Alaric turned from the window slowly, and Clara's breath caught in a way that had nothing to do with fear.
She had expected illness to have hollowed him out, had pictured a weakened, gaunt figure based on everything Dorian and Aldric had described. What she found instead was a man whose sheer physical presence overwhelmed the room despite the toll the poison had visibly taken. He was tall, broader than any wolf she had encountered, his silver eyes catching the firelight as they settled on her with an intensity that made her pulse stumble. Pale scars traced along the exposed skin at his throat, old wounds from wars she knew nothing about. Even weakened, even pale beneath skin that should have carried more color, he radiated a kind of restrained power that made the air in the chamber feel t
