Chapter 187: Chapter 187: Story

Max’s gaze flicked to him, as if checking whether Adam really wanted the answer or was just collecting ammunition.

Then Max nodded once. “At the academy.”

Adam blinked. “Of course it was the academy.”

Max let out a quiet breath that might have been a laugh if the memory weren’t complicated. “Everyone interesting meets someone interesting at the academy,” he said. “Everyone else meets consequences.”

Adam’s mouth twitched. “You’re not even trying to make it sound less dramatic.”

“It was dramatic,” Max replied simply.

He took a small sip, then set the glass down carefully, like he didn’t trust his own hands to stay casual through this.

“I wasn’t raised in the capital,” Max said. “My mother made sure of it.”

He spoke the sentence like it was a fact he’d lived in rather than a story he’d chosen—flat, controlled, the way people spoke when they’d rehearsed the truth too many times to let it shake.

“George helped her,” Max continued, eyes fixed somewhere past Adam’s shoulder as if the wall held a memory. “A new name. A nice husband. A small villa on a warm beach.” His mouth tightened. “It was safer.”

Adam didn’t interrupt. He didn’t even breathe too loudly. Something about Max’s tone warned him not to touch this with jokes.

“My mother never told me that Liam Thornwell wasn’t my biological father,” Max said. “And Liam never made a difference between me and my sister.” A pause, shorter this time, as if Max was forcing himself to include the one soft thing in the middle of all the rot. “He was… good. Stable. The kind of man who loved quietly and didn’t ask to be thanked for it.”

Max’s eyes darkened again. “George came into the picture after I was about seven.”

Adam’s brows lifted slightly. “Seven,” he repeated, because the number made it worse. Too young for politics, too young for manipulation, too young to be counted as leverage.

Max nodded once. “He visited. Brought gifts. Spoke to my mother like he was saving her.” His jaw worked. “Then he told me, very casually, that Liam wasn’t my father.”

Adam’s fingers tightened around his glass.

Max’s voice stayed even. “He told me he wasn’t happy taking care of me,” he said, and the bitterness under the sentence was sharp. “But he was doing it anyway.”

Adam frowned. “Why say that to a child?”

Max’s mouth curved humorlessly. “Because George doesn’t tell children things for their benefit. He tells them things so they learn where they stand.”

Max’s gaze finally shifted back to Adam. “He said we have the same green eyes,” Max murmured. “He said I’m a Claymore to him, as heirs have the same eyes.”

The words sounded almost affectionate, and that was what made Adam’s stomach turn. George had wrapped a chain in the language of belonging and handed it to a boy who’d never asked for it.

Max sat very still for a moment, then added, quieter, “I found out later that he planned everything.”

Adam’s throat tightened. “What do you mean?”

Max nodded once. “He made sure my mother was close to Hadeon,” he said, his voice calm in the way rage became when it was old. “He made sure she would be another ’victim.’

And then he positioned himself as the hero, saving her reputation, her bastard son, and the story.”

Adam’s eyes narrowed. “So he could own you.”

Max’s gaze didn’t blink. “So he could own me.”

Adam felt the bond at his nape pulse faintly, warm and possessive, like it hated George’s name even as a concept.

Max’s jaw tightened. “And my mother,” he added, and the word came out colder than the rest. Not because he didn’t love her…quite the opposite. Because the love was tangled with fury at the fact she’d been used like that.

He paused, then said the part that sounded like it cost him to admit.

“She doesn’t know the truth.”

Adam’s fingers curled on the couch cushion. “She doesn’t know George—”

“Planned it,” Max finished, flat. “No.”

Adam swallowed. “Does Liam know?”

Max’s gaze dropped for half a heartbeat, then returned. “Liam knows I’m not his,” he said quietly. “But he doesn’t know George engineered the whole thing. He thinks…” Max’s mouth tightened. “He thinks he married a woman who had been hurt by a powerful man and needed a safe life. He thinks George was helping.”

Adam exhaled slowly. It felt like breathing around broken glass.

“That’s sick,” Adam murmured.

Max’s eyes stayed dark. “George doesn’t think it’s sick. He thinks it’s smart.”

Adam stared at Max for a long beat, then asked carefully, “And you… when did you find out about Hadeon?”

Max’s jaw ticked once. “Later,” he said again. “After the academy. After Damian.” His voice lowered. “After the point where it could have been just… a childhood lie.”

Adam nodded slowly, absorbing the timeline, seeing the shape of it. George hadn’t just saved Max. He’d kept him in reach, like a long investment.

“He was… no, he still is despicable,” Max said. “He brought me to the capital and made sure I played with the right kids.” His mouth tightened, the old bitterness surfacing like a bruise pressed too hard. “One of them was Damian. I forgot about him for a while, and then we met again.”

Max leaned back in his chair, crossed his long legs, and balanced the glass on his knee, as if he needed something solid. His eyes stayed dark.

“Damian hates Hadeon so much that both of them are ready to kill each other at any given moment,” Max said. He huffed once, humorless. “Hadeon ordered his men to kill Damian when he was eighteen. Then again at twenty-five – when Damian received the oaths of his people.”

Adam’s stomach tightened. He kept his face calm, but his fingers flexed on the couch cushion like his body needed to do something with the tension.

“Are you one of those swearing loyalty to the Emperor?” Adam asked carefully.

Max’s gaze flicked to him. Then he nodded once.

“Yes,” he said.

Adam held his breath for half a second, then forced it out. “So you—”

“Yes,” Max repeated, cutting off the assumption before it could turn into accusation. “But it was before he had even the idea of rebellion.”

Adam blinked. “Before?”

Max’s lips curved slightly, not quite a smile, but more like an acknowledgement that the timeline was about to worsen.

“Before Damian was the Emperor,” Max said quietly. “Before golden eyes. Before the public oaths.” He rolled the glass once against his knee, watching the amber shift. “Back when he was just… Damian. Brilliant. Angry. Already too burdened. And still trying to survive a father who wanted him erased.”

Adam’s brows lifted slightly. “Then why did you swear to him?”

“Because we hate the same man, and Damian is a man born to rule.” He took the last sip from his drink. “George believed that if I followed Damian and entered the ether trial, he could use me as the next emperor.”

Adam looked at Max’s eyes, trying to see if there was any spell to hide the real color. “Your eyes aren’t golden.”

“No, I failed it, but George still believes that I can take Damian’s place if he gets rid of him,” Max said evenly. “George wants me to mark and marry Gabriel von Jaunez.”

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