Page 19 of Bitten & Burned

I turned my head slightly, following the heaviness until I saw Dmitri.

He moved behind Quil, his hand coming down to rest on his shoulder.

Quil went rigid under the touch, a faint tremor running through him before his posture faltered.

He shrank slightly, swallowed thickly when Dmitri’s fingers tightened on his shoulder.

“Is there a problem?”

The question rolled through the room before I even saw him—sharp and cold as a draft under a door. I felt the air shift, the subtle pull of eyes flicking toward the doorway. Vael had returned.

“Rowena, are you alright? Is he bothering you?”

“Not anymore,” Anton murmured.

“Not since her champion arrived,” Quil muttered. He focused on the word “champion” as if it were a poison to be purged. Dmitri didn’t make a sound, but I saw Quil jolt again. He must have tightened his hold once more.

“Not another word,” Cassian said, each syllable slow and weighted, molten with threat. “Or I’ll feed you your tongue, Ashborne.”

Quil’s jaw worked slightly, as if he wanted to spit something else, but he didn’t; he allowed himself to be held back. Or he gave up. Whichever it was, it didn’t matter anymore. He was quiet.

The air felt thinner without his voice in it, but the sting of his words lingered like a bruise under the skin. I swallowed thickly, feeling a lump rising. I looked into Vael’s eyes. “I’m fine,” I said, my voice sounding faraway and tinny.

“You’re not a curse,” Anton murmured, rising to his feet beside me.

“She’s not,” Dmitri said, his voice breaking through as if all had been silent before.

“Of course not,” Vael murmured, his hand sliding along my cheek. He paused under my chin, tilting my head up to look at him. “You’re trembling. Look at me, Witchling. Only me.”

“She needs to eat something,” Cassian murmured.

“In a moment. This shouldn’t take long.”

“Vael—” Cassian’s tone carried a warning, low and edged, the kind he used when he thought I needed protecting from something I couldn’t yet name.

He looked sharply at Cassian. “Please. Let me do this.”

Cassian pressed his lips together reluctantly, nodding once and standing back, clasping his hands in front of him.

Anton’s hand ghosted along my arm before he, too, retreated to stand next to Cassian.

“There. Are you ready?” Vael asked.

I looked into his honey-gold eyes, feeling my heart swell as I beheld him.

“I am,” I murmured.

“Good." He took my hand, and I rose, following him to the altar he’d set up nearby.

The scent of cedar smoke and beeswax hung in the air, curling from the thick candles flanking the carved gold.

Those were old votive smells for Camarae—threshold offerings to steady the veil.

Shadows flickered over the sculpted face of the goddess of thresholds herself, her expression serene and merciless all at once.

Vael guided me to stand before the altar, our joined hands resting over the cold gold of Camarae’s symbol.

The goddess’s face drew the air tight; even my dulling power prickled at the edges of that symbol.

It was as if the gold itself sensed the fracture in me and braced against it. My mouth grew dry.

I felt the others behind me: Dmitri’s steady presence like a wall, Anton’s soft breath catching, Cassian’s silence like a judge’s gavel.

Even Quil, coiled in some shadow, his disdain curling around the edges of my mind.

But Vael’s hand was warm and certain around mine, and his focus pressed against me like sunlight through glass—blinding, unyielding.

None of them mattered.

Vael raised my hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to my knuckles—reverent, possessive, sealing. His fangs glinted when he spoke.

“Camarae, Lady of Thresholds,” he murmured. “Keeper of the Veil, Binder of Blood. Bear witness.”

I tried to steady my breathing, my pulse roaring in my ears like waves. I’d heard the words before. Sort of. While Vael was writing them. Piecing them together.

His thumb stroked my wrist, finding the vein beneath. “One last chance, Witchling. Speak now, or we stop.”

I swallowed. My voice barely rose above a whisper. “I want this. I want you.”

I did. I truly wanted nothing more than him in that moment. Or at least, I thought that’s what it was. It was muddled—muddled with images of him, of me wrapped around him, of the others, speaking, laughing. Fingers grazing my face. Not all of them Vael’s.

For a breath, I wondered what it meant that they were all here in my mind at the threshold of this.

A small smile curved his lips—all that honeyed warmth and steel resolve wrapped in a single, devastating look.

“Then watch, my brothers,” he said, his eyes flicking past me just once, a flicker of gold in the dark. “Watch and know that she is mine.”

I felt the shift in the air behind me—cloth rustling, the faint scrape of a boot against stone—as if they’d all leaned closer.

Vael’s fingers tightened around my hand, the pad of his thumb pressing lightly over my pulse. His breath warmed my skin. My own pulse stumbled. Then—

A sting. A rush of heat. I gasped as his fangs broke skin—the bond cracking open like a door unbarred at last.

Vael raised his mouth from my wrist, his lips slick with my blood, his eyes burning with that soft, terrible light.

“Camarae, bear witness,” he whispered against my skin. “By blood given and taken, let her be bound to me. Flesh to flesh, life to unlife, power to power. Let her name be written in my marrow, her will in my veins. Let no curse break this bond.”

He tilted my chin again, guiding me closer. I tasted iron on his mouth as he pressed it to mine—his tongue, his teeth, his breath like a promise and a command.

“My turn,” he murmured, offering me his wrist. I hesitated only a moment before my mouth closed over his skin.

The pulse beneath was ancient, slow, and so powerful it felt like drinking from a river’s source.

When my teeth broke through, the world tilted.

His blood was warmth and lightning, gold and shadow, flooding my tongue, my throat, my bones…

It didn’t stop at Vael.

Cassian’s iron will slammed into me next—a fortress, vast and cold, wrapping around my panic like an armored embrace. Steady, little witch, I heard him say, though his lips never moved.

Then Anton—velvet laughter and heat, the brush of a kiss behind my ear, You’re so sweet like this. Take more, take all you want.

Dmitri—wordless at first, just weight and warmth, a mountain pressing against my spine. Then a single word that sounded like mine—low, final, undeniable.

I might have gasped, might have broken away, but the bond cracked wider, unstoppable now—and through that gap he came, like a cold wind through a broken window:

Quil.

Not a word, but a snarl in my head, sharp teeth and coiled hunger. Rage tangled up in want, knotted so tight it seared when it touched me. Weak, foolish, beautiful little disaster, his voice spat and purred all at once. Can’t run now, can you?

I tried to scream—it came out as a choked moan against Vael’s wrist. The bond roared with too many voices, too much heat, too much them. My heart didn’t seem to know who it belonged to anymore.

The last thing I heard was Vael’s voice—calm, inexorable—It’s done.

It was over before I knew how to stop it. My mouth slipped from his wrist, blood on my tongue, my lips, my chin—his blood. Their blood. It tasted like nothing I’d ever known, and far too much, as if it would never truly leave my mouth again.

I swayed, half-sinking to my knees. Vael caught me by the wrist—the same wrist he’d drunk from moments before. His eyes—warm, golden—were wide, stunned. He looked at me like he didn’t see me at all, but, instead, something lurking behind my eyes. Like, he didn’t recognize me. Horrified.

“Vael?” I rasped. My voice sounded wrong—hollow, full of echoes that weren’t mine.

Behind him, I felt them all. Cassian’s quiet fury was like a brand on my shoulder. Anton’s wild delight beat at the edges of my mind. Dmitri’s weight was trying to cradle me even as I fell. And Quil—oh gods, Quil—a bitter laugh that tasted of rust and ruin.

Vael’s grip tightened. Too tight. He leaned in, nose brushing mine. For a moment, I thought he’d kiss me again, soothe me, tell me I’d done well.

But then his lip curled, fangs still red from my blood.

His hand released. The ground rushed up, hard and cold, and I landed in a sprawl at his feet. The cold leached through my knees into my bones, a dull throb ripping up my wounded leg.

“What did you do?”