A D R I A N

The fireflies shouldn’t still be under my skin, but they are. They followed me all the way to Noctiluna, like they got stuck somewhere beneath my ribs and refused to shake loose on the ferry ride over. God knows I tried, I stood at the railing with the wind in my face, the spray hitting hard, the whole world dark and biting, hoping it would wash her out of me for just one damn minute but it didn’t.

By the time I step into the Starlit Amphitheater, the air feels too thin. The gala is already in full swing with silver constellations spilled across black marble, a hundred lanterns suspended like stars caught mid-fall, the hum of expensive voices rising in waves.

But tonight all I can see is Elara against the arch in the grove. Her legs around my waist. Her breath was breaking against my mouth. The way she whispered not here like she was holding my pulse in her fist and then the fireflies rising around us like the island was giving a verdict.

My pulse kicks unevenly. I should be thinking about safety reports, donor expectations, Lucien’s cryptic texts. But my mind keeps looping back to her trembling against my hands, her eyes glowing in the dark. I’m supposed to be composed tonight, but I’m not. Not even close.

Lucien finds me before anyone else does. Of course he does. He’s always been the one who sees too much. He’s leaning against one of the obsidian columns, dressed in black that somehow makes him look even sharper in the candlelight. His hair is tied back, silver rings on his fingers catching the glow. Noctiluna has always suited him, its shadows, its quiet edges, its sense that something ancient is listening.

“You look haunted,” he says, not bothering with hello.

“I’m fine.” I adjust my cuffs, like the problem is fabric.

He snorts. “You walked in like a man who left part of himself somewhere he shouldn’t have.”

My jaw tightens. “Lucien, not tonight.”

“Exactly tonight.” He pushes off the column and steps closer, studying me with that too-calm expression he gets when he’s trying to decide whether to warn me or let me make my own mistakes. “Everyone’s watching and you look… shaken.”

It irritates me how right he is, Lucien doesn’t say things unless he means them. He turns his gaze toward the crowd. “Selene mentioned you left Aurelia early.” Of course she did, Selene never holds anything sharp without poking someone with it.

“It wasn’t early,” I say, though I even hear the lie. “I had things to handle.” Lucien gives me a long, slow nod, the kind that says you’re full of shit, but I’ll let you circle around it yourself.

“You know,” he says quietly, “Noctiluna reacts to people, It always has. The grove especially.”

I tense just slightly but he notices and his brows lift. “Ah. So something happened.”

I look away. “Drop it.” But Lucien steps closer, lowering his voice. “Careful, Adrian the island doesn’t choose lightly and it never chooses without a cost.” Something in his tone prickles the back of my neck. He’s not teasing but before I can respond, the quartet shifts into a brighter piece, and voices around us swell. The moment fractures but his warning stays lodged like a splinter.

I slip away from him, partly because he’s right and I don’t want him to see more than he already has, and partly because the crowd is closing in with their polite smiles and too-curious eyes. The amphitheater is packed, black-sand flooring, curved stone seating, low tables glittering with crystal and moonlit cocktails. Artists, donors, politicians, influencers, they’re all here, wearing the kind of outfits that whisper wealth and the kind of expressions that whisper hunger.

I weave through them with the face they expect: the heir who has everything under control, who doesn’t flinch under pressure, who definitely didn’t spend last night kissing a woman like he needed her breath to survive.

A senator’s wife compliments the island’s lighting plan. A director pitches the idea of filming a romance drama here. Someone else asks about Seraphine’s recovery timeline after the latest “incident,” their voice syrup-sweet and fishing for scandal.

I give them answers that sound solid but mean nothing. My mouth moves on instinct, but my mind is somewhere else entirely. The moment I feel her, I stop mid-sentence.

Elara. She’s across the amphitheater, near the upper balcony where the lanterns hang low. She’s in a dark dress that bares her shoulders, her hair loose in soft waves, her posture trying so hard to be inconspicuous that she draws every eye anyway. She’s with Selene, more accurately, Selene is talking to her, hands carving dramatic shapes in the air like her story might take flight if she moves fast enough.

Elara’s gaze drifts over the crowd and snags on mine, and for a split second, one ridiculous, breath-stealing instant and we’re right back in the grove. Her legs were trembling around me. My mouth against her heat, her voice breaking as she whispered, I want everything.

She looks away first and I pretend that it doesn’t hit somewhere low and stupid. Lucien steps up beside me again, following my gaze. “Ah,” he murmurs. “So that’s the ghost haunting you.”

“Lucien,” I warn.

“I’m just observing.” He clinks his glass lightly against mine. “And preparing for the fallout.” I don’t answer, because for the first time all night, I’m not thinking about sabotage or optics or family legacy. I’m thinking about the way her breath caught when she said not here, like she was saving something for a future we’re not supposed to have.

“Walk with me,” Lucien says after a moment, not really asking. I follow him up the narrow stone steps to the observatory deck perched above the amphitheater. The wind is colder here and sharper. The ocean below is a sheet of black glass, catching the moonlight like it’s swallowing secrets whole.

Lucien rests his hands on the railing. He doesn’t look at me. “You’ve been tearing through Seraphine like a man hunting ghosts.”

“I’m hunting saboteurs,” I correct.

“Same difference,” he murmurs. I grit my teeth. “If you dragged me up here to psychoanalyze me..”

“No.” He exhales hard, like he’s tired of being delicate. “I brought you up here because something’s wrong with the ruins.”

My pulse stutters. “The Echo Ruins?”

He nods, jaw tightening. “Noctiluna’s been… restless. Footsteps where there shouldn’t be. Lights shifting, patterns in the sand that don’t match any tide.” He finally looks at me, eyes dark as the cliffs. “Adrian, I’ve been studying those ruins since I was fifteen. I know what’s natural and what’s not.”

“And you think it’s connected to the hits on Seraphine.”

“I don’t know.” His voice drops, almost unwilling. “But the island whispers when danger is near. That’s what the old storytellers always said. Ruins and echoes and history repeating until someone listens.” I go still and the phrase hooks under my ribs.

Lucien leans in a fraction. “You need to open your eyes, brother. You’re staring at surface-level threats. But what’s moving under us? It’s older and meaner.” A beat. “Smarter.” A shiver crawls up my spine, unwanted.

“Don’t wait,” he says quietly. “Not until it’s too late.” My phone buzzes again and harder this time. It’s Ethan.

Lucien tilts his head. “Go.” I step away, pressing the phone to my ear. “Talk.”

“We’ve got something,” Ethan says without greeting. Wind rushes over his mic, he’s outside somewhere. “Kai traced the payment route you flagged.”

My stomach drops a little. “And?”

“It wasn’t just routed offshore. It bounced multiple times. Someone went very out of their way to bury it, but they were sloppy on the third hop. Kai exploited the duplication timestamp.”

“Meaning?”

“We pulled the originating registration. Shell company, minimal activity and almost no staff, but it paid the diver who tampered with Seraphine’s supply skiff.”

My chest goes cold. “Name it.” Ethan hesitates, which he never does.

“The company’s registered in an old building on the mainland,” Ethan says. “But the address… Adrian, it’s not random.”

“Whose is it?” He lowers his voice. “A family we’ve crossed before.” My hand tightens around the railing until my knuckles ache. “Send me everything. Now.”

A beat of static. “You’re not going to like it.”

“When do I ever?”

The file hits my inbox before Ethan even hangs up. PDFs, a blurry property photo, a registration stamp, a string of numbers that look harmless but feel loaded. I open the last page and the name slams into me like a punch:

Calaveras Holdings.

My vision whites out for half a second. Not them, anyone but them. The Calaveras family hasn’t touched our borders in years, not since the old feud, not since the contracts war that nearly burned both our networks to the ground. They swore they were done. We swore we’d never cross paths again.

But here they are, funding sabotage, paying divers and slipping knives into Seraphine’s ribs while smiling from afar. Heat floods my chest, crawling up my throat. If the Calaveras wanted a war, they picked the perfect target, my weakest point. My island. My people. My Elara.

I close the file, jaw locked so tight it hurts, below the deck, the gala sparkles on like nothing is happening, like the world isn’t tilting under my feet. Lucien watches me from the shadows, his eyes dark and knowing.

“What happened?” he asks. I swallow the fury, the fear, the truth, and then I answer, voice low and lethal:

“We’re being hunted.”