Chapter 45
The fever did not break all at once; it receded through her in slow, reluctant waves, leaving exhaustion where the agony had been and a deep ache beneath her skin that seemed to answer every breath Rhen took.
He remained seated beside her, one hand closed around hers, although he had long since stopped pretending that he held it only to anchor her through the transition.
The connection between them had changed.
It no longer struck like a hook beneath his ribs or pulled with the violent urgency of her turning. It had settled deeper, becoming a constant awareness threaded through his blood, as though her presence had found a place inside him that had been waiting before either of them understood why.
Rhen distrusted it with every instinct he possessed.
He did not release her.
Her eyes opened gradually, heavy with exhaustion but no longer lost to fever. She looked first at their joined hands and then at his face.
“You stayed.”
Her voice was roughened by pain, but the words were clear.
“You drank my blood and nearly tore apart my chamber,” Rhen said. “Leaving you unattended would have been careless.”
Something faint moved through her expression, not quite amusement but close enough to unsettle him.
“Of course.”
Rhen leaned forward, studying her pupils and the steadiness of her gaze.
“Tell me where you are. Again.”
“In your chamber.”
“Who am I?”
Her eyes remained on his.
“Rhen.”
“What happened to Cole?”
“I took the storm from him.” Her brow tightened as the memory returned. “He lived?”
“He lived.”
Relief moved visibly through her, softening the tension in her face.
Rhen watched it with an attention he could not justify. A spy might have performed concern, but the woman before him had nearly destroyed herself to save a male whose name she had barely known.
“What do you remember after that?”
“Pain. Your blood. Something speaking through me.” She swallowed. “Sule.”
Rhen’s fingers tightened around hers.
“What do you know about him?”
“Nothing.” Fear entered her eyes as she searched her own mind. “I don’t know why I said his name. I don’t know what bargain it meant.”
The answer frustrated him because he believed it.
Her free hand moved toward the center of her chest.
“I can feel you.”
Rhen’s body became still.
“Explain.”
“I don’t know how.” She closed her eyes briefly, concentrating upon the strange awareness between them. “You are angry, although that is hardly useful information. Beneath that, you are afraid.”
Rhen’s expression hardened.
“I am not afraid.”
“Then whatever I feel from you has chosen an unfortunate disguise.”
Her quiet defiance should have provoked him. Instead, something dangerously close to recognition moved beneath his irritation.
The woman opened her eyes again.
“The pain has changed.”
“How?”
“It no longer feels as though the storm is killing me.” Her breathing deepened as another sensation moved through her. “Now it feels as though something is unfinished.”
Rhen understood exactly what she meant, although he wished he did not.
The connection tightened whenever she looked at him. It had begun drawing heat through his body, sharpening his awareness of her scent, her mouth, and every inch of skin concealed beneath the sheet.
He had spent the final hours of her transition refusing to mistake magical need for consent.
He would not begin now.
“What you feel may come from my blood,” he said. “It may come from the witchcraft surrounding you, or from whatever Diablo Levélle intended when they sent you here. We do not know whether acting upon it will strengthen the connection, complete it, or make it impossible to sever.”
Her gaze searched his face.
“And you still feel it.”
“Yes.”
The admission emerged like something dragged unwillingly from him.
“Do you want me?”
Rhen stared at her.
Her voice remained weak, but nothing about the question was confused.
He could have lied. He had lied about far greater things, but the connection between them seemed to recognize evasion before words ever reached his mouth.
“Yes.”
Her breath caught.
Rhen continued before desire could turn the answer into permission.
“If the pain disappeared now and the connection fell silent, would you still want me?”
The question held her still.
She looked away from him and into the fire, considering rather than answering from instinct.
When she returned her gaze to his, the fever was no longer speaking through it.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you could have killed me when I appeared at your gates, and every part of you wanted to.” Her thumb moved faintly against his hand.
“You could have harmed me while I was helpless, but you did not. You gave me your blood even though you believed it might turn me into your enemy, and you stayed when there was nothing you could do except listen to me suffer.”
Rhen’s jaw flexed.
“That does not make me good.”
“I didn’t say it did.”
He almost smiled, which only deepened his irritation.
“What does it make me?”
“The male I am choosing. The male my body aches for.”
The words moved through him more violently than the bond ever had.
Rhen released her hand and rose, putting distance between them before his control fractured.
“You do not know me.”
“Then tell me what I am choosing.”
He turned toward her.
The shadows sharpened the scars across his face and body, leaving nothing gentle in his expression.
“I have killed more people than you could count. I have slaughtered witches and vampires alike, and I have never required remorse to sleep afterward. I will not become kind because you survived my blood, and I will not promise that whatever exists between us will make me safe.”
She absorbed every word without looking away.
Rhen approached the bed again, stopping before he touched her.
“If you choose this, you choose what happens between us tonight. You do not choose ownership, obedience, or anything else you have not named.”
Her lips parted as she drew a slow breath.
“I choose you.”
The hidden magic beneath her skin stirred.
Silver glyphs flashed briefly around her wrists before sinking out of sight, but neither of them looked away from the other long enough to notice.
Rhen bent toward her, stopping with barely an inch between their mouths.
“Say it again.”
“I choose you, Rhen.”
Something inside the room seemed to inhale.
He kissed her.
The first contact was controlled, almost cautious, but restraint lasted only until her fingers closed around the back of his neck and pulled him nearer. The connection surged between them, carrying heat through blood and bone until her body arched instinctively toward his.
Rhen caught her waist before the movement could strain what remained of her strength.
“Slowly.”
“I have spent hours being torn apart,” she whispered against his mouth. “I am finished with slowly.”
A rough sound gathered in his chest.
“You are going to be a problem.”
“You decided that before I spoke.”
He kissed her again, harder this time.
Her mouth opened beneath his, and whatever control he had intended to maintain began eroding beneath the taste of her.
She was still warm from the transition, carrying the faint wildness of storm magic beneath her skin, yet underneath it existed something else—something achingly familiar that remained hidden each time he tried to identify it.
Her hands moved over his shoulders, exploring scars and hard muscle with growing confidence.
Rhen allowed it until her fingertips crossed an old mark near his ribs and an inexplicable memory moved through him: gentler fingers touching the same place, accompanied by a voice telling him that surviving was not the same as living.
The image vanished before he could seize it.
He drew back sharply.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That was not nothing.”
Rhen looked at her, anger tightening around the unease inside him.
“You feel familiar.”
Her expression shifted.
“So do you.”
The bond pulsed once between them, almost satisfied.
Rhen refused to give the sensation time to become thought. He kissed her again, and this time she met him with an urgency that erased every remaining space between them.
He loosened the shift Mary had dressed her in, but he did not remove it until she lifted her arms and allowed him to draw the fabric over her head. Candlelight moved across her skin, revealing the silver glyphwork that occasionally flickered beneath the surface before disappearing.
Rhen’s gaze traveled over her slowly.
The woman who had arrived cloaked in rain and magic was beautiful, but desire alone did not explain the force of his reaction. His body knew the shape of her before his hands touched it, and every curve struck him with the violence of remembrance denied.
She shifted beneath his stare.
“Are you reconsidering?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly to contain doubt.
Rhen removed his clothing and returned to the bed, although he kept his weight braced away from her weakened body. She reached for him immediately, drawing her hands along his chest as though learning him by touch.
When his mouth returned to hers, she wrapped one leg around his hip and pulled him closer.
The heat between them became unbearable.
Rhen’s hand moved down her side, following the curve of her waist until his fingers reached the inside of her thigh. He paused there, watching her face.
“Still your choice.”
“Yes.”
He touched her.
Her breath broke against his mouth as his fingers moved between her thighs, finding her already wet and trembling. Rhen watched every change in her expression, learning which pressure made her hips lift and which slow movement drew his name from her.
“Rhen.”
The sound of it in her voice nearly ended his control.
He lowered his mouth to her throat, stopping above the place where his blood had begun changing her. His fangs remained hidden.
“I will not bite you.”
“Why?”
“Because we have enough unknown magic between us without adding another blood exchange.”
Her fingers moved into his hair.
“That may be the most sensible thing you have said.”
“Do not become accustomed to it.”