GARRETT POV
I have never been afraid of blood.
I have grown up in it. Trained in it. Fought through it. The scent of it never made me flinch.
But hers—
Hers broke me.
The hospital room smelled sterile and wrong, layers of disinfectant failing to hide the metallic ghost of what I had carried in my arms hours ago, and every time I inhaled I could still taste her blood at the back of my throat like punishment.
I was literally living my worst nightmare. And it was my fault.
She looked so fragile, so still, almost… almost dead.
That was the first thing that gutted me.
Amaranta was never still. Even in sleep there was something alive about her—breath shifting, fingers twitching, brow faintly furrowed like she was listening to something no one else could hear. But now she looked carved f
