Chapter 149: He Read the Grief Behind My Eyes

Adeline’s POV~

"You have seen my mother?! You have actually met her?!"

I asked it in the lowest, tightest whisper I could physically force out of my throat, but my voice still cracked and trembled down the middle. My fingers were locked around his wrist like iron cuffs, digging into his jacket sleeve. I refused to let go.

His dark eyes stayed fixed on mine, calm, unreadable, and terrifyingly still.

"Maybe," he murmured softly, his tone completely flat. "Or maybe not."

An explosive wave of frustration rushed up my chest, burning so fast and hot.

"Adrian, I am not in the mood for games!" I hissed through my clenched teeth, stepping even closer. "Just tell me the truth! Did you know her or not?!"

His voice came out low, gentle, and almost amused, though his eyes never softened. "You know what, Adeline? You are without a doubt the most stubborn person I have ever met in my entire life."

"I know I am!" I muttered angrily, refusing to back down. "Now stop dodging my question and give me a straight answer! How did you know my—"

"Are you really so desperate to get both of us killed out here in the dark?" he cut in smoothly, his voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper.

His eyes flicked once toward the pitch-black tree line along the river bank, then locked right back onto my face.

"Right here? Right now? Do I seriously have to keep reminding you that royal werewolf bodyguards have terrifyingly sharp ears?"

I shut my mouth instantly, the words drying up in my throat.

The scent was still hanging in the freezing wind, thick, metallic, and heavy. Alphas. They were standing somewhere in the shadows, watching every micro-expression on our faces like hunters stalking two deer by a river.

I looked down at the gravel path, squeezing my eyes shut as my chest tightened until it felt bruised.

"Fine..." I whispered, my voice thick with bitter defeat. "Fine."

But my heart refused to obey.

The desperation inside me was too loud, too heavy, and far too old.

My entire life had been spent starving for just one tiny scrap of the truth about who I was and where I came from. And now, standing right in front of me in the dark, was a man who casually admitted I looked exactly like my mother, and I was supposed to just smile, nod, and walk away?

I couldn’t ask him another dangerous question. But as I stared down at the grass, the emotional dam inside me finally cracked.

"It’s just that... I have never seen her," I whispered, my voice breaking so badly I had to pause and swallow hard against the lump in my throat.

"I have never seen a picture of her. I don’t even remember their faces. I don’t know how they look like. I don’t remember anything about them. And when you looked at me and said I look exactly like her... I got so excited. My heart practically stopped. I just wanted to know something. Anything. Just one small detail about my parents."

I stared at the shadows stretching across my shoes, feeling smaller than I had ever felt in my life.

"I feel so stupid," I whispered to the cold ground. "I feel so helpless and inferior. Every single person around me knows where they came from. They know their pack, they know their bloodline, they know their parents. And I don’t even know who gave birth to me..."

"You look ridiculously cute when you get frustrated like this," Adrian said gently.

I froze dead in my tracks.

"What?" I looked up at him, my eyes wide with utter confusion. "Are you seriously saying that to me right now? Out of nowhere?!"

"Yes," his voice was incredibly soft, devoid of any mocking edge. "I’m completely serious. Ask anyone who sees you right now. You look like a tiny, angry koala hidden inside that massive oversized t-shirt. A angry little princess."

A small, bitter scoff slipped past my lips as I glared up at him. "I am not a little princess, Adrian."

What kind of twisted game was he playing with my head? One second he was warning me about alpha bodyguards executing us in the trees, and the next second he was standing under the moonlight calling me cute?

"No," Adrian said quietly, his playful demeanour vanishing in a heartbeat. "Maybe you’re right. You’re not."

He took one slow, deliberate step closer to me. The space between us shrank until I could feel the heat radiating off his body in the freezing air. When he spoke again, his voice dropped even lower.

"You’re not a little princess, Adeline," he whispered, looking directly into the depths of my eyes. "You’re a warrior."

I stared up at him, completely frozen.

He wasn’t wearing a mask anymore. There was no easy smile, no polite court charm, no playful smirk. It was just him, raw, serious, and exposed.

"I understand you, Adeline. I know you." he said softly.

I went entirely still, the breath catching in my lungs.

He understands me?

That single word hit me somewhere deep in my chest, a quiet, buried corner of my soul that I had spent my entire life building heavy walls around. Nobody had ever said that to me before. Nobody had ever even tried to look past the surface.

But almost immediately, the protective wall of anger slammed right back up to cover the pain, because anger was safe. Anger kept me from breaking.

"You understand me?" I whispered, my voice trembling with rising emotion. "No. No, you don’t, Adrian. If you actually understood me, you wouldn’t be playing these cruel riddles with me! You would have told me the truth already! The truth that I have been desperately searching for like my whole life depended on it!"

My eyes began to burn with hot, unwanted tears, and I hated myself for it. I quickly dropped my head, muttering the rest of my words toward the cold gravel.

"You don’t understand a single thing about me..."

Adrian didn’t get angry. He didn’t pull away or offer a defense. Instead, he just looked down at me with a small, sad, excruciatingly gentle smile.

"You always wear that massive, oversized black hoodie every single day," he said slowly. "And it’s not because you like the style, Adeline. You wear it because you want to hide. You wear it to make yourself look as small and invisible as possible, hoping that no one will look at you, and no one will ask you uncomfortable questions about who you are."

My breath hitched sharply in my throat.

"You feel deeply ashamed about everything you don’t know," he continued, his voice so quiet and intimate I had to hold my breath to catch every syllable. "And the people around you know it. They use that against you like a weapon. They feed you filthy, disgusting lies about your parents being traitors, just so they can feel superior to you. Just so they can laugh at your expense."