“Do not speak about her as though she is an inconvenience you can leave for someone else to manage.”
Rhen continued striking.
“She is an inconvenience.”
The answer came without hesitation.
Dax stared at the rigid line of his back.
“She is a person.”
“She is a newly made vampire with no control, a maker tether she did not ask for, and heretic magic clinging to her strongly enough to make her valuable. Call her whatever allows you to feel noble.”
The words stopped Dax more effectively than violence.
“Valuable.”
Rhen drove another fist into the bag.
The leather seam split beneath the impact, spilling sand and stuffing across the mat.
Dax watched the pale stream gather around Rhen’s boots.
“That is why you saved her.”
Rhen pulled one glove free with his teeth before removing the second.
“A corpse tells us nothing and draws nothing into the open. She might.”
There was no remorse in his face when he turned. His silver eyes carried neither hidden tenderness nor the restraint of a male denying himself something he wanted.
They held nothing.
Dax’s voice lowered.
“You fed her because she was useful.”
“I fed her because dead currency has no value.”
The answer settled between them with sickening clarity.
Whatever Dax had expected to find beneath Rhen’s refusal, it was not this absolute absence of feeling.
“The tether is tearing through her.”
“It was an unintended consequence.”
“She is suffering because of something you did.”
Rhen stepped over the ruined bag’s contents and approached him.
“Then keep her functional.”
Dax’s jaw tightened.
“You mean you should.”
“No.” Rhen stopped within striking distance. “I mean you, apparently. You are the one standing here pretending her pain has become a moral emergency.”
