Chapter 16
Dax did not return from patrol with clean hands.
He rarely did, although tonight the city seemed sharper around the edges, as though it had finally stopped pretending to be harmless.
New Orleans usually offered him enough noise to disappear inside.
Music spilled through open doorways, tourists laughed too loudly, and drunken men made decisions they would regret by morning.
Heat, neon, and the constant pulse of life normally made the hunt easy and allowed the hours to pass without resistance.
Tonight, the noise only made everything feel wrong.
Dax moved through the streets like a shadow with purpose, vanishing from one corner and appearing at the next before anyone noticed the missing distance.
He kept to the darker seams of the city, following alleys that smelled of rain and piss, narrow lanes behind closed clubs, and the wet stretch near the river where the air clung to his skin like a warning.
His senses remained tuned too high after the catastrophe at the stronghold. He heard a distant siren cutting across the city, the squeal of a rusted door hinge, and the sudden acceleration of a human heartbeat behind a shuttered window.
Beneath every sound and scent lay grief, concealed as poorly as rot beneath perfume.
Leena’s stillness remained behind his eyes like a bruise he could not stop pressing.
The heir’s cries had cut through a house never intended to contain such a fragile sound, while Rhen’s hollow face and bloodstained hands had shown them all that the world had finally found something capable of bringing the Charon to his knees.
Dax forced the images down and continued moving because duty did not disappear simply because the stronghold was grieving. Civilian vampires still became reckless, the young still allowed hunger to make them careless, and the heretics did not pause their plans for funerals.
He angled toward Bar X.
He did not need a drink, but the club was a throat through which the city spoke. Rumors, bargains, warnings, and names all moved through its crowded rooms before reaching the streets.
Dax entered without effort, slipping inside as naturally as a storm finding its way beneath a door.
The bass vibrated through the floor and into bone.
Heat, perfume, sweat, and bodies crowded the air.
Vampire civilians occupied most of the room, some blending effortlessly with the human patrons while others had stopped caring who noticed the difference.
The low lighting softened every edge and concealed every appetite.
A massive male dressed in black stood beside the entrance like a door capable of becoming a wall.
The head of security did not need to raise his voice or advertise his strength. His gaze passed over Dax once before tightening with recognition.
“Prince,” he said quietly, using the title as acknowledgment rather than flattery. “I didn’t hear you were out.”
Dax stopped close enough that the music would obscure their conversation.
“That was the idea.”
The guard’s mouth shifted in a humorless approximation of a smile.
“Fair enough.”
“I need to know what you’ve heard,” Dax said. “Anything connected to the heretics or anyone asking about the stronghold.”
The guard’s expression darkened.
“There’s been noise, but not the drunken kind. It’s the sort that watches.”
“Who?”
“New faces. They arrive alone or in pairs, stay close to the walls, and never feed here. They watch the room as though they’re counting exits, and they’ve started asking careful questions about the stronghold.”
A cold mechanism seemed to engage inside Dax’s chest.
“What else?”
“The heir.” The guard lowered his voice further. “Word is spreading that the king has a son. People are talking about the prophecy as though they can smell it in the air.”
Dax’s jaw tightened.
“Have you heard any names?”
“They don’t offer their own, but I heard Marcella’s once. It wasn’t spoken in celebration. It sounded like a warning.”
Every part of Dax settled into the calm, lethal focus he had refined over centuries.
“If you hear that name again, you contact us immediately. Anyone asking after the heir gets identified and watched, but you do not let them know you noticed.”
The guard nodded.
“Any word from X?”
“No.”
The answer carried more weight than Dax allowed to show.
The guard studied him for a moment before looking away.
“Understood.”
“Keep the civilians from feeding the rumors. I want descriptions of anyone steering the conversation toward the heir or the stronghold.”
“Some of them aren’t easy to silence.”
“Then give them something else to talk about.”
The guard’s posture stiffened.
“Yes, Prince.”
Dax left without another word.
The outside air struck him like wet fabric, warm and heavy with cigarette smoke and damp stone. He stared for a moment at the narrow strip of sky visible between the buildings, as though looking at something open might relieve the pressure inside his chest.
It did not.
He continued the patrol at a speed that turned streetlamps into streaks of gold. The city blurred into water-dark pavement, iron railings, and distant laughter he could no longer imagine joining.
The final stretch took him beyond the crowded streets, where buildings gave way to thicker trees and fewer witnesses. These were the places from which an enemy could watch without being seen and mistake distance for safety.
Dax found no tracks, unfamiliar scents, or magical disturbance strong enough to follow.
The absence of evidence offered no comfort.
It meant whoever was watching knew how to remain hidden.
By the time the stronghold rose from the darkness like a half-remembered nightmare, its stone and iron silhouette seemed less protective than usual. The damaged wards murmured faintly against his skin as he crossed them.
The heir’s cries threaded through the upper halls, carrying through the compound like a constant, aching pulse.
Dax stepped inside and allowed the house to swallow him.
The walls held grief the way old wood held smoke. It had soaked too deeply to be cleaned away and now seemed to live inside every room.
He should have taken the Bar X report directly to Sule, but the king remained beside Leena or with his son, and the wrong interruption might turn grief into violence before the information could become useful.
Dax would speak to the brothers first and allow Cole and Malakai to help determine what required immediate action.
Before doing that, however, there was another practical matter he refused to leave unattended.
The newly turned woman would need blood again.
Dax knew little about her beyond what he had witnessed from a distance and what the brothers had pieced together from Rhen’s guarded answers.
She was unstable, angry, and trapped inside a body she had never chosen.
Rhen treated her as a danger requiring containment, which was not entirely wrong, but containment without guidance would eventually create the very threat he feared.
Dax went to the blood supply room.
Cold air met him when he opened the reinforced door. Sealed bags rested in ordered rows along the shelves, each one stored for controlled use within the compound.
He selected two.
Stored blood was not an answer to everything happening inside the guest suite, but it offered control and removed the immediate danger of hunger. Dax tucked the bags beneath one arm and headed toward the east wing, prepared to face Rhen’s anger later.
The corridor became quieter as he climbed. When he reached the guest suite, he stopped outside and listened.
There was no pacing or shouting, only the subtle movement of fabric from beyond the door.
Dax knocked once.
The movement inside stopped.
“Who is it?” a woman asked.
Her voice was wary and stronger than he had expected.
“Dax. I’m one of Rhen’s brothers.”
Silence followed.
“I don’t know you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“What do you want?”
“I brought blood.”
Another silence stretched between them before the latch moved.
“You can come in.”
Dax opened the door and entered slowly, keeping his movements visible.
Veya sat against the headboard of the bed with her knees drawn up. An oversized dark sweatshirt covered most of her hands, while her damp hair clung lightly to her temples. Her skin was too pale, and a bright, hungry strain sharpened her eyes despite the composure she was attempting to maintain.
She studied him with open suspicion.
Dax closed the door but remained beside it.
“I’m Dax,” he repeated.
“You said that.”
“I thought the name might improve on a second hearing.”
It did not earn a smile, although the faint tightening around her mouth suggested she had understood the attempt.
Dax held up one of the blood bags.
“I brought two. One for now and one for later.”
“I’ve already had blood.”
“Then you know this works better than pretending hunger will disappear if you ignore it.”
Veya’s gaze fixed on the bag.
Her expression did not hold disgust so much as fear of what accepting it represented.
“I’m not hungry.”
Dax looked at her trembling hands.
“Of course not.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Does everyone here speak to people as though they’re stupid?”
“Mostly Rhen.”
That surprised a brief, unwilling breath from her before suspicion returned.
Dax crossed to the small table beside the bed and placed both bags upon it. He did not approach her or sit on the mattress. Instead, he took the chair near the hearth and positioned it far enough away that she could reach the door without passing him.
“You can drink while I’m here, or I can wait outside,” he said. “That part is your choice.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because you need blood, and because I have seen what happens when a newly turned vampire tries to endure hunger through stubbornness.”
Veya continued watching him.
“Did Rhen send you?”
“No.”
“Does he know you’re here?”
“Probably not.”
“Then he’ll be angry.”
“Rhen is angry when the weather changes.”
The corner of her mouth moved before she caught it.
Dax leaned back in the chair, allowing the silence to settle without pressing her.
Veya eventually reached for the nearest bag. She held it between both hands, staring at the dark liquid through the plastic.
“I hate this.”
“I imagine you do.”
“You don’t sound very sympathetic.”
“I’m trying not to insult you by pretending it should be easy.”
Her gaze rose to his.
For the first time, some of the defensive tension left her face.
Dax nodded toward the bag.
“It will take the edge off. Nothing more complicated than that.”
Veya opened the seal with hands that trembled despite her effort to steady them. She hesitated before bringing it to her mouth.
Dax looked toward the fire rather than watching her.
The plastic shifted softly as she drank.
Her reaction moved through the tethered, altered body almost immediately. The rigidity in her shoulders loosened, and the shaking in her hands began to ease. Her breathing remained an unnecessary habit, but it stopped catching with the force of suppressed panic.
She drank again, more slowly and with greater control.
Dax remained silent until she lowered the bag.
Her eyes were clearer, although anger and embarrassment still lived behind them.
“That should take the worst edge off,” he said.
Veya looked at the partly emptied bag.
“It feels like giving in.”
“It is feeding, not surrender.”
“To you, maybe.”
“To every vampire in this compound.”
She took another measured drink before setting the bag in her lap.
Dax allowed several quiet seconds to pass.
“Now that you’ve stopped trying to starve yourself out of principle, tell me something normal.”
Her eyebrows drew together.
“What?”
“What was your coffee order?”
Veya stared at him as if the question were absurd.
“Why?”
“Because I’m trying to determine how unbearable you were before the transition.”
“I wasn’t unbearable.”
“You say that with the confidence of someone who sent coffee back when it wasn’t made correctly.”
Her expression shifted between irritation and reluctant amusement.
“Black. No sugar.”
Dax’s brows rose.
“That is worse than I expected.”
“It is coffee. It doesn’t need dessert poured into it.”
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The unbearable part.”
A small sound escaped her, closer to a laugh than anything Dax had heard from the east wing since her arrival.
It vanished quickly, but not before he caught it.
Veya looked down at the bag again.
“You’re different from him.”
Dax did not pretend to misunderstand.
“I’m not Rhen.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
“No, but it is the only comparison you can make right now.”
She considered that before giving a faint nod.
Dax rose without approaching the bed.
“Finish that one before the hunger gets sharp again. The second stays here.”
Veya’s attention shifted to the door.
“Are you going to tell him?”
“I expect he’ll find out without my help.”
Something apprehensive crossed her face.
Dax paused.
“You did nothing wrong by drinking what your body needs.”
“That doesn’t mean he’ll see it that way.”
“He knows you require blood.”
“He knows a lot of things he doesn’t seem to like.”
Dax could not argue with that.
He reached for the empty outer wrapping beside the table, and a small amount of blood from the opened seal smeared across his fingers.
At the door, he looked back.
Veya’s posture had eased against the headboard, and the frantic brightness in her gaze had dulled into exhausted alertness.
“Dax?”
He waited.
“Thank you.”
His smile was small and restrained.
“Don’t make a habit of saying that. I have a reputation to maintain.”
Veya rolled her eyes, but the faint warmth remained in her expression.
Dax closed the door behind him more gently than the stronghold deserved and headed toward the main room to give his brothers the report from Bar X.