Every sound cut too deeply.
A door closing several halls away.
Fabric moving behind a wall.
Boots against stone.
The rasp of someone’s grief-strained breathing.
The compound swallowed her in branching corridors and old shadows. Oil portraits watched from paneled walls, their painted eyes following like silent judges.
Veya did not know where she was going.
She only knew she needed distance from Rhen.
“Stop.”
His voice cut down the corridor behind her.
Veya ran faster.
“You do not know what the fuck you’re doing.”
His footsteps followed, impossibly fast.
The sound drove her around another corner.
Then she saw the male at the far end of the hallway.
He stood beneath a single wall sconce, enormous and rigid, a newborn cradled against his chest.
Sule had finally left Leena’s chamber long enough to take his son from the nursery.
The child’s cries pierced the corridor—high, furious, and filled with need. The male rocked him with careful movements that looked unnatural in arms built for violence.
Veya stopped.
Grief had hollowed his face. It lived in the darkness beneath his eyes and the absolute stillness of his mouth.
His attention snapped toward her.
Whatever gentleness he had offered the child vanished behind lethal instinct. His arms tightened around the infant.
“Leave.”
The command vibrated through the stone.
Veya stepped backward, lifting her empty hands.
The baby cried harder.
The sound struck every sharpened nerve in her body at once. Her vision narrowed. Panic forced another useless breath through her lungs.
Then Rhen was there.
He moved into Sule’s line of sight, blocking Veya because one uncontrolled reaction in that corridor could end with her death.
“She got out,” Rhen said.
