Dax stared at her.
“She is going to tear herself apart.”
Her mouth trembled as she forced out the final words.
Capta ab eo… vinci ab eo…
The air cracked.
The sound was not lightning but something deeper, like the final hook of the storm tearing free from Cole’s bones.
The power slammed into her.
She screamed as her body convulsed beneath the surge. Her muscles locked, and the glyphwork beneath her skin flashed silver through the glamour.
Rhen stepped forward.
If her control failed now, he would end her before whatever she had taken could return to Cole.
Before he could determine whether intervention was necessary, the final current left his brother.
The witch collapsed.
She folded to the floor as though every bone inside her had turned to ash and lay trembling in paralyzing agony, barely conscious.
Cole became still upon the couch.
The room fell silent.
Chapter 40
Cole lay still, the violent tremors finally eased, peaceful as though the storm had released him.
The witch lay broken on the floor, shaking and fighting for air as though her body no longer knew how to hold itself together.
Rhen was beside her in an instant.
He dropped to one knee and caught her as another convulsion tore through her, pulling her against him before her head could strike the floor. Her skin burned beneath his hands, heat pouring from her in waves while pain twisted her face and every breath scraped raw from her lungs.
“What the fuck did you do?” Rhen growled.
His voice remained low, but something raw moved beneath the fury, an edge he refused to examine.
She dragged in a breath that sounded as though it cut her from the inside.
“He… will live,” she whispered.
Dax and Malakai stood in stunned silence, still trying to understand what they had witnessed. A witch—a stranger, human and breakable—had drawn the power that had nearly killed Cole into her own body and accepted the cost without hesitation.
Rhen’s chest tightened as anger twisted through him. She had been reckless, stupid, and catastrophically out of her depth.
But she had saved his brother.
Now she trembled in his arms while the storm punished her for it.
“You’re not fucking dying now, female,” he said, the words harsh as his hold shifted to support her through another violent spasm. “Not after this.”
Her lashes fluttered. The faintest shadow of a smile touched her mouth and disappeared before exhaustion dragged her under. Her body surrendered with one final, shaking exhale, but the pain continued to move through her in aftershocks, tightening her face and breaking soft sounds from her lips even in unconsciousness.
