Page 229 of Bitten & Burned

“Yes, but… gods, killing someone is difficult. In battle, that’s one thing, but slow? One on one? Hearing them talk to you? It’s so much harder. It stays with you forever.”

“You seem to do it easily enough,” I countered.

“I do it because I have to. Not because I want to,” Quil murmured. “I just don’t want you hurting yourself more becauseyou feel you need to serve him this death sentence. You can give it; you don’t have to be the executioner.”

I swallowed thickly. “Quil, I want this.”

He nodded once. “Okay. Then I’ll be there to help and support you in any way I can. Just know. You don’t have to. I can do it for you.”

I tilted my head, reaching for his hand. “Thank you, Quil.”

He kissed my fingers, and we strolled back to the study. My resolve felt more real now than it had been before.

Once I found out everything I needed to know from him… Silas Drummond was a dead man.

Thirty-Eight

DUN DRUMMOND

Dun Drummond, Sol, Verdune

13 Vony, Year 810

The sky was a deep,dark shade of indigo, with clouds drifting lazily in the moonlight. The moon itself hung full and heavy, pressed into the heavens and spilling pale light along the dips and hills of Dun Drummond.

Shadows pooled in the creases of the land, stretched long and dark across the grass until they merged with the black line of the treeline beyond. There wasn’t any movement. It felt as if time had ceased, and this was all there was.

The last time I’d been here, I hadn’t really seen any of it. My eyes had been open, but my thoughts had been lost to fear, my world reduced only to survival. I’d been under duress and was too busy breathing and trying not to scream to notice anything about the surrounding terrain.

The last time I’d been here, I’d felt like a fool. Now, even knowing better, the feeling crawled back under my skin, pricking at me.

And still… I had come back.

But not alone.

As my vision adjusted to the moonlight, I saw figures begin to emerge. Just as Quil had warned. There were slight movements in the shadows, heads rising above the hillocks.

The Ashbornes. They were watching us.

Hunting us.

They knew we were here. But they didn’t know we had a plan.

I could feel their certainty from here, their smug assumption that they had us boxed in, that we were already theirs. That they’d take me and drag me down into whatever filthy burrow within which they kept their captives. And then do whatever mindless, inbred animals did when they caught a woman alone.

But they weren’t expectingthisme. Not this time. I had no intention of being a dead weight tonight.

If the worst happened, Vael had promised to turn me. But only if the worst happened. I clung to that vow, but I still prayed it wouldn’t come to that. My feelings had not changed. I wasn’t dying here tonight. But I truly didn’t want to lose myself, either.

I glanced over to Cassian, waiting for his go-ahead, my pulse beating loud in my ears. He didn’t speak right away. Cassian never did. But his gaze swept over each of us in turn, checking in with each of his fighters like the general he was. Taking stock before the charge.

Quil was already slunk low, shoulders coiled and eyes narrowed to predatory slits, his attention fixed somewhere far ahead where only he could sense movement. He was already hunting before the first blow had even been struck, every muscle in his body humming with readiness.

Vael stood apart from him, not truly one for hand-to-hand combat; his strength lay in words and will. But he was here all the same, close enough that I could feel the quiet shield of his presence at my back. He was here for me, and, though he’d never sayit, I knew he’d burn through every drop of his blood, of his power, to keep me breathing.

Anton, by contrast, looked as though he’d been born for this moment. His fangs were already out, his breath shifting into something sharper, hungrier. His jaw flexed like he could already taste the metallic rush of blood. He was practically vibrating, a predator on the edge of a very welcome hunt.

Dmitri, as always, was harder to read. His expression was a mask carved from stone, but his shoulders were tight beneath his coat, the controlled tension of a man holding himself still by sheer will alone. One massive hand gripped the shaft of his axe, the other loose at his side, only waiting for Cassian’s call to charge forward.