Page 10 of Bitten & Burned

Four

ALL OR NONE

Kravenspire, Sol, Verdune

When I opened my eyes, it took me a moment to get my bearings. I was in bed. Someplace warm. With a fireplace, but no fire. Fig was here, on the bed with me.

Right. Halemont. We must have arrived.

The memory was fuzzy, but I knew I’d had a flare-up of pain in the carriage, Vael had taken a lot of blood, and I’d fallen asleep before we’d arrived.

I got out of bed and wandered to the door, stepping into the vast hallway.

My legs trembled as I stepped out of Vael’s chambers. I lingered just inside the door, listening.

The manor was quiet, and shadows pressed close to the walls. A single beam of pale light slipped through, cutting across the wall and ceiling in a long, dying line. I followed it with my eyes until I heard voices breaking the hush.

Vael. Anton. Quil. They sounded angry—or at least strained, sharp edges hidden in low tones.

I knew I should stay where I was, wait for Vael to return. But I couldn’t. Something in their voices pulled at me like a thread caught on a nail. I slipped into the hallway, feet soundless on the old stone.

Behind me, Vael’s door stayed cracked open, like an invitation I no longer wanted. Ahead, the voices tangled and echoed off the walls.

Halemont Manor had been built with vampires in mind—Cassian’s land, Cassian’s legacy.

To mortal eyes, the layout seemed strange: rooms clustered toward the heart of the house, corridors spiraling inward, staircases that sank deep below ground.

Sunlight barely touched these halls, except for the outer chambers with their decorative windows, forever shuttered.

Most of them stayed close to the center during daylight—except Quil. Quil drifted wherever he pleased, vanishing into corners no one else dared to claim. His solitude made sense to the others. In my case, it just…needled at me. I couldn’t say why.

I crept down the hall towards the voices. I found them coming from a spiral staircase down to one of the lower levels. I concluded that they were down in one of the recreational rooms.

The top step squeaked, so I stepped over that and crept down the stairs until I could hear what they were talking about. I didn’t like eavesdropping like this, but if I was going to walk into a room full of vampires, I needed to know exactly what I was walking into.

A tangle of voices was speaking at once, overlapping until one cut through. It was low, quiet… almost bored. “I fail to see why you can’t just stay with her at her flat—or yours, for that matter.”

Quil, of course.

Vael answered, but I couldn’t hear him. He was explaining how it was safer here and quieter than my flat with the thin walls and nosy neighbors.

“Do you truly need to hold her hand all day?”

I rolled my eyes. Typical. Quil never said more than a handful of words to me in the entire time I’d known him. But he never hesitated to talk about me, always through Vael as if I were a piece of furniture that occasionally made noise.

“Pain builds character. Let her keep it. She could certainly use it.”

I flinched. That stung; maybe because I half-believed it. Maybe because it was easier to believe Quil than admit that I hated who I was when the pain took over.

Another voice, this one more level, broke through. “Quil, we talked about this…” Cassian’s voice carried the weight of centuries—five hundred years steeped in Verdune’s courts and battlefields, steady as granite compared to Quil’s raw, needling edges.

“Yeah, well, that was before she was moving in. Before, we had to tiptoe around her. And I don’t know a nicer way to say this, but she smells.”

A chorus of surprised sounds filled the room. “Nonsense, what are you saying?” Anton laughed—his voice always bright and sweet, even when the words weren’t. “She smells like she always smells: cherries, vanilla. Sugarplums.”

“She still smells like that, sure, but there’s something else—something that stinks.”

“Honestly, Quil. Stop talking about her that way.” Vael’s tone balanced on a knife’s edge—not quite his normal voice, teetering into his more hypnotic one.

“Stop that,” Quil snapped. A dull thump—something hitting the wall? “I told you not to do that!”

“Act like an adult, and I won’t have to,” Vael said flatly.

“I could act like the vampire I am and rip you apart,” Quil shot back.

“Both of you, calm down…” another voice cut in, calm and unflappable.

Dmitri. He had this way of speaking that instantly defused tension.

While Vael still sounded a little rattled, Dmitri was steady—always the grounding presence.

It was hard to remain worried around him.

Why Quil accepted Dmitri’s authority but resisted Vael’s, I couldn’t say.

Vael had once told me, “Quil and Dmitri come together. They’re a package deal. We don’t get Dmitri if we ask Quil to leave.” His voice had been flat and bored, like he’d said it a thousand times before.

Their partnership was still a mystery to me, but Vael’s feelings about Quil were crystal clear. And Quil’s about Vael, too.

I took a slow breath, realizing I’d been eavesdropping for longer than I should. I forced my face into a neutral expression and stepped into the room. Five sets of eyes snapped to me. I offered a small wave, trying to stay on the edge of the circle.

“Hi… I couldn’t help but overhear…”

“She’s spying on us now?” Quil spat, his long black hair falling in curtains around his face, his eyes narrowed in my direction, so dark they didn’t seem real.

I took a page from his book, mostly ignoring him while looking directly at Vael. “Can you explain to him how I’m talking now and he should be listening?” I asked.

Anton snorted, crossing his arms across his chest, his bright eyes flitting towards Cassian to his left. Cassian, for his part, looked amused, his broad shoulders shaking slightly with laughter; his auburn hair catching the candlelight like burnished copper.

Dmitri, tall, blonde, and impeccably chiseled, had no visible reaction, as per usual, and since I wasn’t looking at Quil, I couldn’t see him, but I could tell from context clues that he was fuming, stalking back and forth like the hunter he was.

Vael tried and failed to hide a small smile. “She’s speaking now, so you should be—”

“I heard her, asshole.”

“Quil, give it a rest,” Anton drawled from his chair, his arms falling to his sides as he dramatically turned his head towards the ceiling; his fluffy brown hair remained perfect, no matter what position he took.

“You drain more with your voice than your fangs ever will. Shut up for once.” He could have been an actor on a stage, all practiced drama and flawless poise, his frame exquisitely balanced between Cassian’s bulk and Quil’s wiry edges—pleasingly, unfairly perfect.

Quil was quiet, but felt like a blaze burning behind a door; the slightest bit of air could cause an updraft. I had to be quick and careful.

“This is why I wanted to talk to them first, Vael. To avoid something like this.” I looked at each of them, venturing a glance at Quil and faltering slightly because the man was glowering, and it ratcheted my nerves up to an eleven.

I took a moment to swallow thickly and choose my next words. “I’ll go back to my flat…”

“No,” Vael protested.

I put my hand up to silence Vael as well. He stumbled over his words, but began again, this time in earnest. “No, Rowena, you’d be safer here, everyone thinks so—”

“As I told him,” I glanced over to Quil. “I’m talking. And you should be listening.”

Vael’s mouth snapped closed, and he crossed both his arms.

I continued, “I’ll go back to my flat, put it on the market, and I’ll move into Vael’s. ”

It was quiet in the room for a long moment.

“Are you finished?” Vael asked.

I nodded slowly. “Yes.”

“You don’t need to do that. This is an enormous house, there should be no reason why Quil can’t—”

“This is his home. Not mine. I don’t have a right to it. He does.”

Vael looked a bit angry, his face puffing up as he tried not to raise his voice. “You’re with me. I live here. Therefore, you have a right to be here.”

“I am not one of you,” I replied. “End of discussion. I’ll leave at first light this next Comday. I was already planning on remaining for the week, so I’ll stay for the week.”

Vael was floundering, on the verge of panicking. “But what if something happens, and you’re alone? What then?”

“Pain builds character,” I stated, smirking a little, and hoping Quil heard me. “And that’s something of which I am apparently in desperate need. Thank you all for considering it. I’m going to go back to bed.”

I was tired in every sense of the word. Exhausted, even.

I felt like crying, but not because of anything that happened here, but just because it felt like my life was closing in.

I couldn’t travel now without being in severe pain.

If I were alone, I would be at the mercy of the sun—with no Vael beside me once daylight drove him to ground.

“Rowena, don’t… we’re not through discussing it...”

“It sounded as if you were. It’s up to all of you. If one of you doesn’t want me here, then… I won’t be here.”

Quil was strangely quiet. His leg was bouncing rhythmically in the chair where he’d seated himself. He was chewing on his bottom lip.

“Quil isn’t the deciding vote,” Anton said plainly. “Ours is a democracy; if we did this pass-fail, we’d never do anything, because Quil doesn’t like anything.”

It struck me as almost absurd—immortals older than dynasties holding to something like a council, as if centuries of Verdunian senate squabbles hadn’t taught the world better.

Quil made a noise between a growl and a hiss, baring his teeth. “I like things. Just because I’m not sashaying through life like some aged-out debutante with a bottomless coin purse doesn’t mean I don’t like things.”

“Sashaying?” Anton repeated, laughing. “My, but that’s a large word for you, Quil. Have you been reading behind our backs?”

Quil’s lip curled. “I’ve got something for your back—”