Alaric’s POV

The wind howled through the jagged peaks as we rode, and each gust felt like a chorus of voices—mocking me, defying me, daring me to fail. I clenched my fists around the reins until my knuckles whitened, my nails biting into my palms. The landscape below  Hunter's Ravenhold stretched vast and wild, but all I saw was a kingdom waiting to be claimed. Mine. All mine.

But beneath that hunger, beneath the fire in my veins, there was rot—anger so deep it coiled ...