Chapter 42
Rhen rematerialized inside his chamber with rage still moving through his veins.
The fire had burned low, leaving the room steeped in shadow and the dull scent of smoke. Beneath the familiar leather and old wood lingered something faintly floral that did not belong inside his private space.
Her.
His attention went immediately to the bed.
The witch lay tangled in the blankets, her body still trembling beneath the elemental power trapped inside her. Sweat shone across her skin, and the sheets had slipped during the convulsions, exposing the vulnerable line of her throat and the shallow movement of her ribs.
Rhen’s body reacted before his mind could force hatred back into place.
The response was immediate, physical, and vicious enough to feel like betrayal.
He curled his hands at his sides.
“Fuck.”
The word was directed at himself rather than the woman upon his bed.
She was a witch wrapped in Diablo Levélle magic, and every instinct he possessed should have recognized only an enemy. Instead, something inside him had responded as though her presence belonged in the room and the sight of her skin had awakened an appetite he had buried with Leena.
Rhen crossed to the bed and pulled the sheet over her with controlled, angry movements.
His knuckles brushed her ribs.
The contact moved through him like a live current, striking somewhere beneath conscious thought before spreading through his body.
Rhen recoiled.
“Do not begin this,” he muttered, although he was speaking to himself.
The witch’s mouth parted as a weak sound escaped her. It held no seduction or invitation, only pain.
Her lashes fluttered before her eyes opened abruptly.
They were wide, fevered, and unfocused.
“Help me,” she rasped. “Please make it stop.”
The plea caught inside a place Rhen had believed Leena’s death had sealed permanently.
He remained motionless for several seconds while the enemy upon his bed became something more immediate than suspicion or theory. She was a living body attempting to survive a force that was tearing her apart, and no amount of hatred changed the fact that she was suffering directly in front of him.
Her hand moved weakly across the blanket, searching for an anchor she could not see.
Rhen stepped closer.
“I do not know how to help you.”
The harshness of his voice made her flinch, although another wave of pain claimed her before fear could fully register.
Her spine arched, and a broken cry tore from her throat.
Rhen swore and lowered himself beside the bed. His hands hovered over her without touching, while the uncertainty of what to do sharpened his anger further.
He had been shaped into a weapon. He understood how to end lives, break threats, and make enemies regret surviving long enough to meet him.
He did not know how to repair a human body filled with an immortal storm.
“Tell me what you need,” he said. “Tell me how to stop it.”
Her lips moved, although the first attempt produced no sound.
“Sule.”
Rhen’s attention sharpened instantly.
“What did you say?”
Her eyes remained unfocused as another tremor moved through her.
“He is gone.”
The room appeared to tilt around him.
The heretic in the Quarter had known Sule was missing, and now this woman spoke his name while barely conscious.
Rhen placed his hand against her forehead before he considered the gesture. Her skin burned beneath his palm.
“You do not get to use his name without explaining how you know it.”
Her fingers found the front of his shirt and caught weakly in the fabric.
The contact locked every muscle in his body.
One instinct urged him to close his hand around her throat until she surrendered the truth. Another demanded that he hold her together until the pain released its grip.
He despised the second impulse more.
“You are going to survive this,” he said, forcing the words into the shape of an order. “You do not get to die after saving my brother.”
Her mouth moved again.
“Please.”
“Tell me how to stop it.”
She drew another ragged breath, and a second sound emerged from her as though a name were attempting to force its way through the fever.
“Lee…”
Rhen went completely still.
The witch lost consciousness before the word could become anything more.
For one impossible moment, he heard the beginning of Leena’s name inside the unfinished syllable. He rejected the thought immediately, but the sound had already entered him and could not be removed.
The pressure behind his ears intensified.
He had felt something when the witch touched him, an involuntary pull that he had attempted to explain as spellwork, grief, or the residue of the attack in the Quarter. Whatever it was, it had tightened around him each time her condition worsened.
Rhen looked at the fever consuming her and understood that her human body would not hold the storm for much longer.
His blood might.
The answer came with consequences he could not ignore. Turning a human produced a vampire, but turning a witch could create something else entirely: magic fused with immortal blood, unstable power, and a creature tied to the very enemy they were trying to destroy.
She could become a heretic.
She could wake carrying Diablo Levélle deeper inside her than before.
She could become strong enough to destroy the compound from within.
Rhen’s hands closed until the joints ached.
The choice was not between safety and danger. It was between allowing the only living lead to die in his bed or creating something none of them could predict.
He disappeared before instinct made the decision without him.
* * *
Rhen materialized in the kitchen with enough force to send the nearest flame shuddering inside its glass enclosure.
Dax and Malakai were waiting, while Cole stood beside the counter, pale and weakened but upright.
Rhen struck one hand against the table.
“The witch is dying. The storm will kill her before dawn unless her body changes.”
Nobody pretended not to understand what he meant.
Malakai stepped into his line of sight.
You are considering turning her.
“If I do, she becomes one of them.”
“A heretic,” Dax said.
“We do not know what that will create,” Rhen continued, beginning to pace. “She could wake stronger than any of us, or she could wake controlled by whatever Diablo Levélle buried inside her.”
Cole lifted his head.
“She could also wake with answers.”
Rhen pointed toward him.
“You are asking me to create something that may destroy this house.”
“She saved me.”
Cole’s voice remained rough from the damage the storm had caused, but nothing about it wavered.
“She could have watched me die without lifting a hand, yet she took the power into herself instead. Whatever she is, that choice was hers.”
Malakai rested his hands against the edge of the table before signing.
We are already surrounded by risks we do not understand. Sule is missing, rogues are being controlled in our streets, Diablo Levélle has breached the grounds, and Veya’s maker tether remains unstable.
His expression hardened.
Letting the witch die guarantees that we lose the only living connection we possess.
Rhen stopped pacing.
“And when she wakes and turns against us?”
We contain the transition, watch her, and learn what we can before she understands her new strength.
Dax met Rhen’s gaze.
“We do not pretend the risk is small, but allowing her to die is still a decision.”
Rhen looked toward Cole.
“You believe my blood will be enough?”
“I believe it may give her body the strength to survive what she took from me.”
Cole’s next words came more carefully.
“Some old heretic accounts describe bonds formed through blood that later required a second act to stabilize them fully. The accounts disagree about whether that act was ritual, consummation, or something else.”
Rhen’s expression became lethal.
“She cannot even tell us her name.”
“Then nothing else happens unless she becomes lucid enough to choose it,” Cole said. “For now, blood is the only chance she has.”
Silence settled across the kitchen.
Rhen’s decision arrived as fury rather than mercy.
“I will turn her.”
He looked at each brother in turn.
“If this destroys the compound, the responsibility belongs to all of us.”
Dax nodded.
“We understand.”
Rhen disappeared before anyone could offer further argument.
* * *
His chamber received him in shadow and dying firelight.
The witch had deteriorated during the few minutes he had been gone. Her skin appeared almost waxen, and every breath had become so shallow that he was forced to watch for the movement of her chest.
The sight awakened another violent refusal inside him.
It was neither softness nor mercy, and he would not grant it the dignity of a name. He knew only that the idea of her dying there felt intolerable in a way no stranger’s death should.
Rhen crossed to the bed and gripped the edge of the mattress until the wood complained beneath his hands.
“Witch.”
Her eyes opened slightly.
“Listen to me.”
Her gaze remained fevered and unfocused.
“If you survive, you remain under guard until I know what you are and why you were sent here.”
A faint sound left her, resembling the beginning of a laugh before becoming a cough.
Rhen reached for his wrist and stopped.
Giving her his blood meant more than saving her life. It would change her body and connect her existence to his decision, regardless of whether either of them understood what the connection might become.
He lowered himself closer.
“Do you want to live?”
For several seconds, he thought she had not heard him.
Then her lips moved.
“Yes.”
The answer was barely audible, but it existed.
Rhen opened the vein in his wrist with one clean movement and brought it to her mouth.
The scent of his blood changed the atmosphere inside the room.
Her body reacted immediately, shuddering as though something beneath the fever recognized him before her mind could.
Her lips parted.
“Drink,” he ordered.
She obeyed.