Page 50 of Bitten & Burned

Twenty-Four

UN MONSTRE

Kravenspire, Sol, Verdune

Anton reached behind me. He grabbed the thing that was curled around my waist.

I heard them cry out. “No! No no no no no no—”

Anton’s hand clamped around my attacker’s throat and squeezed, dragging him off me with inhuman strength.

He held him aloft with one arm, legs kicking, back scraping against the wall as Anton lifted him higher—past eye level, past the sconces, until the thing’s boots were scratching for traction against wood.

“You touched her,” Anton muttered, like he was testing the words in his mouth. “You tasted her.”

He leaned in, nose brushing against the man’s jaw as he inhaled deep, slow, and deliberate.

“Do you know what happens to men who do that?”

The Ashborne drudge whimpered. Anton bared his teeth in what almost looked like a grin.

“They die, of course. But not quickly. Quickly is for mercy. You don’t get mercy.” He tilted his head, mock-thoughtful. “I could peel the skin from your face like a ripe orange. Start with the eyelids. Or maybe I’ll crush your jaw so your tongue just hangs there, flapping while you try to scream.”

The Ashborne drudge cried out, but Anton didn’t stop.

“I’ve killed hundreds,” he said, tone conversational. “But it’s the ones like you that I remember. The begging. The sobbing. The way your bones sound when they break. Gods, I could play your spine like a harp.” He smiled wider. “You’ll make such lovely music.”

And then he slammed the man against the wall.

Once.

Blood painted the paneling. Teeth scattered to the floor like dice.

Twice.

A rib cracked. I heard it. Felt it.

“Please—please—” the man begged.

Anton pressed his forehead to the man’s. “I want to take my time and make sure you feel every second of this. But unfortunately… There are other problems to which I must attend. Je regrette, mon ami…”

The third slam silenced him.

The body dropped like butchered meat.

Anton moved again.

Rellin was crawling, dragging lifeless legs behind him in a smear of blood and what I wanted to believe was snot. He didn’t make it far, but he still tried to flee.

Anton caught him by the ankle, yanked him back like he was nothing. Rolled him onto his back with one foot, then dropped to his haunches beside him. Leisurely. Almost curious.

Rellin screamed, but Anton just looked at him.

A long, quiet moment.

Then, “You stink.”

He leaned close—nose almost brushing Rellin’s cheek. “Rotten blood. Feral nerves. Ashborne cowardice.”

Anton bared his fangs—not just a flash, but a slow drag of canines against his lower lip.

“You want me to bite you, don’t you?” he whispered. “You think death will be faster if I do.”

Rellin whimpered, shaking his head.

“You’d like that. To be worth the hunger. To matter. Even as food.” Anton tilted his head, studying him like Rellin was a bad cut of meat. “But I don’t want your blood. It smells like filth and fear. Like mold on a corpse. Yes, I believe you smell more dead than I do, you filthy waste of space.”

He grabbed Rellin by the throat again, tightening just enough to make him wheeze.

“I could drink you anyway,” he murmured. “Not for the nourishment. Not even for the kill. Just to feel you suffer. To hear you scream through a crushed windpipe while your life force drains from you, into me. And I’d use it to kill more of you.”

Rellin choked. Kicked. Sobbed.

“But you’re not even worth the taste,” Anton said. And that was the real cruelty—spoken like a verdict, sharp as a blade. “You’re beneath consumption. You’re a pile of refuse.”

He began to lift him. Just like the other one.

But he might know something.

“ANTON!” I shouted. “Anton—stop. I want him dead too—but not yet. Vael needs to talk to him.”

That seemed to cut through.

Anton paused.

Then—with a disgusted flick of his wrist—he dropped Rellin like he was nothing. The man crumpled to the floor, twitching and sobbing in relief.

Anton turned and came for me, expression blank, hands trembling with adrenaline as he scooped me up. Not looking back. Not saying another word—save one, which he spat like a warning shot, “Dmitri.”

Dmitri appeared instantly. Saw the blood. Saw Rellin. Didn’t hesitate.

He hauled him off like a bag of garbage while Anton carried me back into the firelight.

He held me close, brought my hands to his lips, and kissed them. He frowned as he looked at my bloody fingertips. “You were clawing at the floor…”

“I was trying to get away, and then…oh gods…” I craned my neck, looking into the room. “FIG! Fig, where is he? FIG! Someone please… they threw him… against the—”

“Rowena...” It was Quil. He was… quiet.

I didn’t want to look, but I knew I had to.

Fig’s tiny body, cradled in Quil’s arms. Still. Deadly still.

“No…” I sobbed as I reached for him, wrenching myself from Anton’s arms. “Fig, I’m so sorry…” I sobbed as Quil deposited him, gently, in my arms. I fell to the ground, sobbing as I held him. He should have come back by now, right?

He should have come back.

I looked around, seeing the smoldering fireplace. I got to my feet, shrugged off Quil and Anton, and stumbled over to where the ashes were piled. I deposited him in the middle of the ashes. His little broken body. “Please…” I begged. “Please come back… Please Fig, I can’t… please baby come back…”

“Rowena?” Quil’s hand was on my shoulder. “ Rowena, sweetheart, come here…” I went. I let him hold me, I buried my face in his shoulder, and sobbed.

I felt like my heart was going to break. I couldn’t do this without him. I hadn’t been without him since I’d gotten him. Since my mother gave him to me. Gods, this couldn’t be—

“Rowena…” Anton’s hand was insistent on my shoulder. “Darling… look.”

He was pointing to the pile of ashes in the fireplace. The pile of ashes that was now squirming around. I fell to my knees again, clasping my hands so I wouldn’t reach in and grab him yet.

His little head poked out of the ash, golden eyes blinking blearily up at me. He made a little sound. Like a screech. A mew.

He stood, chubby and gangly, not great on his feet yet. Glowing with embers that were dying down as he toddled towards me. Not as big as he had been, just a tiny kitten now.

By the time he got to me, I could scoop him up, singeing my finger a bit, but I didn’t care.

He was okay.

Fig was okay.

I held him close. He meowed, rubbing his head against my chin.

“Thank Camarae,” Quil muttered, falling to his knees and cradling me in his arms. “He’s okay.”

“He’s okay,” I murmured, hissing in pain as his fur singed my hurt fingers.

“I’ll take him…just until he cools down,” Quil said, holding out his arms. He cradled Fig in the crook of his elbow.

Anton reached for me, scooped me into his arms again, and carried me over to the armchair, the only one left standing.

I curled into him, sniffling. He pulled my hand up and began kissing my sore fingers. “Darling… are you… truly alright?”

I nodded. “Fig’s… he’s okay…” I straightened so I could look, could see him in Quil’s arms, playing with a strip of leather that Quil was dangling over him.

“Yes, darling, Fig is fine. But are you okay?” He kissed my fingers again, and I winced.

“I’m fine, but my fingers…I’m really wishing I hadn’t clawed up the floor now…”

He swallowed thickly, his throat bobbing, as he gently kissed my palm. “You shouldn’t have had to… I should have gotten there sooner.”

“You got there as fast as you could.”

“Not fast enough,” he murmured. His voice dropped lower. Rougher. “I wanted to break their bones so slowly they begged me to end it. I wanted to make them understand that they don’t touch what is mine…”

His fingers flexed around my hand. Not tight. Just… desperate. Still shaking with all the things he hadn’t said.

“I wanted to peel their skin away inch by inch and listen to them scream until their throats gave out.” His lips twitched in the remnants of a smile. His eyes were dark, nearly black, and his fangs were bloody. He was panting like a wild animal.

I should have been afraid of him.

Of what he was capable of.

But I wasn’t.

Instead of fear, I felt safe. Safer than I’d ever felt.

Because it was me he’d come for. It was me that he’d protected.

He blinked suddenly, closing his mouth and frowning, looking at me with new eyes. “I’m sorry… mon coeur… I’m so sorry, you need me here, not as a monster…I didn’t mean to scare you, Rowena.”

“I wasn’t scared,” I whispered. “I was before, but then, you got there.”

Anton looked at me then, really looked—eyes wide, like he didn’t believe me.

“I should terrify you. I’m… nothing but a feral animal when I’m like that. Like this.”

“Maybe, but you’re mine. Mon monstre. My… Anton.”

He blinked, shaken. “Even like that? Covered in carnage? With blood in my mouth and gore on my hands?”

I reached up, wiping blood from his cheek with trembling fingers. “You scared them. Not me.”

A breath shuddered out of him. His forehead dropped to mine, and for a moment, we just sat like that—his arms around me, my ruined hands cupping his face.

“I don’t want you to see me like that again,” he murmured. “I only want you to have good things. Beautiful things. Pleasant things. Never that. Never again.”

“If it means I’m still alive to see you, to hear your growling and see the bloodbath in your wake… then I do want it. I want it, Anton.”

He didn’t answer. Just pressed his forehead to mine and pulled me closer. Tighter. I winced. My leg was still sparking with pain, shooting all over my body. Still wet and sticky from the blood.

“Thank Inera, you’re alright!” I turned to see my father reaching for me, taking my hand gently. He swallowed thickly when he saw what had happened, saw the blood. “You are, alright, aren’t you?”

“I’m fine. This isn’t mine,” I said, gesturing to the blood.

Anton straightened his back. “I apologize that you had to see me in… such a state, Mr. Marlowe.” Completely serious, despite the condition of his shirt.

“If that state is why my daughter still breathes, I’m not sorry at all.”

He pulled me close, hugging me tightly despite the blood.

A shriek from across the room startled me, and I craned my neck, looking for the source of the sound, and I saw Dmitri slamming Rellin down in front of a pillar, one of the stone pillars in the center of the room. His arms were drawn back, tied behind him, while he keened in agony.

Vale approached then, kneeling.

“I want to hear,” I murmured, patting Anton’s shoulder expectantly. He scooped me up and brought me closer. Closer enough to hear what Vael was saying.

My father followed.

Vael didn’t move at first.

He knelt before Rellin the way a priest might kneel beside a penitent—quiet, deliberate, composed.

He didn’t speak right away.

Didn’t demand.

He waited.

Waited until Rellin’s breath came faster. Until the silence pressed too hard against his ribs. Until the weight of being watched became unbearable.

Then Vael finally said, “Are you comfortable?”

Rellin spat blood at his feet.

Vael sighed, barely a breath. “That’s not an answer.”

“You’re not getting one.”

“Oh,” Vael murmured, “but I will.”

He reached forward—unhurried—and wiped a smear of blood from Rellin’s chin with a folded square of cloth from his coat pocket. It was white. Clean. Completely out of place.

He pocketed it again. “Tell me your name.”

“You already know it.”

“Tell me anyway.”

Rellin sneered. “Go fuck yourself.”

Vael smiled faintly. “Now, see… I could take offense to that. But I won’t. Because you’re still imagining this is a negotiation.”

He rose to his feet slowly and circled behind Rellin—just out of reach, just close enough to feel.

“This isn’t a negotiation, Rellin. This is your one opportunity to matter.”

“I matter plenty.”

“To whom?” Vael asked, gentle as a blade sliding out of a sheath. “To your brothers? Your dogs? The things you traveled with?”

Rellin’s jaw twitched.

Vael stepped closer. “Tell me about the man who sent you.”

Silence.

“I’m not asking who he is,” Vael clarified, still circling. “I’m asking what he promised. What made you crawl down a mountain to take something that doesn’t belong to you?”

More silence. But there was hesitation now. Breathing gone ragged. Sweat prickling at the back of Rellin’s neck.

“You were promised something,” Vael continued. “You’re too stupid to be here on your own. So someone offered you something valuable. What was it?”

Rellin’s voice came out hoarse. “Land.”

Vael paused.

“A place to settle. Wards. Shelter. He said it’s ours when this is done.”

“What place?”

A beat.

Then, two words. “Dun Drummond.”

Anton inhaled sharply. Quil’s whole body shifted, like he was preparing to lunge. Even though I now had all the pieces of the puzzle, I couldn’t make them fit together.

Dun Drummond. That was Silas’s family estate. So he sent them. This wasn’t just a case of him happening upon Ashborne blood wards, using one, and pissing them off. He was working with them. All to get me.

Gods.

But Vael remained still.

Still behind Rellin. Still patient.

He didn’t even blink.

“I see,” he said softly. “And what were the terms?”

Rellin laughed. “Wasn’t no bloody terms, bloodsucker. Just an oath.”

Vael circled him slowly. Calm. Impeccable. Measured.

“I’ll ask you again, differently,” he said, voice barely louder than a whisper. “What did he promise you? What was his oath?”

Rellin made a wet snorting sound. “The land.”

“For?”

“Her, of course.” Rellin’s dark eyes found mine. “He wanted that broken little witch bad. He’d give up anything for her. Said we’d get the land if we delivered her. Those were his words. Delivered.” He smiled when he said it, grinning luridly at me. My skin went cold.

“Delivered her,” Vael echoed. “Not unharmed. Not untouched. Just… delivered.”

Rellin laughed. A bitter, broken sound. “Didn’t care what state she was in. Said—and I quote—‘she’ll be grateful to anyone who puts a stop to it.’”

He grinned then, wild-eyed. “Didn’t even flinch when we told him what we’d do. Just looked bored. Said it’d make her easier to handle.”

It felt as if the room had dropped ten degrees.

Anton’s arms locked around me tight enough to choke. Quil’s breath hitched so hard it sounded like a snarl.

But Vael didn’t move.

Didn’t even look. But I saw it, roiling under the surface. Heat. Anger. Rage.

He just tilted his head, voice still smooth. “So he wanted her broken.”

Rellin chuckled. “Thought she’d beg for him to save her. Said if she was scared enough—hurt enough—she’d cling to him like a fucking lifeline.”

I couldn’t breathe.

The pain flared—bright, unbearable.

He knew.

Silas knew what they’d do. What they’d try. And he’d let it happen.

Worse—he’d planned for it. Expected it. Wanted it, even.

My hands shook. My leg burned. The blood sang in my ears.

I wanted to scream. To vomit. To disappear.

But all I could do was whisper, “He knew…”

Then everything went black.