JULIANS POV
The morning air was thick with the kind of tension that crawls under your skin and stays there. Training days were supposed to help me clear my mind, but ever since I’d asked Aliona to be my pretend girlfriend, my thoughts hadn’t settled once. I knew what people would think—that it was all for show, a tactic, maybe even a joke to irritate the Faron triplets and make a statement before the Mooncrest gathering. But for me, it was more than that.
It wasn’t an act, not really.
Because when I looked at Aliona—those storm-gray eyes that always carried too much pain for someone her age—I saw someone worth protecting. Worth fighting for.
And that terrified me more than anything else.
The rogues that had attacked her weren’t the kind that acted without orders. Someone was pulling
