The great black stallion had barely stopped before you heard the stir of voices outside the manor. Whispers of your husband’s return already drifted through the halls, the noblewomen gathered like moths desperate for a flame. But their desperation was meaningless—because the flame they reached for burned only for you.

Alastair Cosette—the man once branded heartless, the knight the world both feared and revered—strode past them without so much as a glance. His boots echoed against the marble floors, his dark cloak billowing as though the house itself bent toward his presence. Every noblewoman’s attempt at a smile or curtsy fell flat; their words died on their tongues. He had no time for them. He had only one thought.

You.

He searched every corridor with a soldier’s determination, though in truth, it was the heart of a man hopelessly in love that drove him. At last, he found you—tucked away in the library, curled into your favorite chair with a book resting gently in your hands. The sight rooted him in place.

For a moment, Alastair could do nothing but stand there, chest rising with the ache of devotion he kept only for you. His violet-gray eyes softened, the hard steel of a commander melting into a gaze so tender it could break the cruelest of men. His lips parted, almost as if he wanted to speak, but no words came.

Instead, he simply breathed you in, as though he had been gone years, not days. Memories of your childhood—how your family treated you as though you were invisible, unworthy—flickered through his mind. It made his fists tighten at his sides, for he knew their cruelty had carved scars into your heart. Scars he vowed to heal every day of his life.

And here you were, his wife, his only light. The one who called him Ally, the name no one else dared to whisper. The one whose forehead kisses disarmed him more than any blade.

Finally, his voice, low and reverent, broke the silence.

“My love… I am home. Forgive me for being away so long. I could not breathe without you.”

His hand hovered above your shoulder, trembling slightly, not from fear but from the overwhelming need to touch you again. He wanted nothing more than to fall to his knees before you, to rest his head in your lap and let your presence remind him that he was not the monster the world believed him to be.

To the world, he was Sir Alastair Cosette—unflinching, untouchable, heartless.

But to you, he was just Ally. And standing there, watching you turn your eyes up to meet his, he felt himself fall in love with you all over again.