Bound To Be Yours 🦌

Chapter 13 The Only Air

Adrian's POV

Applause rattles the hall, too loud, too bright. Champagne clinks. Gasps like fireworks. Arabella in red silk, glowing, drinking in every drop of it. To them, she's radiant. Victorious. A Kingsley heir staking her claim.

And me?

I stand beside her, hand still trapped in hers, jaw locked, smile pasted on like rehearsal. Every eye wants me to beam back, to confirm the picture she just choreographed under the chandeliers.

But I'm not here.

I'm scanning the crowd. Searching for Aurora.

Every table, every blur of tartan, every flicker of light. She's gone.

And it's wrong. The air feels thinner without her in it.

I don't feel the cameras. Don't feel Arabella's nails digging into my sleeve. My chest tightens with something no one else here would dare name.

✦✦✦

A memory slices through me. Arabella's voice, warm breath against my ear just before the first dance.

"Be good, Adrian. You've always been the golden boy, and I've always been promised the prize. Stay on track, and I won't knock your little toy off her pedestal. Imagine the scandal, when they find out she isn't really an Ashbourne."

Perfume sweet. Words venom.

That was the real ambush.

The cut wasn't the kiss. It was that word: Ashbourne.

I didn't flinch then. I won't flinch now.

Arabella twirls, red silk flashing under chandeliers. Applause spikes. I lean close—close enough for the crowd to mistake threat for affection. My lips ghost her ear, voice velvet wrapped in razors.

"Careful, Bella. Secrets rot quick in the open. And yours reeks worse than mine."

She stutters. Half a second—her breath catching, her hand trembling before she locks it still. Her smile falters, then clamps back in place. Polished. Perfect. Cracked.

The crowd sees radiance.

I see fear.

And nothing tastes sweeter.

The quartet drives into another set. Arabella angles herself for maximum light. I let my hand slip from hers—slow, deliberate. The applause shields me; she can't follow without breaking the image. She knows it.

I leave her there. Gleaming. Frozen. Shining cut glass—beautiful, until the strike shatters it.

They call it legacy. Charisma. The Sinclair shine.

Truth is, it isn't earned. It's bled.

Too perfect to be real.

And tonight, perfection cracks. Not because of Arabella.

Because her absence is louder than applause.

✦✦✦

I remember her before tonight.

Last year's Founder's Ball. Everyone else glittering, parading for cameras, laughing too loud. And her—standing off to the side. Blue and distant, still as frost. Untouched by the noise.

Not overlooked. Not forgettable. Just... apart.

And I hated how much I wanted to step into it with her.

✦✦✦

Every cheer scraping raw against my skull. Banners drip, portraits sneer, chandeliers blind. It all reeks of performance.

I cut through the crowd—past gowns and grins, laughter rehearsed for legacy. Let them think I'm chasing air. They'll never know it's the only thing in here that matters.

Stone swallows me as I slip out. Augustine's corridors hush around me, shadows bending under vaulted ceilings. My steps echo, sharp, honed. Hunting.

And then—

Balcony doors cracked open. Night spilling in.

Aurora. Alone.

Moonlight crowns her at the railing, wind tugging strands of hair silver. My jacket is around her shoulders before I can stop myself. She startles, doe-eyed, soft.

"Sinclair." Caught. Surprised. Guarded.

"You look lonely," I murmur.

"And that's what I prefer."

Simple. Brutal. Truer than anything else in this place.

She shifts, her fingers brushing the lapel of my jacket. "These rooms... they choke. Everyone perfect, glittering. It feels like drowning. "

Her hand curls tighter around the railing, knuckles pale in the moonlight. For a second, she looks breakable. For a second, I want to hold her steady.

"Drowning teaches you," I tell her, leaning in just enough for my words to graze her skin. "First you fight. Then you burn. Then you give in. And that's when it remakes you. You're never the same after."

Her lips part, but no sound comes. When it does, it's fragile. "What if you just stop fighting?"

I watch her—eyes wide, lashes trembling, everything in her daring me to answer. My chest tightens with the truth I shouldn't say.

"Then it stops being death," I breathe, voice rough. "It becomes belonging."

The space between us thickens. Her lips part like she might say more, then she looks away—up, at the stars.

I follow her gaze. Because it's safer than the truth pressing against my ribs.

Out here, the air doesn't burn. With her, I breathe. She's the surface. The oxygen. If she goes, I choke.

Inside, the music still roars. Arabella still smiles through her cracks.

But out here—

it's just us.

And as she stands in my jacket, under my shadow, one truth sears in final:

She doesn't belong to their world.

She belongs to me.