“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.
