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Her grey eyes.
Her full lips that begged to be kissed.
Had to stop thinking about how much I wanted to suck and bite on her delicate jaw and her slender throat, to leave my marks… and to paint her pale skin with my bruises.
Had to stop wanting her – needing her.
My dick throbbed at the thought and I shifted on the chair. Goddamn it.
Dead or alive, Julianna was fucking with my head.
I clenched my fists and leaned my head back against the chair, gazing at the ceiling. She had way too much control over me and that was the problem.
Love made me weak.
Weak for her.
I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew, I woke up to fists pounding on my door. Frantically. “The door is open. Come in,” I answered, groggily. It had to be Samuel. He was the only one allowed in my room anyway.
While I was on the island, Samuel kept me up-to-date on the things from the outside world. My father’s health and our business, to name a few.
My assistant sent me a detailed email every day, while Samuel gave me a rundown of things. But he had already done so for today, this morning while I was having breakfast.
So, what was so urgent now?
My door crashed open and I jerked forward in my chair. “What the fu–”
It wasn’t Samuel, alright.
It was Mirai, Emily’s granddaughter. She barged into my room, chest heaving, and her eyes panicked.
“Julianna,” she gasped.
My body tensed at her name. “What?”
Mirai swallowed, her shaky hands fluttering to her chest. The poor girl looked absolutely frantic and my gut churned. “What’s wrong? What happened to Julianna?” I surged forward, pushing the chair away to stand up. I towered over the girl. “Did she have another seizure? I made sure to relocate Rani two rooms down from hers. I told you that last week.”
Rani was the general physician who was ever present on Isle Rosa-Maria. But she lived on the opposite side of the castle, too far away from Julianna – if ever there was an emergency. After her seizure last week, I had made sure to place Rani closer to her.
Mirai shook her head. “No, no seizures. Not that I know of. Oh God, now that you mentioned it, what if… shit,” she said, growing even more panicked. Her eyes filled with tears; her cheeks flushed with distress.
“Would you just tell me what the hell is going on?” I hissed. I didn’t have time for games and hysteria.
“Julianna is missing,” Mirai wheezed.
I blinked before my stomach dropped. My room swayed for a second before the world righted itself again. “What did you just say?”
“I went to her this morning, to give her breakfast. Julianna refused. She hadn’t eaten anything yesterday either,” she explained hurriedly. “I went back for lunch, knocked at her door several times, but when she didn’t answer, I walked in to find her room empty.”
Mirai broke off, hiccupping back a sob. “She hasn’t left her room for a week. So, I thought it was weird. I went to search for her, everywhere that I thought she might be. In the library. In Arabella’s room. But I couldn’t find her anywhere. And… and then, I told my grandma and all the maids set off to search for her, but she’s nowhere to be found within the castle walls.”
I was already striding away before she had even finished her story. Mirai shouted my name, but I broke into a run, fear beating strongly in my chest. I blindly ran down the corridor and the stairs, with only one destination in mind.
Mirai said Julianna couldn’t be found anywhere within the castle. That could only mean one thing – she had gone out. And if I knew my wife the way I thought I did, there was only one place she’d go to.
The moment I stepped outside, the rain pelted down on me, soaking through my clothes. I flinched as the coldness seeped through my wet clothes and into my bones. The clouds were dark and heavy. Thunder rolled through the sky, followed by more lightning.
Julianna wouldn’t be so stupid to go out during a storm?
“Fuck,” I swore under my breath, taking off into a dead run toward the stables.
I didn’t want it to be true. I hoped my suspicion would be just that. A doubt, and nothing more. Because the reality would be more dangerous.
I came to a halt when I found the stables empty. The stall at the very end was deserted.
Though his saddle was still here, Cerberus was gone.
And Julianna was nowhere to be found.
Goddamn it.
The stallion was stubborn and bad-tempered. He wouldn’t let anyone else mount him, except myself. And Julianna, while she was comfortable with Ragna, she wouldn’t be able to stay in control with Cerberus.
Didn’t she know how dangerous this could be? She purposely put herself in harm’s way. What the fuck was going on in her head?
