Chapter 172

• Alaric’s POV
• The park was quiet except for the rhythmic crunch of leaves beneath our feet. The night wrapped around us, the cool air bristling against my skin as I walked beside her. Emilia. She’d said it moments ago—I love you—and the words had settled into my chest like stones in a still lake, rippling outward and disrupting everything I thought I understood.
• She walked a step ahead of me, her arms crossed as though bracing against the cold, or perhaps my sudden silence. Her confession had come so unexpectedly, it had left me reeling. I wasn’t a man who dealt in emotions; control was my currency. But this woman? She unraveled me in ways I didn’t have the words for.