Chapter 23
Firelight moved behind them, lengthening shadows across the shelves and balconies until the library resembled a cathedral built for monsters.
Rhen’s expression remained unchanged as Veya drank from him. His jaw stayed clenched, and his attention fixed somewhere beyond her, as though looking directly at her need would demand something he refused to give.
Dax watched both of them.
He wondered what kind of damage allowed a male to appear so cold while using his own blood to keep someone alive, although he already knew part of the answer. Rhen had buried everything beneath duty because duty did not ask him to feel.
The sounds of Veya swallowing, her rough habitual breathing, and the fire moving through the hearth filled the library.
Her shaking gradually eased.
The desperate pressure of her hands weakened around Rhen’s wrist, and her shoulders sagged as the violent pull inside her diminished. She remained attached for a moment longer than she intended, her body clinging to relief even while her mind recoiled from its source.
Then she released him.
Veya rested her head against the chaise. Her chest continued to rise and fall from habit, while exhaustion and humiliation settled over the relief in her expression.
Rhen drew back his wrist. The wound had already begun to close.
He placed a folded cloth in her hand.
“Clean your mouth.”
Veya’s fingers tightened around the fabric.
Rhen lowered his sleeve.
“Next time, you do not wait until the tether tears you apart.”
She lifted her eyes.
“I didn’t know what was happening.”
“Now you do.”
Dax’s expression hardened.
“That was not a warning she could have obeyed before she understood it.”
Rhen looked at him.
“It is one she can obey now.”
He rose without another word.
Veya wiped the blood from her lips, refusing to look at either male while Rhen crossed the library and left. The door closed behind him with controlled finality.
Dax waited until the sound of Rhen’s footsteps disappeared.
The library gradually settled around them again as the fire continued burning and the shadows resumed their movement across the balconies.
“Well,” he said, dragging one hand through his hair, “that was an appalling conclusion to an otherwise respectable tour.”
Veya’s lashes lifted.
The feverish brightness in her eyes had faded, leaving exhaustion, anger, and relief that seemed to taste like ash.
Dax crouched beside the chaise and placed the back of two fingers briefly against her forehead. Her temperature had begun to fall, though heat still radiated from her skin.
“Can you focus on me?”
“I can see you.”
“That was not what I asked.”
Her mouth tightened.
“Yes.”
Dax studied her eyes.
Something had changed.
The violent pain was gone, but tension remained inside her body, moving beneath the surface in small tremors that no longer resembled convulsions. Her fingers clenched around the cloth, and her attention drifted repeatedly toward him before snapping away.
Dax could not tell how much belonged to the tether flare, how much came from the raw hypersensitivity of her transition, and how much was simply Veya.
That final possibility lodged far too deeply beneath his ribs.
“I’m taking you upstairs.”
“I can walk.”
She attempted to rise and almost folded when her legs failed to respond properly.
Dax caught her beneath the arms.
“An inspiring demonstration.”
“Shut up.”
“There she is.”
Veya glared at him, but another tremor moved through her before she could attempt standing again.
Dax did not ask her body to prove anything else. He slid one arm beneath her knees and the other behind her shoulders, lifting her from the chaise.
She stiffened at first.
“I’ve got you,” he said.
The words were meant as practical reassurance, yet they affected him more than they should have.
Veya’s head rested near his shoulder as he carried her through the library. Her face turned instinctively toward his throat, and her lips brushed the collar of his shirt.
Dax’s grip tightened.
Not because he feared dropping her.
Because he had noticed her long before the crisis began.
He had noticed the reluctant laugh in the guest suite, the cautious intelligence behind her questions, and the way she had placed her hand in his in Leena’s garden after making him wait for the choice.
He had noticed how anger sharpened her and how quickly the smallest trace of humor transformed her face.
The attraction had already existed.
Whatever moved through her now had merely stripped away the distance she had used to hide her side of it.
Dax carried her into the eastern guest suite and placed her on the bed. He moved carefully, but the moment his arms withdrew, Veya caught the front of his shirt.
Her pupils had widened until only a thin ring of green remained.
“Veya.”
She pulled him closer.
He caught her wrists without applying enough pressure to hurt.
“Look at me.”
“I am looking at you.”
Her voice was unsteady, but the focus in her gaze was stronger than it had been in the library.
“You are still coming down from whatever the tether did to you.”
“I know.”
“Your body may be confusing relief with something else.”
Her expression twisted with frustration.
“You think I don’t know that?”
“I think neither of us knows enough yet.”
Veya’s fingers tightened in his shirt.
“It isn’t Rhen I want.”
The statement struck with more force than it should have.
Dax went still.
Veya moved closer, her mouth brushing the line of his jaw as she spoke.
“I noticed you before the pain started. I noticed you in the guest room and in the garden, and I noticed every time you gave me a choice instead of an order.”
Her words penetrated the restraint he had been relying upon.
“You are not thinking clearly.”
“I am clear enough to know who I’m touching.”
She kissed him.
For one fraction of a second, Dax remained motionless.
Then he answered.
His mouth closed over hers, and the reaction moved through him with enough violence to erase the room.
Her hands fisted in his shirt while one of his slid into her hair.
The kiss carried desperation and heat, but beneath both existed something recognizably theirs: her fury, his restraint, her insistence upon choice, and the dangerous ease with which he wanted to surrender his.
This was not affection borrowed from the tether.
It was not Rhen’s blood redirecting itself toward the nearest available body.
Dax wanted her.
Veya wanted him.
The crisis had not created that truth, but it had removed their ability to pretend it was not there.
Dax broke the kiss.
He stepped back far enough that her hands slipped from his shirt.
Veya stared at him, dazed and furious.
“Why?”
“Because I want you.”
Confusion crossed her face.
“That makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense.” His voice had roughened. “I want you, and right now I cannot know how much of what you feel is yours and how much has been amplified by what happened downstairs.”
“I told you it was me.”
“I believe you.”
“Then why did you stop?”
“Because believing you want me is not the same as knowing you are able to choose what happens next.”
Veya’s anger faltered.
Dax wiped one hand across his mouth, less to erase the kiss than to prevent himself from returning to it.
“When this is over, when your body is not burning and Rhen’s blood is not still inside your mouth, ask me again.”
Her eyes remained fixed upon him.
“And then?”
Dax’s expression changed, his usual humor giving way to something more direct.
“Then I will give you a very different answer.”
The promise altered the air between them.
Veya lowered her gaze, but not before he saw the heat remaining there.
“He doesn’t want me,” she said quietly.
Dax’s jaw tightened.
“Rhen’s feelings are irrelevant to this.”
“The tether doesn’t seem to agree.”
“The tether is not desire, and it does not get to decide who you want.”
Her eyes rose again.
“And you believe I want you?”
Dax held her gaze.
“I believe you wanted me before the tether flared.”
Veya’s mouth parted, but no denial emerged.
Dax moved toward the door before restraint became something he possessed only in theory.
“You should rest.”
“I thought vampires didn’t sleep.”
“You should lie in bed and glare at the ceiling until you feel more stable.”
“That sounds miserable.”
“It will build character.”
His hand settled on the door handle.
“Dax?”
He looked back.
Veya remained on the bed with her lips still flushed from the kiss and her green eyes clearer than they had been since the crisis began.
“I will ask again.”
The words moved through him slowly and lodged somewhere dangerous.
His smile lacked its usual ease.
“I know.”
Dax closed the door behind him and stood alone in the corridor, attempting to remember why stopping had been the correct decision when every part of him wanted to go back inside.