfect in every way. He’d remembered my joke about black diamonds, so the main stone was a square black diamond, large enough to be seen from space. Pretty sure, anyway. It was surrounded by five smaller rubies, as well as even smaller white diamonds. It was perfect. It was a constant reminder that he, as well as all five of the guys, would always be with me.

Once asleep, I found myself walking down that same familiar path to that same familiar house. As soon as I looked down and noticed the path, I ran the rest of the way inside, knowing what was waiting on me.

“Dad!” I yelled as I ran through the front door. He could barely stand up from the piano before I smacked into him, wrapping my arms around him.

“Hey, peanut!” he said, his wide smile on his face.

“It’s been a long time. I’ve missed you,” I said.

“Oh, I’ve been around. I check in from time to time. You’re not the only one with a whiteboard to keep track of outcomes,” he said, a sly smile creeping across his face.

I laughed. He really was where I got most of my humor from. “What was the latest one?”

“We’re all waiting on Stephen. He’s closer than he’s ever been to figuring out his gift, but he hasn’t made the jump yet. You almost got him to do it the other day, but he’s still holding back. I have complete confidence that you’ll be able to help him figure it out soon though. You know, before the end of the month, if you could. Help an old man out and what not …” he said, laughing as he cut his eyes down at me.

“I’ll see what I can do. I didn’t know he was that close. I only just got him to open up about his past.”

“That’s the key, I think. He has to face his past first and then he’s ready. Same for Viktor. He has to finally come to terms with his past before he can move forward. They’re both closer than they’ve ever been though. That’s why I’m here, actually.”

“To check on your bet pool?”

He laughed. “No. To help you hurry them along. You need them, Sephie. Things are about to get very bad. You’re going to need all the help you can get, although you did surprise everyone by bringing Vitaliy along. No one thought you’d be able to do that. Well, I did. Because I know how special you really are. But no one else did. Even Lena was surprised you managed to bring him back from the brink. He’s been living in darkness for a very long time, peanut. But he’ll prove to be very useful for you in what’s coming.”

“What’s coming? Can you tell me? Is it Sal?”

“I’m technically not supposed to interfere. I can nudge you along, like I’ve been doing, but the future is dependent on decisions made in the present. I’m not allowed to interfere with those decisions. Them’s the rules. But what I can tell you is that you will succeed, but you have to stick together and you have to rely on each other. More than you ever have before. You’ve all done quite a good job at handling what life has thrown at you so far. It’s going to get even more weird, but it wouldn’t happen if you couldn’t handle it.”

“What about Viktor though? I’m worried about him. He seems the most unsure out of all of them. I think I scare him now.”