Page 22 of Bitten & Burned

Nine

WHAT REMAINS AFTER

Kravenspire, Sol, Verdune

ROWENA

It was well past noon when I opened my eyes the first time, the light in the room muted and warm, sliding in low through the curtains. When I finally managed to push myself upright and leave the bed, it was almost sunset—the sky outside dimming into shades of violet.

I felt… bruised. Not in the way a body does after a fall, but somewhere deeper. Emotionally battered. Hollowed out. Worn thin.

Sad didn’t even feel like the right word, but it was the only one I had. It sat in me like a stone, heavy and unmoving. I missed what I thought I’d have today.

Vael’s hand clasped against me.

His lips on mine.

His warm voice flowed like honey over my tired body—

—but not tired the way I was now.

Tired in the good way. The well-used way.

Not like this.

Never like this.

A small sound tugged me from my thoughts—Fig’s bright trill—and I turned toward it.

He was stalking a moth that had wandered into the patch of late sun spilling across the floorboards.

His little furry body darted and twisted, leaping into the air as though gravity were a mere suggestion.

Nothing in his small, sunlit world was wrong.

He caught sight of me then, as if only just realizing I’d woken. His meow was louder this time, more insistent, and, in a few light steps, he was in my lap, warm paws pressing into my legs as he rubbed his soft face against my chin. It felt like his way of saying, Finally, you’re awake.

A laugh—small but real—escaped me, and I reached up to scratch behind his ears. His purr rumbled deep, vibrating through his tiny frame. He gave one more bright, pleased mrrp before hopping down again, tail high as he returned to his hunt.

I lingered there, watching him for a few minutes, letting his darting little leaps and exaggerated pounces pull me out of my head. When he skittered sideways and crouched low, shimmying back and forth, I knew the zoomies were coming.

A knock on the door pulled me back, the sound abrupt in the soft quiet of the room. My attention shifted from my cat to the source of the noise.

I looked over—my heart leaping into my throat, the air snagging sharp and unsteady in my chest, like the moment before a fall—when I saw him.

Vael. His silhouette cut clean against the daylight, coat collar turned up, shoulders tense as though holding something back.

Standing at the door, looking like he wanted me to join him.

He couldn’t come in. Not with the sun still out. The slanting light pooled at his feet, an unspoken line he couldn’t cross until the day surrendered.

The sight of him stirred something in me. Nothing good. A low, sour coil twisted in my stomach, the kind that made my hands want to curl into fists.

I wasn’t… angry at him. Anger would have been simpler—burning, decisive. Instead, the weight I felt was heavy and shapeless, harder to set down.

But I wasn’t overjoyed to see him either.

I hadn’t forgotten what he’d done yesterday. How he’d dropped me on the floor. The echo of cold stone under my palms and the sting in my knees flickered up unbidden.

I swallowed hard, the motion scraping down my throat as if the words I wouldn’t say were caught there.

“Hi… Rowena, can I… can we… I wanted to talk,” he began, his voice lacking its usual velvet; it sounded worn at the edges, hesitant.

I rose slowly. Walked to the door even slower, each step dragging the weight of yesterday with me.

I didn’t want to talk.

I didn’t want to see him.

I didn’t want to acknowledge him.

I didn’t want to feel the pull that still lived between us, stubborn as ivy latched onto a wall.

But he’d taken that choice from me, springing this on me like he always did—expecting me to rise to his moment, not mine.

I placed my hand on the door. Finally met his eyes. Up close, the crimson rims around his irises were stark against the shadows under them.

They were dark. Shadowed. He looked like he hadn’t slept.

I sighed. Good. Let him wear some of the exhaustion he’d thrust at me.

I slowly pushed the door closed. The wood met the frame with a soft thud, his words dying behind it.

The latch clicked. The click echoed in the quiet, a small sound with the weight of a slammed gate.

And I walked away, the echo of that click still in my ears.

Back to where I’d been before.

I’d meant to leave the door open for Dmitri. But now… now that Vael had come, I supposed I needed to keep it shut. The air felt heavier with it closed, the last of the daylight thinning along the floorboards.

VAEL

The door clicked louder than anything she’d done or said. Louder than anything I had said. The sound seemed to live in my ears, a sharp, metallic punctuation to everything I hadn’t managed to say.

If she’d yelled at me, it would’ve been better. If she’d looked me in the eye and said, “Vael, I never want to see you again”—that would’ve been better. At least I could have taken the blow steadfast, knowing where I stood, instead of drowning in this quiet, shapeless rejection.

I sighed.

The breath left me in a slow, fraying exhale, as if I could bleed out the ache one lungful at a time.

No, I couldn’t.

Lying to myself had never been my style. Especially about her.

I just… wanted a chance to explain myself. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since what happened. Since I dropped her. And I couldn’t fix it. It was a wound I couldn’t close, no matter how I pressed my hands to it. That’s what hurt most.

First Dmitri, now her. One of my oldest allies, my newest bond. Both were looking at me like I’d betrayed something sacred.

I sighed again. It wasn’t Dmitri’s fault. It wasn’t Rowena’s either. I was just… out of ideas.

What do you do when you’ve fucked everything up so badly that nothing looks the way it used to?

How do you live like that? With the edges of every day cutting you open in the same place?

Quil did it all the time. He carried his damage like a second spine, all sharp angles and hidden marrow.

How did he live with himself?

I stopped walking, my pulse kicking up in my throat.

Quil.

Of course. If anyone knew what to do now, it’d be him. He wouldn’t want to see me—he never wanted to see me—but so what? That wouldn’t make today any different than usual.

I turned down the corridor that led to his rooms. The air in this part of the manor was cooler, quieter, the light thinning into long shadows that seemed to reach for me as I passed.

We all had our wings, but Quil only used one of the rooms in his. The others were boarded up, like he’d sealed whole pieces of himself behind those doors, places no one was welcome to trespass. Kept locked and empty. I never understood that. Why have space you didn’t want to live in?

But I suppose that was the difference between Quil and me. He preferred to contain himself. I preferred to spill into every space I could claim. Just one of many differences.

His door was ajar—just like Rowena’s had been. A thin spill of lamplight cut across the hall.

I hesitated. Would he slam it in my face, too? The thought hit harder than it should have, a flash of cold beneath my ribs.

No. That wasn’t fair. Rowena hadn’t slammed anything. She’d just… closed it. Quietly. Deliberately. The way someone might shut away a letter they weren’t ready to read.

She didn’t want to talk to me. And that was her right.

I knocked on the frame.

“It’s open,” came Quil’s voice.

I stepped inside, slower than I needed to. He was rummaging through a crate near the fireplace, half-bent, his back to me. The firelight caught on the pale lines of old scars along his forearms, a map I’d never been invited to read.

When he turned, he raised his eyebrows slightly. For him, that was basically expressing shock.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” he said.

“Me either,” I replied.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, professor?”

I sighed. The nickname grated. He knew that. That’s why he used it.

“I… wanted to talk.”

“If this is about yesterday, don’t fucking bother. I don’t need a lecture, thanks.”

“It’s not… well. It is and it isn’t. It’s not about what you did. It’s about what I did.”

He stood straighter, folding his arms. “What about it?”

“I don’t know how to start.”

“Well, if you figure it out, let me know. I’ve got things to do.

” He turned back to the crate, digging through it again—but not pulling anything out.

Just moving things around. The muted thuds and scrapes filled the space between us, each one a quiet refusal to meet my gaze.

Like the act of rummaging gave him an excuse not to look at me.

“I went to see Rowena just now,” I said finally. “I knocked. Like I just did with you. And she came over… and closed the door in my face. Didn’t say a word.”

He made a dry sound. Almost a laugh, though I didn’t appreciate the sentiment.

“I bet that hurt.”

The words landed with more accuracy than I wanted to admit.

“You’re not wrong.”

“Kind of like how you hurt her yesterday, huh?”

I exhaled sharply. He wasn’t wrong. Of course, he wasn’t. Quil never could leave well enough alone. He had to draw the line back to my mistakes. As if I hadn’t already done it a hundred times myself.

“Yeah. Kind of like that.”

He pressed his lips into a thin line. Exhaled. The sound was slow, deliberate—like he was letting go of a thought he’d decided not to voice. “Okay. What about it?”

“I just…” I hesitated. The question felt clumsy in my mouth, like it didn’t belong to me. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Constantly fuck up and come back from it. How do you live with yourself after you hurt people like that?”

He straightened up again and turned to look at me. His dark eyes searched mine like he was trying to find a meaning I couldn’t name. It made my skin itch, that steady, unblinking measure of me.

Whatever he found, he didn’t let on.

“Do you want advice or what?”

“I mean… yeah, I do?”

“Great. Because I’m going to share something with you. Are you ready?” he asked.

“…Yes?” I answered, more uncertain than I meant to sound.