Alaric’s POV
The water was scalding. Just the way I liked my hot bath..
I sat back against the carved stone rim of the bath, letting the heat burn me as well as the dried blood from my skin.
The steam curled around me, thick and satisfyingly suffocating, but it wasn’t enough to drown out the image in my mind.. the girl.
My substitute bride.
Her wide, fierce blue eyes still haunted me. The softness of her face.. The fragile way she had swayed when exhaustion threatened to drag her under.
The way my arms had carried her before I even thought twice about it. I clenched my jaw, lowering myself deeper into the water until only my mouth broke the surface.
She looked nothing like the woman I had envisioned for my wife. She was too quiet, too delicate, too much like a bird that had already
