CHAPTER 37

KAIDEN'S POINT OF VIEW

The Guardian's song was a violation. It wasn't an attack on the body, but on the memory of warmth, the echo of laughter, the certainty of a hand in the dark. It was a needle of absolute zero slicing through the burning tapestry of our bond, seeking to unravel it stitch by agonizing stitch.

Aria gasped, her knees buckling. I caught her, holding her against me. The pain was a shared, blinding agony—the sensation that our very souls were being ripped apart. Around