“She has survived more than she should have been able to survive tonight. I believe she can finish the transition, but whatever she becomes afterward may depend upon whether she wakes with something familiar to hold on to.”
Rhen’s gaze returned to the bed.
The connection between them had been strengthening since she drank from him, pulling tightly beneath his ribs whenever pain moved through her. He could not determine whether it came from his blood, her magic, or whatever Diablo Levélle had concealed beneath her skin.
He knew only that it existed.
The woman’s hands twisted in the sheets while another tremor passed through her. Her dark hair, even beneath the cloaking, clung damply to her face and throat, and every stolen breath seemed to require an act of will.
Rhen moved closer.
He had already given her his blood and accepted the possibility that she would wake as something dangerous. What he had not accepted was anyone claiming that her body now belonged to the magic, the transition, or him.
If another step became necessary, she would choose it while conscious enough to understand.
Nothing happened before then.
* * *
The transition continued through the remaining hours of darkness.
Rhen stayed beside the bed, tracking each change in the woman’s breathing while pain repeatedly dragged herbetween consciousness and oblivion. His expression remained controlled, although every cry worked beneath that control like a blade searching for a weakness.
She was suspended between the human life she had known and whatever Rhen’s blood was remaking her into. The transformation might strengthen her enough to contain the elemental power, or it might fuse that power with the Diablo Levélle magic and create something none of them understood.
Rhen refused to look away.
His attention followed every tremor and every shallow breath, not because he had consciously decided that she mattered, but because something beneath thought demanded proof that she remained alive.
At times, the connection pulled hard enough that his body responded to her presence in ways that infuriated him. Awareness moved across her skin, the warmth of her scent, and the line of her body beneath the sheet, but he shut the response down before it could become anything more.
She was suffering. Yet she ached for him. He could sense it, he could smell it.
The blood he had given her continued forcing change through her body, while her witch magic fought to retain its original shape. Neither force yielded easily, and their collision made the transformation far more violent than an ordinary turning.
Even so, she continued breathing.
Rhen saw strength in every moment she dragged herself back from the edge and in the stubborn refusal of her body to surrender, despite the agony cutting through it.
She would survive because he had decided she would, although some quieter part of him understood that his decision had very little to do with her endurance.
Another cry escaped her, and a growl gathered low inside his chest.
He wanted to stop the pain, but there was nothing available to kill, threaten, or dismantle. All he could do was remain beside her, keep her attached to the room, and wait until she was capable of making her own choice.
If she woke and reached for him with full understanding, he would not deny the connection already forming between them.
Until then, he would touch nothing she had not knowingly offered.
* * *
The worst of Veya’s convulsions had eased before Dax agreed to leave the eastern suite. The pain remained, buried deeply enough to keep her curled beneath the blankets, but the worst of the tremors had eased and the violent heat beneath her skin was no longer climbing.
Two medics remained with her, while Malakai confirmed that the wards surrounding the room had settled.
Dax had still refused to move until Veya caught his wrist.
“Go,” she whispered.
