Warning: This chapter contains mature themes.
Alaric's hands went cold as stone.
His face shifted from disbelief into something raw and terrible.
"You mean to tell me," he cut in, voice ragged, "that Arin..that he touched you? He loved you in that life. He shared what I thought was only mine to share. He saw you bare. He.."
The words came out in a jagged rush, each one a blow.
"You mean to say he....he was.... intimate with you. He knew you in ways I thought I would only ever know."
Daphne flinched.
She swallowed hard and forced the truth out.
"In that life, yes. But it wasn't what you're imagining now. It was not a marriage of the heart the way you and I have. It was… different."
Alaric's jaw tightened until it ached.
"Different." He spat the word. "You expect me to accept that? That he...Do you think I can live with that picture in my head?"
Daphne reached for him instinctively, fingers trembling against his chest.
