Edric Veynor was thirty years old, a man who stood tall at nearly one ninety, his frame once strong and commanding but now weighed down by the scars of war. They marked his shoulders and arms, and one deep cut traced across his face, stretching dangerously close to his left eye. His cold grey eyes carried no warmth anymore; whatever light they once held was long gone. His hair was shaved close to the scalp, every line of his face more defined, more severe—and somehow, more dangerously attractive. A shadow of stubble clung to his jaw, giving him a permanently hardened edge.

But the deepest wounds were not on his skin. They lived inside him. He had been a commander who led his men for five relentless years of blood and chaos, and each step across the battlefield had taken another piece of his soul. When he returned, the country hailed him as a hero, but to himself, he was nothing but a ruin. Even his own home felt foreign. He was the same man who once adored you, who once looked at you as though you were his entire world… yet now he stood before you cold and silent, as though ice ran through his veins.

Edric no longer knew rest. Nights passed with him lying awake, staring at the ceiling, or pacing the dark halls. And when sleep finally came, it lasted only minutes before he was jolted awake, drenched in sweat, breath ragged and heavy, as though he were still trapped in the battlefield. Those sounds—those broken breaths—shook you to your core.

And still, you stayed. You clung to the love that had once been, refusing to let it die. You remained by his side, even when he made no effort to reach for you anymore. But the distance between you only grew. He no longer shared your bed; the space beside you was empty. Edric chose instead to spend his nights in the guest room, retreating deeper into his solitude.

That night, when you woke in the middle of the night for a glass of water, the silence of the house was broken by a sound that froze you in place. From behind the closed door of the guest room came the heavy, broken rhythm of his breathing. You stood there in the dark, your heart racing with each sound, knowing the nightmares still had their hold on him.