Chapter 28
The stronghold had become unbearable.
Rhen had lived comfortably with silence for centuries, but the silence after Leena’s death possessed a different weight. It followed him through every corridor and remained inside every room she would never enter again.
Her death had not left an absence.
It had left evidence.
The others could sit together, speak her name, and pretend grief became lighter when divided among them. They could mourn as a clan and draw comfort from the fact that their pain was shared.
Rhen had never shared anything willingly.
He armed himself out of habit rather than necessity. Black tactical clothing fitted close to his body, while blades settled into the places muscle memory expected to find them. The familiar weight anchored him to the only version of himself that still functioned.
He left without taking a coat.
The iron gates opened, and the forest beyond the stronghold stretched beneath a sky sharpened by frost. Old paths disappeared between bare trees and bramble-filled clearings that had existed before any of them claimed the land.
Rhen moved through the darkness without attempting to conceal himself.
Cold air crossed his skin but offered neither punishment nor relief. Nothing the night could inflict would equal the sight of Leena’s blood soaking through his hands.
She should have been alive.
She should have been holding her son while Sule pretended he was not terrified of breaking something so small. She should have been making quiet observations nobody had requested and issuing instructions Rhen ignored until he found himself following them.
Leena had never demanded softness from him.
She had simply looked directly at what he was and insisted that something human remained.
She had been wrong.
Rhen had loved her anyway.
He followed the path behind the gardens until the familiar scent of wet leaves and dying roses dragged a memory into the present.
Years earlier, Rhen had returned from a mission with his coat torn across one shoulder and another creature’s blood dried along his throat. The stronghold had been quiet, and every sensible person had already gone inside.
Leena remained seated upon a stone bench near the greenhouse.
An oversized sweater enveloped her narrow frame, almost certainly stolen from Sule, and steam curled from the cup held between her hands.
She looked at the blood covering Rhen and did not flinch.
“Tea?”
“No.”
Leena shrugged.
“More for me.”
Rhen intended to continue past her, but she spoke before he could leave.
“You broke the west training-room wall again.”
“Sule knows where to find me if he wants to complain.”
“You reinforced it last month.”
“It was inadequately built.”
“You built it.”
“Then I have identified the flaw.”
Leena hid a smile behind her cup.
“Do you want to talk about whatever happened?”
“No.”
“Would you like me to talk while you stand there pretending not to listen?”
Rhen gave her no answer.
Leena accepted the silence as permission.
Her gaze moved to the torn shoulder of his coat.
“You’re bleeding.”
“It is not mine.”
“I know.”
She set the cup beside her and stood.
Rhen allowed her to approach because she was Leena and because preventing her would require touching her more forcefully than he permitted himself.
Her fingers moved the damaged edge of his coat aside, revealing a shallow cut beneath his collarbone.
“You are injured.”
“It will close.”
“That does not mean it does not hurt.”
“Pain is irrelevant.”
Leena looked up at him.
“You say that about everything you cannot control.”
Rhen’s jaw tightened.
She did not retreat.
“I know you inspect the guards’ routes yourself,” she continued. “You reorganized the armory because Dax kept leaving ammunition in the wrong place, and you changed Malakai’s training schedule after the last mission.”
“Incompetence creates casualties.”
“Exactly.”
“That is not compassion.”
“I did not call it compassion.”
“Then stop trying to find virtue in basic threat management.”
Leena’s expression softened in the way he hated most, because it suggested she believed she understood him.
“You care whether they live.”
“They are clan.”
“You say that as though loyalty is not a form of caring.”
“It is obligation.”
“To you, perhaps those are the same thing.”
Rhen looked away.
Leena touched two fingers lightly against the center of his chest.
“You are not as empty as you want everyone to believe.”
“Do not do that.”
“Do what?”
“Invent humanity where there is none.”
“I am not trying to make you soft.” Her mouth curved. “I like you exactly as you are, although you are considerably easier to tolerate when you stop scowling.”
“I am always scowling.”
“I know. It is one of your more dependable qualities.”
A faint sound escaped him before he could prevent it.
Leena’s smile widened.
“Was that a laugh?”
“No.”
“It sounded suspiciously like one.”
“It was contempt.”
“Of course.”
She stepped back and reclaimed her tea.
“You are the only person who gets away with this.”
“I know. Somebody has to annoy you.”
Leena turned toward the stronghold.
Rhen stopped her before she had taken two steps.
“You should not be outside alone at night.”
She looked back.
“You are outside.”
“I am not prey.”
“And you believe I am?”
His silence answered.
Leena smiled with infuriating certainty.
“I’ll be fine. I have you.”
The memory released him.
Rhen stood alone beside the rear garden with her final words cutting more deeply than the cold.
Leena had believed in a version of him that had never existed for anyone else. She had been the single creature whose faith he had neither corrected successfully nor destroyed.
Now she was gone.
No one would ever look at him that way again.
A human scent moved through the trees.
Rhen turned.
A jogger followed the lower path with his hood raised and music playing through his earbuds. A pale dog moved behind him, sniffing the wet ground before stopping abruptly.
The animal detected Rhen first.
The human noticed nothing.
Rhen watched him approach without anger, hunger, or moral hesitation. Humans died constantly, and this one had entered the wrong place at the wrong time.
Rhen stepped from the trees.
He crossed the distance before the jogger could react and drove him against the trunk of an oak. Air left the man’s lungs in a panicked burst as Rhen’s hand closed around his throat.
The human attempted to scream.
Rhen exposed his neck and sank his fangs into warm flesh.
Blood arrived quickly.
He drank without restraint or pleasure, emptying the man because stopping required a reason and none presented itself. The heartbeat beneath his mouth weakened before ending entirely.
Rhen released the body.
It collapsed among the wet leaves with its eyes fixed upon the branches above.
The dog remained several yards away, trembling and silent.
Rhen looked at it once.
The animal held no information, posed no threat, and offered nothing he wanted.
He left it beside its dead owner and continued into the forest.
Human blood remained on his mouth, but Leena’s was the only blood he could still feel upon his hands.
Later that night, the map room smelled of stale bourbon and cold stone.
A digital topographical map of New Orleans glowed across the central table, casting blue light over Dax, Cole, and Malakai. Reports, marked routes, and lists of known safehouses occupied the surrounding surface.
Cole placed a tablet onto the table with more force than necessary.
“Nothing. His usual contacts have heard nothing, the secondary properties are empty, and nobody at Bar X has seen him.”
Dax remained against the far wall with his arms folded.
“Sule does not want to be found.”
Cole looked toward him.
“There is a difference between wanting privacy and disappearing while the city is circling the stronghold.”
Malakai sat at the head of the table in Sule’s chair, although the tension in his shoulders made it clear that he took no comfort from the position. An untouched glass of blood rested near his hand.
He signed, The council has demanded an audience twice. Reports connected to Marcella are moving closer to our territory, and Sule has answered none of us.
His gaze shifted briefly toward the ceiling.
Rhen had returned to the nursery after entering the compound, sitting with Norse in the only room where his violence seemed to become quiet.
Cole paced beside the hearth.
“Who is making decisions in Sule’s absence? You? Dax? Rhen is barely interested in anything that does not involve Leena’s memory, and the rest of us are reacting one disaster at a time.”
“We maintain the defenses,” Dax said. “We protect Norse, monitor the city, and assume Sule is pursuing something he considers more urgent than answering us.”
Cole turned sharply.
“He has been gone for nearly three days.”
“He lost Leena.”
“He also has a newborn son.”
Dax’s expression hardened.
“You think I have forgotten?”
Malakai raised both hands before the argument could escalate.
I searched the restricted archives after Mary told me what Sule asked before leaving.
Cole stopped pacing.
“What did he ask?”
He wanted records concerning the Old Laws, soul-binding, and references to something called the Great Exchange.
Dax left the wall.
“The Great Exchange?”
Malakai’s hands moved with deliberate precision.
An old heretic doctrine. The surviving accounts contradict one another.
“About what?” Cole asked.
Malakai hesitated before signing again.
Death. Souls. The possibility of calling back what has already crossed.
Silence settled over the table.
Dax looked toward Sule’s empty chair.
“Reincarnation?”
Perhaps.
Cole gave a humorless laugh.
“Those are stories told to frightened fledglings.”
Malakai’s expression did not change.
Perhaps, he signed. Sule did not appear to think so.
Dax looked down at the glowing map.
“If he believes someone can return Leena, he will listen.”
Cole’s expression changed as the implication settled.
“He would not abandon Norse.”
“No,” Dax said. “But grief may convince him that bringing Leena back is the same thing as protecting their son.”
Malakai stood and moved away from Sule’s chair.
If someone promised him access to her, he may have gone willingly.
The room became silent.
Sule was the most powerful of them, but strength meant little if he entered a trap without intending to resist.
Cole lowered his voice.
“What is the plan?”
Malakai looked toward Dax before signing.
We continue searching. We protect Norse, hold the stronghold, and keep the heretic-marked fledgling contained until we understand why she was sent into our path.
“Veya,” Dax said.
Malakai’s gaze settled on him.
Dax held it.
“Her name is Veya.”
Malakai considered the correction before inclining his head.
Veya remains contained. We do not allow Rhen’s indifference or your attachment to distract us from the fact that heretic magic was attached to her for a reason.
Dax could not argue with that.
Cole looked around the room at the empty chair, the unanswered reports, and the city waiting beyond their defenses.
“And if Sule is making a deal?”
Malakai’s hands moved slowly.
Then we pray the price is something the rest of us can survive.