He stood there in front of her like a monument to everything terrifying in human form, tall, powerful, handsome in ways that made the darkness inside him even more disturbing because beauty should never carry such violence, such twisted satisfaction, such absolute certainty in his right to destroy.

Alyra looked up at him from where she sat curled on the bed, her eyes no longer just showing fear. That emotion was still there, would probably always be there when she looked at him, but now it was accompanied by others.