“No.”
The direct admission surprised her.
Dax continued before she could speak.
“I know what I have seen. Stored blood feeds you, but the tether has triggered separate physical episodes. Rhen’s blood stopped the most severe one. Everything beyond that remains theory.”
Veya looked at her hands.
“What do I do when I feel it pulling?”
“You send for me.”
Her attention snapped back to him.
Dax held her gaze.
“Or Mary, Cole, Malakai, or anybody capable of reaching you before it becomes another crisis. I am asking you not to face Rhen alone again.”
“You think you get to decide that?”
“No.”
The answer came without hesitation.
Veya’s suspicion faltered.
Dax leaned forward, resting his forearms across his knees.
“I do not get to make another decision for you. I am asking because Rhen will use every weakness you show him, and he has already told you exactly how little your suffering matters.”
“What happens when I cannot choose?” she asked. “What if the pain becomes stronger than I am, and he is the only one whose blood will stop it?”
“Then I stand beside you while he does the minimum required.”
Veya studied him.
“And if you are not here?”
“You tell somebody before it becomes that bad.”
“You cannot always know where I am.”
“No.” His expression darkened. “That is the part I hate.”
Veya lowered her gaze.
The skin covering her hands appeared paler and smoother than she remembered. She could not recall the moment of transformation, but she remembered everything after it: the sensory overload, the hunger, and the way Rhen’s presence struck her body like a violent magnetic field.
Dax did not feel like that.
His presence did not pull her apart.
It gave her something to move toward deliberately.
“I don’t want the tether.”
“I know.”
