His jaw tightened.
“You don’t get to make this decision alone.”
“I already did.”
“Leena is carrying the heir, for fuck’s sake,” Dax snapped. “And you brought a human in transition here bleeding and unstable? You don’t know what she’ll become. You don’t know what magic she’s carrying. Shit, you don’t even know if she’ll go after Lee—”
“She won’t.”
Rhen cut him off sharply, the threat in his voice already coiling beneath the surface.
“You don’t know that,” Dax shot back. “You don’t know anything right now. You’re acting like a rabid fucking dog and dragging her straight into the heart of this house like she isn’t a liability.”
Rhen’s jaw ground hard enough to crack stone.
“She’s not your problem.”
“The hell she’s not.” Dax’s voice dropped into something darker. “Everything we’ve built. Everything we protect—and you’re willing to risk it because you couldn’t keep your instincts under control?”
Static crackled through the air between them as the tension thickened into something ugly and unforgiving. Dax’s chest rose and fell heavily, the tattoos across his skin shifting with every breath while his fists flexed at his sides like he was one word away from swinging.
Rhen never moved.
“If there’s even a hint of danger,” Dax said quietly, “if Leena or that child feels so much as a flicker from her, this blood lands on you, brother.”
Rhen’s mouth curved, though there wasn’t a trace of humor in it.
The expression showed only teeth.
“Get. Off. My dick.”
The courtyard fell silent.
No wind moved through the trees. No birds stirred in the dark. Only the heavy stillness remained as two predators faced each other beneath the fog.
Dax’s muscles twitched with the effort of restraint, but he didn’t swing.
Not this time.
* * *
Rhen moved through the compound with practiced precision, his boots echoing through marble corridors already alive with tension. The entire house would feel the shift by now.
Blood.
Pain.
The unmistakable pull of a fresh tether settling into ancient stone.
He ignored it.
He wasn’t taking her to his own chambers.
He carried her into the eastern suite closest to the medical wing instead. Its reinforced shutters, warded threshold, and lockable outer door had been designed for unstable newborns, cursed guests, and anything else the clan needed alive but contained.
Quiet firelight spilled across pale walls and dark furniture. Crisp sheets rested untouched beneath the faint scent of lavender.
It was everything his world wasn’t.
