Page 20 of Bitten & Burned

Eight

WHAT DID YOU DO?

Kravenspire, Sol, Verdune

“What did you do?”

It wasn’t a question—not really. It was a curse, spat between clenched teeth.

He dropped my wrist—not gently, as if the contact burned him now. My arm fell with me as I hit the marble, my wounded leg taking the brunt of the landing. Without thinking, I went to cushion the landing, calling up a bit of magic from Inera.

But instead of landing softly, I landed hard. The fact that I’d forgotten that I couldn’t access Inera’s magic stung almost as much as the way Vael had dropped me.

Pain flared hot and bright, flooding my vision. Blood still dripped from the half-healed bite, each drop marking the floor like a tally of mistakes.

What did you do?

My heart thudded against the inside of my ribs, too loud, too fast—theirs now too. The marble floor was still biting cold through my palms, my leg screaming from the fall.

I could feel it: Cassian’s tight-lipped disapproval. Not at me—at Vael. He stepped forward, putting himself between us without even trying to hide it.

“She didn’t do this alone,” Cassian said, voice iron. “Don’t speak to her like—”

“Don’t defend her!” Vael snarled. His eyes flicked to the others. “We were careful. We planned—I…” He poked his fingers into his chest, hard enough to thump. To bruise. “I planned. I did…everything… for you, and this is what you do? How you repay me? You bind yourself to my entire coven?”

“Vael—” I whispered. But it was as if I’d said nothing at all.

“I planned,” he hissed, his eyes red as unshed tears sparkled in them. Anger. Rage. The sheer force of his will? Kept them from falling.

I flinched. Recoiled as if he’d cut me. I reached for my wrist, the one he’d held and thrown. I wrapped my fingers around the wound to stop the bleeding. My chin quivered, but I didn’t look away from him.

He finally looked at me then—really looked—and something in his face cracked when he saw me flinch.

His hand twitched, as if he might reach for me, but then he didn’t.

He couldn’t. The words were already out there, hanging between us like poison.

His jaw worked, but nothing else came out.

My tears fell, unbidden. The silence was palpable.

“Oh, you planned,” Quil laughed. It was an ugly, sharp sound, like glass breaking.

It punctured the silence, left a gaping hole that he readily filled with more poison.

He pushed off the wall, stalking closer, every step dripping scorn.

“I told you. I told you she’d ruin it. Look at you now: so fucking certain you could keep your neat little bond,” he jabbed a finger at Vael’s chest, “your bond, and now we’re all shackled to her. A fucking infestation—”

“Quil—” Dmitri’s low rumble was a warning, but Quil shrugged off his restraining hand with a snarl.

“No. Let him hear it. Let her hear it.” He turned towards me now.

His dark eyes bored into mine, dark and shining.

“I warned you. I said you’d bleed into everything.

Now you’re in us. In me.” He tapped his temple, teeth bared.

“Congratulations, Witchling. You’ve got your claws in the monster now, too. ”

Maybe Quil would make me regret it. Maybe it’s what I deserved. Being stalked like an animal—by an animal… Maybe it’d be quick. Maybe it wouldn’t. But it didn’t matter. I wouldn’t still see Vael’s face. His hurt. His pain. That I caused. No one else. Me.

But Quil didn’t. Not yet, at least. He turned, shoving past Dmitri so hard it rocked him back a step. His boots struck the stone floor, echoing as he stalked away, the sound bouncing around the hollow chamber.

Vael didn’t look at me. He couldn’t. His hand scrubbed through his hair, smearing blood across his forehead.

His mouth worked around words that never came.

Then he spun on his heel, the train of his coat snapping behind him, and his boots struck the stone with the same echo Quil’s had—retreat, not return—as he followed into the dark.

Cassian turned to me, but I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t bear Anton’s soft, broken, “Darling…”

I couldn’t stand Dmitri’s hand reaching for mine: heavy, warm, too kind.

Didn’t they understand? Didn’t they see me for what I was? Not some little, helpless… bird with a broken wing. I was a snake. A worm. A spider, full of venom, waiting to tear them all apart from the inside out.

I did the only thing that made sense.

I ran.

I left through another door. Not the same one Vael and Quil had left through. I couldn’t run the risk of seeing them. I couldn’t face them. Not without offering up my toxic veins for penance.

Drain me. Leave me here to rot. Please.

I couldn’t think. I didn’t want them to find me. I couldn’t run back to my rooms, Anton, Dmitri, Cassian… they’d know I was there. They’d come, soft words on their lips, warmth in their embrace. Promises of comfort that I didn’t deserve.

I choked on a sob and headed to the only place I knew I’d be safe from them.

Well, at least, when the morning’s light came.

I’d just have to hide, make myself scarce until then.

I’d curl up small. Small enough to disappear, and I wouldn’t think.

Not until morning. And then I’d… I’d think.

I’d figure this out. If it meant leaving like a coward, like the low, sniveling worm I was, or staying and facing my punishment, hoping it would make it better. Make them better.

I burst into the conservatory, looking around, and I began to turn off the lanterns that had been left on. I knocked a few over in my haste; they clattered to the floor loudly, sure to announce where I was. Where the dumb little witchling had slunk off to.

My breath caught in my throat, and I collapsed on the floor, the tears coming whether I wanted them to or not. They came hot and fast, pouring down my cheeks in a messy torrent. My nose ran, snot getting everywhere.

“Gods, shut up, you ugly, horrible, wicked, evil, wretched thing,” I hissed into the quiet. I let the words settle into my skin, branding me for what I was.

DMITRI

Cassian paced the far side of the room like a caged beast. Every line of his body was taut, his fists clenched so tightly I could hear the leather of his gloves strain.

“She was terrified, Dmitri,” he muttered. “I saw her face. She looked at him like she didn’t know him. Like he was a stranger…”

Anton, sitting rigid in the chair by the wall, spoke so softly I almost missed it. “She was shaking.” His hands were clasped together, white-knuckled. “And it’s not just her anymore, is it? She’s ours. The bond, it...” He swallowed hard, eyes flicking to mine. “It’s in every one of us now.”

Cassian nodded. “I… I felt her fear and her confusion…”

“Cassian—” I tried, but he wasn’t hearing me.

“Exactly. We felt it. Every heartbeat. Every drop of blood…” Anton murmured.

Cassian turned to face me, jaw clenched, the air around him thick with fury.

“I should’ve stepped in sooner,” he said. “I saw his eyes. I knew something was off, and I didn’t—”

“You didn’t cause this,” I said.

Anton’s gaze stayed fixed on the floor. “Still, we could’ve stopped him… Vael, I mean…” The tremor in his voice betrayed the tremor in his hands. “Or tried to.”

Cassian exhaled, sharp and ragged, then slammed his hand against the wall, hard enough to shake dust from the stone. “But we didn’t. We just… stood there.”

I stepped in front of them both, held their gazes. “And what if you had? Cassian, you’d… what? Throw him across the room in front of her? And you, Anton, you’d rather turn a moment of fear into a bloodbath?”

Cassian’s nostrils flared, Anton’s shoulders dropped.

“I should’ve done something,” Anton murmured.

“You will. Just not that. Not tonight. She doesn’t need soldiers right now. She needs space. And a soft place to land. She needs care.”

Cassian stared at me for a long moment, then nodded once—sharp, clipped. He wasn’t calm, not really. But the fight in him was muted, banked like a fire behind glass.

“You go find Quil, make sure he doesn’t do something he’ll regret. And Anton?”

Anton looked up at me, eyes wide, still pale, his teeth worrying his bottom lip.

“Some food, for Rowena,” I said quietly. “Something sweet, tempting, the very place you excel.”

He nodded. “She… shouldn’t be alone.”

“I know, I’m going. I’ll find her.”

“And if he so much as looks in her direction again…” Cassian said.

“He won’t,” I promised. “I’ll keep him away.”

“She didn’t do anything wrong,” Anton said, sounding as if he were trying to convince someone who wasn’t here.

“I know.”

“But Vael—”

“He’s hurt. He reacted… badly. We can’t judge him, we don’t know what we’d have done.”

“I wouldn’t have thrown her,” Anton muttered. “I wouldn’t have… spoken to her that way.”

I nodded once, reminding him of his objective. “Food. Get her everything she loves. Things she can’t turn down.”

“Consider it done.”

I’d moved with purpose, following her scent in the air she’d left behind—sweet orchids, amber, tea leaves… iron, and salt.

I was quick, but she was likely already hidden somewhere. She’d fled far ahead.

The shatter of breaking glass pulled me toward the conservatory, but the words—

The words stopped me cold.

“Gods, shut up, you ugly, horrible, wicked, evil, wretched thing.”.

Her voice cracked—sharp and jagged, each word a blade.

I flinched. Not outwardly, but inside, something recoiled.

I wanted to be as strong for her. To weather the storm without so much as a fracture. But those words—

Those words splintered me.

Because I’d seen her. Truly saw her. The strength in her spine. The fire in her mind. The kind of light that makes even monsters want to be better.

And she thought she was wretched.

I pressed my back to the door, teeth clenched. Jaw tight.

I couldn’t take the words from her. Not yet.

But I would not let them settle into her bones without a fight.

I’d hold them out here—every last cruel syllable—

Hold them until they dulled, until she forgot them…