Within minutes, the change began.
Her body arched as though the blood inside her had become another source of fire. The windows shook, the dying flames bent toward the bed, and pressure gathered inside the room until the shadows seemed to tighten along the walls.
Dax, Cole, and Malakai arrived at the doorway after sensing the disturbance.
Rhen withdrew his wrist from the witch’s mouth and sealed the wound beneath his tongue.
Cole watched the power moving through her.
“The transition has begun.”
Rhen did not look away from the bed.
“She survives it, or she does not.”
Cole’s mouth tightened.
“Blood may keep her body alive, but if the Diablo Levélle magic has constructed some form of bond around her, the transition may continue rejecting anything that remains incomplete.”
Rhen finally turned.
“You mentioned consummation.”
“As one possibility described in the old accounts, not as something you do to an unconscious woman.”
The warning in Cole’s voice was unnecessary.
Rhen’s eyes went cold.
“She cannot remember her own name. Nobody touches her.”
Malakai waited until Rhen faced him before signing.
Then anchor her through what she can still understand: your blood, your voice, and a promise she can hear even if she cannot answer.
A scream tore from the woman on the bed.
The room shifted around it.
The lantern flame beside the mantel guttered, and the curtains pulled inward as though an unseen force had dragged the night against the glass. The witch’s back lifted from the mattress while her fingers tore at the sheets.
Her eyes opened.
They were black, glassy, and focused upon nothing inside the room.
When she spoke, the voice emerging from her was layered beneath her own.
“Sule.”
Every brother became still.
Rhen moved closer.
“What do you know about him?”
Her head turned weakly across the pillow.
“He left you.”
