Caleb
The bottle clinked softly against the table as Erick lowered it, only to lift it again almost immediately.
I had lost count of how many gulps he had taken, but the liquid’s fire didn’t seem to touch him.
His hands were steady, his eyes were unclouded, and haunted, yes, but not dulled.
Any other man would have been slurring by now, swaying, perhaps collapsed on the floor.
But not him.
Not the Alpha King.
His body was too used to discipline, too sharpened by years of control to yield even to intoxication.
It was strange, almost eerie, to watch someone drink so deeply, so desperately, and yet not lose himself.
The drink didn’t consume him. It was grief that did.
I sat in silence, watching him, and listening.
He spoke only in fragments at first, his words heavy and raw
