Chapter 31
Dax said nothing as he escorted Veya away from Rhen’s quarters.
She remained silent beside him, although the silence seemed close to breaking.
Her body trembled beneath the oversized linen shift, and the lingering effects of the sedative made each step uncertain.
Her pupils remained wide, her skin flushed with unnatural heat, and her balance failed whenever the tether tightened beneath her ribs.
She did not look back at the door.
Dax kept one arm around her lower back without pulling her against him. He guided only as much as her unsteady legs required, allowing Veya to choose the pace even when fury urged him to lift her and remove her from every corridor Rhen occupied.
He wanted to return and put his brother through the nearest wall.
Instead, he remained beside Veya.
Halfway along the corridor, pain folded her around herself. One hand clutched her abdomen, and a broken sound escaped before she could suppress it.
Dax caught her.
“Veya.”
She attempted to answer but could not force words through the pain.
Her skin burned against his hands.
Dax lifted her before her knees could strike the stone. Veya’s arms settled weakly around his neck, and her face turned against his shoulder as though she had finally stopped attempting to fight gravity.
Shadow carried them through the remaining corridors.
Dax rematerialized outside the eastern guest suite, opened the door with one shoulder, and carried her inside. Firelight moved low across the room, catching along the bed and carved wooden panels.
He placed Veya carefully upon the mattress.
She immediately curled around the pain.
Dax stepped back and dragged one hand through his hair. The room held the scents of sweat, lingering blood, and the attraction both of them had spent hours attempting to separate from everything else happening to her.
Veya looked at him.
Her green eyes were wild but focused.
“Dax.”
He heard the need in her voice and forced himself not to mistake it for permission.
“I know you’re in pain.”
“I cannot stop it.” She pushed herself upright, moving too quickly and swaying when the room shifted around her. “I feel as though I’m burning from inside my own skin.”
“I can call the medical team again.”
“No.”
“Veya—”
“No more needles. No more people standing over me and discussing what my body is doing as though I’m not in the room.”
She moved toward him across the mattress.
The neckline of the loose shift fell from one shoulder, but Dax kept his attention on her face.
“I want you,” she said.
His body responded before thought could intervene.
Dax stepped back once.
“Veya, listen to me.”
“I am listening.”
“You have been sedated. The tether is hurting you, and Rhen has just torn apart what remained of your control.”
“I know.”
“This will not cure the tether.”
“I know.”
“It may not stop the pain.”
“I know that too.”
Dax held her gaze.
“Tell me where you are.”
Her expression tightened with irritation.
“In the eastern guest suite.”
“Who am I?”
“Dax.”
“What happened in Rhen’s room?”
“He told me I was useful to him and nothing more.”
The words hurt her again, but her attention did not drift.
Dax continued.
“What do you want from me?”
Veya shifted closer until her knees reached the edge of the bed.
“I want you to touch me because I chose you. I wanted you before I entered his room, before the sedative, and before the library. I wanted you in Leena’s garden when you made me laugh and treated my answer as though it mattered.”
Heat moved through Dax with enough force to tighten every muscle in his body.
“If you tell me to stop, I stop.”
“Yes.”
“If you become confused or lose focus, I stop.”
Her eyes flashed.
“Yes.”
“And if this makes nothing better?”
“Then at least one thing that happens to me tonight will have been my decision.”
That broke the final thread of his restraint.
Veya reached him first.
Her mouth met his without softness, carrying anger, humiliation, and hunger that had nothing to do with blood. She caught his shirt in both fists and pulled him closer until Dax’s hands closed around her waist.
He kissed her back with all the desire he had been attempting to bury.
Veya moved into his lap, straddling him at the edge of the bed. The contact drew a low sound from Dax, and his fingers tightened against her hips before he deliberately loosened them.
“Veya.”
“Do not stop.”
He searched her eyes one final time.
She was present.
She was furious.
She was choosing him.
Dax turned with her and lowered her onto the mattress, supporting her weight rather than pinning her beneath him. His mouth moved from hers to the curve of her jaw and down her throat, avoiding the place where Rhen’s blood had entered her life.
Veya’s fingers slid beneath his shirt.
The contact burned.
He helped her pull the fabric over his head before returning to her mouth, and the kiss deepened until neither could pretend patience remained possible.
Dax pushed the linen shift from her shoulders gradually, watching her face with every inch of exposed skin. When Veya lifted her arms and allowed him to remove it, the garment fell beside the bed.
For a moment, he simply looked at her.
Not as an asset, a fledgling, or a consequence of Rhen’s decision.
As Veya.
Her expression changed beneath his attention.
“Say something.”
“You are exceptionally inconvenient.”
Her mouth curved despite everything.
“So I’ve been told.”
“And beautiful.”
The humor left her eyes.
Dax lowered his head and kissed her again before the honesty could frighten either of them.
His hands moved along her body with controlled pressure, learning the places that made her arch toward him and the touches that eased rather than sharpened the remaining tension.
Veya answered without hesitation, drawing him closer and making her choices clear through words whenever urgency threatened to outpace them.
When Dax’s mouth moved lower, she caught his hair and said his name with enough force to nearly break what remained of his discipline.
He brought her pleasure slowly at first, refusing to let the violence of the night dictate the rhythm. Veya’s body trembled beneath him for reasons that belonged wholly to them now, and when release finally moved through her, it arrived with his name rather than Rhen’s.
Dax returned to her mouth.
“Still with me?”
“Yes.”
“Still certain?”
Veya drew him closer by the back of his neck.
“Yes.”
He entered her carefully despite the urgency clawing through him. Her body tightened around him, and Dax held still until her eyes opened and found his.
“Tell me.”
“Move.”
He obeyed.
The pace built between them through the sound of the fire and Veya’s increasingly fractured breaths. Dax kept one hand intertwined with hers against the mattress, not restraining her but giving her something to hold when sensation overwhelmed thought.
Veya wrapped one leg around his hip and demanded more.
Dax gave it to her.
Nothing about the encounter was gentle in the sentimental sense. Their desire had arrived too quickly and under circumstances too brutal for that. It was fierce, imperfect, and almost desperate, but every movement remained chosen.
Veya met each thrust rather than merely receiving it. She pulled him back whenever he attempted to slow and told him what she wanted without embarrassment.
When her release broke through her again, Dax followed with her name against her throat, his fangs held safely behind his lips.
He did not bite.
He did not mark.
He gave the tether no place inside what belonged to them.
Afterward, Dax remained above her for several breaths before shifting his weight away. Veya caught his wrist before he could retreat completely.
“Stay.”
The word was quiet but unmistakable.
Dax settled beside her and drew the blanket over them only after she moved willingly into his arms.
Her breathing slowed in uneven waves while the fire diminished in the hearth. The heat beneath her skin had not vanished entirely, and Dax refused to pretend their intimacy had cured anything.
What had happened between them was not medicine.
It was choice.
For tonight, that was enough.