Julian froze where he stood, his face draining of all color.
As he looked at me, real fear finally surfaced in his eyes—for the first time.
He understood perfectly.
I hadn’t held back with that s***h.
If he had been even a fraction slower, it wouldn’t have been his face that was cut—
It would have been his throat.
At last, he stopped moving, not daring to step forward another inch.
Lucas, too, was completely stunned by my near-uncontrolled outburst.
I could feel his gaze on me, as if he were seeing a stranger for the first time. He stood there, studying me inch by inch, as though trying to find traces of the girl he remembered—the bright, cheerful one who smiled without a shadow in her eyes.
But he couldn’t find her.
“Aria… how did you become like this?”
His voice was low, fille
