Chapter 12: Chains of Silence
Kaia’s POV (continued)
The cold no longer bit at me. It lived in me now—settled into my bones like an old wound that refused to close.
I’d lost track of the days. The silence between lashings stretched longer, like they wanted me to rot in the stillness. Torchlight never shifted. The damp never dried. My wounds crusted, reopened, and crusted again, each movement tearing me apart anew.
But I wasn’t alone.
Not since I felt him.
At night, when they believed me broken, I reached inward—past the bruises, beyond the blood—into the bond.
And he was there. Always.
My mate.
Not a hallucination. Not a dream. His voice filled the hollow spaces, warming me from the inside.
“Are you still with me?”
I blinked back the sting in my eyes. That voice wasn’t in my he
