Chapter 10
Ten nights had passed since Leena’s screams echoed through the stone and the world split open to make room for new life.
The stronghold had shifted since then.
Even the brothers moved with greater restraint. Voices remained lower. Doors closed more carefully. The air itself felt altered, as though the fortress had learned reverence in the aftermath of blood and miracle.
Sule stood beside the bed and could not shake the feeling that the reverence concealed something rotten.
Leena lay beneath the covers, too pale, her skin nearly translucent in the muted light.
Their newborn son slept against her chest, bundled and warm beneath Sule’s steadying hand.
His tiny body curved naturally toward her, as though the safest place in the world was the rise and fall of her breathing.
But Leena’s breathing wasn’t right.
It wasn’t merely exhaustion or the hollowed-out fatigue of a woman whose body had been torn open and forced beyond its limits.
Shadows beneath her eyes had deepened over the last forty-eight hours.
A faint strain tightened the corners of her mouth, and her stillness bore no resemblance to the Leena who would normally force herself upright, make a joke, and insist she was fine simply to stop everyone worrying.
The birth medic had examined her twice since dawn.
No fever.
No fresh bleeding.
No obvious sign of infection.
Nothing visible enough to explain the chill beneath her skin or the exhaustion that seemed to deepen by the hour. Whatever the birth had damaged remained hidden inside her, quiet enough to escape hands, eyes, and ordinary tests.
That uncertainty frightened Sule more than an answer would have.
He reached out and brushed the dark hair back from her cheek.
His heart clenched.
Her skin was cool.
Too cool.
“Leena,” he murmured, keeping his voice low so he would not wake the baby.
His palm rested briefly against her temple, as though he could force warmth into her through touch alone.
“You don’t look well. I can push the meeting. Isa and the coven can wait.”
Leena opened her eyes and gave him a faint, affectionate smile.
It did not reach them.
“I’m fine,” she said carefully. “Just tired. He’s been feeding nonstop.”
Sule’s jaw tightened.
He leaned down and pressed his mouth to her forehead, partly in tenderness and partly to test again for fever or warmth.
Her skin remained cool beneath his lips.
“You don’t have to pretend with me,” he said. “Not after ten days of this. If something’s wrong—if you’re bleeding, if you’re dizzy—”
“I’m fine,” Leena repeated, firmer now.
Stubbornness was as much a part of her as breath.
She adjusted the baby more securely against her chest with slow, deliberate movements that tried to appear casual and failed.
“You need to go,” she continued. “Handle Isa and whatever trouble the coven is bringing to the council. I’ll rest. I promise.”
Sule stared at her.
Every instinct demanded that he stay beside the bed and watch her until whatever threatened her finally showed itself.
But the meeting mattered.
The attacks against civilian vampires had not slowed. The coven was restless, and too many pieces were moving across the board without his permission. One wrong decision could spill war directly into the streets of New Orleans.
He forced himself to nod.
“I’ll attend the meeting,” he said. “But the birth medic examines you again before I leave the compound. Mary remains nearby, and someone stays with you until I return.”
Leena’s expression tightened.
“Sule—”
“That is not negotiable.”
“I have the baby. I’m not alone.”
“A ten-day-old infant does not count as protection.”
One corner of her mouth lifted weakly.
“He might disagree.”
“I am willing to risk offending him.”
The warmth vanished from Sule’s expression as quickly as it had appeared.
“If anything changes, you send for me. Immediately. I do not care if Isa is standing in the center of a ritual circle with every witch in Louisiana. I will come back.”
Leena’s smile flickered—warm, weary, and determined.
“I will.”
Sule studied her long enough to make it clear that he did not believe her.
“Now go,” she said. “They won’t wait forever.”
“They will if I order them to.”
“But you won’t.”
No.
He wouldn’t.
Sule lowered his head and kissed her, soft and lingering, as though he could leave a vow behind to guard her in his absence.
His hand moved over their son’s head, feeling the fierce heat of him beneath his palm.
Real.
Alive.
Grounding.
Then Sule made himself step away.
At the threshold, he looked back once more.
Leena remained too pale.
Too still.
The warning in his bones did not ease.
It deepened.
* * *
The adjoining warded suite felt like another world.
Rhen stood near the far wall, motionless as firelight cut jagged shadows across the stone. Veya slept beneath the covers, pale and still after another brief period of wakefulness.
She had not remained unconscious for ten nights.
She had opened her eyes, learned his name, and discovered what he had made her. Two nights later, the fever had finally broken and the first thirst had begun.
The hunger had been contained with stored blood, locked doors, and Rhen’s promise that he would end her if control failed.
She had obeyed.
Barely.
Since then, her altered body had cycled between guarded wakefulness and exhausted sleep. She remained conscious for longer periods each night, but the transition had not finished settling through her bones.
Rhen returned more often than duty required.
He never sat beside her.
Never remained close.
The tether dragged him back to the doorway or the far wall with relentless regularity, and he hated it for every inch it claimed.
He watched because his blood had made her survival his responsibility and because the trace of heretic magic still clinging to her remained unexplained.
Attention was not mercy.
It was control.
The tether pulsed beneath his skin—deep, brutal, and constant. A living reminder of what he had done and what she had become because of it.
Veya had offered him neither forgiveness nor the clean fury he expected. Only exhausted questions, guarded resistance, and a refusal to tell him everything.
He could work with anger.
He knew how to destroy violence.
Her quiet distrust was harder to confront.
Then there was Leena.
Always Leena, like a blade he had chosen to leave buried because removing it would damage everything he was sworn to protect.
He should have been with his brothers, planning for the heretics, sharpening steel, doing something useful for the clan.
Instead, part of him remained tethered to the woman sleeping across the room, while the rest strained toward the private chambers farther along the east wing.
A soft knock disturbed the silence.
Rhen’s head snapped toward the door, every muscle tightening as it opened.
Sule stepped inside.
He carried the authority of a king, but something beneath it had shifted. Strain tightened the edges of his mouth. His control looked forced rather than effortless.
His gaze moved once toward Veya before locking onto Rhen.
“What?”
Rhen’s voice emerged rough and defensive, as though anger could prevent whatever came next from mattering.
Sule did not waste time.
“It’s Leena.”
Cold moved through Rhen’s body.
Fast.
Vicious.
He locked it down before it reached his expression.
“This morning she was pale,” Sule continued. “Now she is colder. Weaker. She keeps insisting she is fine.”
Rhen stared at him.
This was not about him.
It had never been about him.
Leena was Sule’s queen.
Sule’s mate.
The center of the clan.
“What do you want me to do?” Rhen asked.
The words came out sharp and controlled.
He already knew.
He simply needed Sule to say it.
Sule dragged a hand through his hair.
“I have to attend the meeting with Isa. The attacks are escalating, and the coven is threatening to withdraw its cooperation.”
“Then cancel it.”
“If I cancel now, Isa will assume weakness.”
“Let her.”
“I cannot.”
Rhen’s jaw flexed.
Sule looked toward the closed door behind him before returning his attention to Rhen.
“I need someone with Leena. Someone who will not let her dismiss this and pretend she is unbreakable.”
His next breath came slowly.
“Make sure she does not crash while I am gone.”
The strain around his mouth deepened.
“Make sure she doesn’t…”
He cut himself off, refusing to give the thought full shape.
Rhen understood anyway.
Sule held his gaze.
“I trust you.”
The words landed heavily in a room already full of ghosts.
Sule knew exactly what Rhen carried for Leena. He also knew that loyalty had contained it for years more effectively than any law or threat ever could.
That trust did not make the feeling less repulsive to Rhen.
He did not offer comfort.
Did not promise that everything would be fine.
Promises came easier when they sounded like orders.
He nodded once.
Short.
Sharp.
Final.
Of all the males in the clan, Sule stood in his doorway asking him to watch over Leena as though it were the simplest request in the world.
As though Rhen’s love for her were not a live blade lodged permanently behind his ribs.
Trust.
It was almost laughable.
Rhen kept his face empty and his body loose, as though none of it mattered.
“Whatever. I’ll watch her,” he muttered. “But make it quick…Sire.”
The title landed sharply—half respect, half warning.
Sule’s gaze remained on him, heavy and measuring.
Rhen braced for the question neither of them had any need to ask again.
It did not come.
Instead, Sule crossed the distance and closed one firm hand over Rhen’s shoulder, carrying weight, command, and brotherhood all at once.
“Thank you.”
Not a king ordering a soldier.
A male asking his brother to guard the life neither of them could bear to lose.
Then Sule turned and left, the door closing quietly behind him.
Rhen remained where he was for one beat longer than necessary.
His jaw locked.
His throat tightened.
He forced the rush of feeling downward until it became something cold and usable.
Leena.
Veya.
The tether that showed no mercy.