Just when Julian thought his life was finally heading in the right direction, 'it' came back.
Julian snapped awake in the middle of the night, painting loudly in the silence of the bedroom, his lungs suddenly seizing as if the air had turned to stone. He reached out instinctively, his hand sweeping across the sheets for that familiar, solid warmth, but his fingers met only cold, empty fabric.
Alaric was gone.
The Duke had likely slipped out to handle the mountain of midnight dispatches he'd been ignoring to spend time with Julian the whole day, leaving Julian alone in the velvet dark.
But it wasn't the silence that terrified Julian. It was his heart.
It wasn't beating; it was thrashing. A familiar, frantic, sickening rhythm that made his chest feel like it was being crushed by an invisible vice. Cold sweat broke out across his forehead, soaking into the pillowcase as he struggled to pull in a single, clean breath, his hand tightening on his chest as he heaved heavily.
