Page 245 of Bitten & Burned

I huffed out a sigh. Both of them were ridiculous.

“She’ll put on what?” Cassian asked.

“They want to fatten me up,” I said, popping one of the mini crepes into my mouth, the orange sauce coating my tongue. “Stop them, Cassian, they’re evil.”

Cassian chuckled and slid into the seat beside me. “Nothing evil about wanting you content…”

“Gods, you’re all in this together, aren’t you?”

“You speak as if we want you to do something terrible,” Dmitri mused from behind me. I hadn’t even known he was there, and yet now he was in the middle of the conversation.

“Yes, your awful mates, wanting you to be comfortable and happy,” Vael added from the doorway. “Whatever shall you do with us?”

I bit back a grin and took a dainty bite of a mille-feuille.

“I guess I’m outnumbered.”

Fig’s resounding meow from the floor cinched it, and none of them could keep a straight face.

“The boss has spoken,” Anton said solemnly, dropping a bit of unflambeed crepe on the floor for Fig to eat.

“You’re going to spoil him,” I warned.

“I can’t spoil him, I can’t spoil you… Who am I to spoil, ma cher? I’m a man full of?—”

“Shit,” Quil muttered under his breath.

“Stop it, you,” Anton growled, swatting at him with his towel. “What I meant to say is, I am a man full of love, and all I want is to shower you with it.”

I smirked. “And I have to keep you on your toes, because I am a woman, now full of sugar and butter, and how am I to burn it off, Anton?”

“I could give you a rather long list of ways you could burn it off,” Anton mused.

“I could add to it,” Quil said, sneaking another bite of pastry.

That just devolved into a rather heated debate of whether the counter across from me was too tall for “burning it off”.

And, as I sat there in the kitchen, with all my boys around me, including Fig, I realized: this was my new life.

True, I still had the sigil, but with Silas gone and my days full of love, light, and the occasional Elder Norlese manuscript, I had a full life. A different life from the one I’d imagined for myself, but a full one nonetheless.

I was getting control of my magic back. It was slow, but it wasthere. And every time I felt Inera’s power tingling through my fingers, it felt like a victory.

“All you have to do is lift her up there,” Anton said. “Honestly, you’re making it too difficult. Just lift and set. She’s waist height, it works a treat.”

I laughed, resting my chin on my hand.

I found, even with the sigil still burning on my leg some days, I couldn’t complain about this or find a single other thing to nitpick.

My life was as perfect as it could be.

“Well, that’s just cheating,” Quil protested. “Dmitri’s got tree trunk arms, so of coursehecould lift and hold her in the air!”

He looked at me for support.

“Don’t look at me,” I stated. “I love Dmitri’s tree trunk arms.”

Quil scoffed, but there was a twinkle in his eye.