“He lived.”
Her breath left her in a shaky exhale.
Then her gaze found Rhen.
The room tightened around the connection between them.
“Charon,” she whispered, pronouncing the title with the unconscious familiarity of someone who had spoken it before.
Rhen’s expression changed by only a fraction.
“Stay with me.”
Her lips trembled.
Deep beneath her own voice, the other presence released a quiet, satisfied answer.
“Good.”
The final candle went out.
Chapter 44
Cole’s jaw tightened as he watched the unstable power moving through the woman on Rhen’s bed.
“You are going to have to find a way to anchor her,” he said. “Your blood has started something, and none of us knows what happens if the connection continues forming without anything to stabilize it.”
Rhen paced beside the bed, his fury held beneath such rigid control that each movement appeared calculated.
“You are assuming there is a bond.”
“I am saying the transition is responding to you.”
Cole kept his voice level despite the tension gathering inside the chamber.
“The old accounts are inconsistent, but they agree on one point: when a witch survives transformation through a specific vampire’s blood, that blood-source can become the only stable thing her magic recognizes.”
“That does not tell us what she needs.”
“No,” Cole admitted. “It tells us that you may be the only person capable of helping her discover it.”
The witch cried out as another convulsion seized her. Her breath tore free in ragged gasps, and every brother in the room shifted instinctively before remembering Rhen’s warning not to approach.
Rhen looked toward Cole.
“She is not capable of agreeing to anything.”
“I know.”
The answer came without hesitation.
“Nobody is suggesting otherwise. You keep her alive, keep her anchored, and wait until she is lucid. If she chooses the connection after that, you decide what happens together.”
Rhen’s jaw tightened until pain moved along it.
He hated every part of the uncertainty. He hated watching her body fight his blood and the storm simultaneously, while he remained unable to tear either force from her through violence.
Cole’s expression remained grave.
