“What are you doing?” Dax asked.
A faint smirk touched Malakai’s mouth as his hands moved.
Getting Sule. She is not walking that off.
Dax looked toward the hallway Leena had disappeared down.
“Good.”
* * *
Back in the guest room, Rhen stood rigid beside the washstand, his gaze fixed on the woman as she shifted beneath the sweat-drenched sheets.
The fever had not broken.
Her breathing remained shallow. Her skin was too hot, her pulse too fast.
Every tortured sound pulled against the tether.
The door opened.
Leena stepped back into the room carrying a warmed blood bag.
Rhen tracked her immediately. She carried the heir and had already concealed one bout of pain from him.
“You should be sitting down.”
“And you should be feeding.”
She held out the bag.
He took it, avoiding the question in her eyes.
“You need it,” Leena said. “You gave too much of yourself, and the tether is feeding on what remains. You will need control when she wakes.”
Rhen glanced toward the bed.
The woman’s lashes were wet, her skin shining with sweat, her pulse fluttering visibly at her throat.
Still trapped in the worst of the transition.
Still alive.
Leena had recognized his depleted state before he admitted it.
He disliked being read that easily.
“Thanks,” he muttered.
The word came out rough enough to sound almost hostile.
Leena accepted it without comment.
Rhen gave one sharp nod and entered the small bathroom adjoining the suite, shutting and locking the door behind him.
He refused to feed beneath anyone’s scrutiny.
Hunger was private, and the Charon did not perform weakness for an audience.
