Queen of Myth and Monsters (Adrian X Isolde, #2)

by Scarlett St. Clair

“Did you know about Dragos’s pleasure house?” I asked. Adrian kept staring at Ana. “We all did,” he said. “It was impossible not to know.” “Why didn’t you do anything?” “You assume I did nothing?” he asked, looking at me. I supposed I had. “I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “I likely did not do enough,” he said. “I was focused on killing Dragos. I thought if I succeeded, then every bad thing he’d done would go away. I didn’t realize until after Ana’s…” He paused and cleared his throat. “I didn’t realize how awful it had become until…until then.” “You planned to kill Dragos? Even before my death?” “It’s the only reason I joined his guard,” Adrian said. “It was not easy…pretending to be so loyal.” “What did he do to you?” Adrian swallowed, and let his eyes fall to his hands, which he had clasped tightly in his lap. “I blame him for destroying my family. Revekka was once very small, and Dragos wanted more land, more power. He declared war upon three other countries. They were called Bren, Kazan, and Oksana. My father was called upon to fight, and when he returned, he was not the same man. He was angry, and he drank, and that made him violent. One day, he walked into the woods and impaled himself upon his sword. I found him. I was only a boy. After, my mother, too, began drinking, and she whored herself around to sustain it rather than feeding me.” He paused a moment, letting his hands rest on the arms of his chair, gazing toward the window. “One day, she didn’t come home. They f...