Alaric's POV
The room smelled faintly of soap and rosewater when I stepped inside. A human scent—soft, unguarded, honest in a way my kind could never be. The air was still, the sort of silence that listens.
And there she was.
Odette.
Even through the darkness, I could see her clearly. Slender, delicate, fair skin that caught the moonlight like it was woven from it. Her hair—pale, almost white—fell down her back in damp strands from a recent bath. She sat on the bed like a figure carved out of sorrow, her shoulders drawn tight, her lips pressed thin.
She reminded me of a broken doll—beautiful even in ruin. Fragile, yes, but the kind of fragile that cuts you if you touch it wrong.
She looked tired, though. Not the kind of tired that sleep could fix—the kind that sits inside the soul, heavy and constant.
