Some men lose battles.
Others lose kingdoms.
But Ryker Blackthorne? He’d lost sleep—and somehow, that stung worst of all.
Battles end. Kingdoms can be rebuilt, given enough time. But this—these long, hollow hours in the dark, fighting to close his eyes, replaying old mistakes—this felt endless. His prison didn’t have iron bars or locked doors. It was just this bottomless exhaustion, night after night, swallowing him up.
Three hours. That’s all he’d gotten this week. If you could even call it sleep. He drifted, sure—caught somewhere between nightmares he couldn’t quite grab and memories that never faded.
The rest of the time, he just lay there, staring at the ceiling, listening for a sound that wasn’t coming. Thinking. Suffering. Existing. The Alpha Manor was as grand and silent as eve
