"I cannot live without you, Lyssa. Please, accept me."
I was savoring the desperation in his eyes, ready to deliver the final word, when a voice—thin, fragile, and utterly out of place—cracked the moment.
"Lyssa?"
Maegel's grip on my waist tightened instantly, a low, warning vibration starting in his chest. We turned our heads together, and my gaze fell on a girl standing a few paces away.
She was the girl who had been greeting Maegel before I stole the spotlight, and he walked past her like she wasn't even there.
But… How dare she call me by my name?
Do I know her?
She did seem familiar. And so, I decided to take a closer look.
She looked like she had stepped straight out of a storybook—the kind where the protagonist is always weeping and always saved.
Her blonde hair was a soft, virginal halo around a face so delicate it seemed made of porcelain. She was beautiful in that exhausting, 'kick-me' way that made men feel like heroes.
