Julian trembled.
The heavy, suffocating weight of her aura pressed against him, but the physical pressure was nothing compared to the absolute devastation of her words. He stood there, his hands clenched into tight, shaking fists at his sides. The beautiful, chaotic fantasy he had spent the last two days building—the illusion that he had finally conquered her, that he had become the sole center of her world—was shattering into a million jagged pieces at his feet.
He looked at her, his ice-blue eyes wide and bright with a mixture of betrayal and desperate frustration.
"What?" Julian demanded, his voice cracking, entirely stripped of its arrogant swagger. "As your husband, do I not even have the right to question you? Do I not even have the right to ask you to stop?"
Elara did not react to his pain. She did not soften. She sat behind her grand mahogany desk, a portrait of terrifying, absolute power.
