Page 199 of Fallen Stars
Enzo sent him such a terrifying look over his shoulder that Eli staggered a little.
“Fine,” he hissed before jogging after the Lion towards Sagitton’s temple.
One minute Adrian was with the rest of the group, and the next moment he wasn’t.
He staggered back, frowning. Had Sagitton’s charm gotten to him already? He wiped his eyes, frowning at the glass that had just appeared in his hand.
A hand wrapped around his mouth, and he struggled against it, his powers flaring before he could register the scent of oceanflower.
He heard a splutter as he whipped round, curling his hand around the throat of the Star standing before him.
He noted the silver hair.
“Cancia?” he growled as the woman before him took out a small dagger, and in a whirl, she had him against the wall, the blade to his throat.
“No,” she drawled. “Oceanne.”
Adrian let out an empty laugh as the cool metal rested on his pulse, taking a second to look at the woman before him.
Star,he corrected himself.
Silver hair cascaded to her hips like moonlit water, starfish and seashells weaved through them. She was dressed as a mermaid, ironically. Adrian gave a disgusted laugh, soaking in the Hallow’s mask still disguising the face that Adrian hadn’t yet laid eyes upon. It was pearl and shell encrusted, covering the upper half of her face, but it was when Adrian dared flick his eyes down, as she still held him by the throat, that he truly understood just how evil the Stars were.
Curves, for days, skimmed her body, flimsy netting creating a dress of sorts, with the same shells and sea ornaments scattered to cover her intimate areas. He saw flashes of her olive skin through the netting, saw the curves he had only felt.
Finally, he dragged his eyes back up to meet her green and blue.
“What the fuck do you want, siren?”
Something close to hurt flashed across Cancia’s face, and Adrian worked to quell the urge to hold her. She had betrayed him, lied to him. And more than that, she was his enemy’sconsort.
He raised his chin. “Go on, are you here to try and kill me? Good luck with that. I’m sure you’ve heard by now what I am, little spy.”
“The Water,” she whispered, and he stiffened as her grasp on the blade softened. “I heard. Adrian, I didn’t come to hurt you. I don’t have much time. Even now, Stars are scattered around. But I came to apologise, to tell you that I didn’t sell you out or tell Scorpius anything.You just…you had to know that.”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t believe her for a second. Stars were liars, every one of them. Manipulative, charming—and this one before him, this mermaid so closely related to the sirens of Neptuna, yes… Adrian would die before he believed another word uttered through those pretty lips.
“And why should I believe you?”
She sighed, pulling something from beneath her dress. It was a pearl necklace, the one Adrian had made, strung with the pearls Cancia had gifted him each night to herald her arrival.
“Because I found this in the ocean and kept it. Because I knew what it meant. Because the last weeks… They’ve been real to me.”
Adrian’s eyes widened. “I threw that overboard,” he hissed. “It wasn’t for you to keep.”
“Well then, I kept it anyway,” Cancia snapped. “And for a reason. I meant what I said. But fine.”
She took the necklace and pulled it off her neck. “Here. Since it wasn’t for me to keep.” She shoved it into Adrian’s hand.
Footsteps sounded down the alley, and Cancia spun as a group of revellers passed, singing a Kaoisan ditty.
“I have to go,” she whispered, more softly. “I’m sorry, Adrian, for all of it. I hope one day you’ll realise that.”
She turned, slipping from his grasp.
“Cancia, wait.”
Adrian caught her, pulling her back to him. Cancia’s body slammed into his, warm and supple, the two breathing hard, their lips nearly touching.