Page 73 of Bitten & Burned

“There you are, couldn’t wait to come see me, could you, Rowena? You always were an eager little pupil, weren’t you?”

Something about the way he said it, the way his lips caressed the words, made my skin crawl.

“And you were always a lecherous old man, weren’t you?” I countered. “Sorry about your watchdogs. We cut most of them down. I got quite a few myself. Really, placing all your hopes and dreams of security on a bunch of drug-addled simpletons was an oversight.”

“Necessary loss,” he replied. “Tell me… did you like my traps? I saw one of them catch you.”

I smirked. “Childish, all of them. I suppose that’s always been your problem, though. Still treating me like I’m one of your students. Does that do it for you? Is that what gets your blood pumping, Silas?”

“Not as much as facing your father and friends’ deaths got yours pumping.”

His eyes weren’t looking at me.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. I peered around, finally finding the real Silas on a balcony above us, looking down from the vaulted ceiling.

I rolled my eyes. “It’s over. I’m here. And I have all my vampires with me. None of your little traps worked, not even that one.”

“I see I taught you well,” he countered.

“I learned well,” I corrected him. “And I applied what I learned well. As I do every day in my work.”

“Work that you wouldn’t have if it weren’t for me.”

I didn’t rise to the bait. “Give up. I’m never choosing you. I’d rather die than have to look at you. I’d rather live the rest of my life with this fucking sigil on my leg than breathe the same air as you.”

“Really? You hate me so much, you’ll throw away your chance at salvation?”

I laughed. “I know there’s no cure. There’s nothing you can do for me. You’re just trying to milk this for all it’s worth.”

He snorted. “I can offer relief.”

“If it comes with the expense of ever having to see you again, I’ll have to pass. Now give up. At least give me this.”

He smirked. “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” I deadpanned. “That’s why I asked for it.”

“You’d like it if I gave up and turned myself in. So you could run off with your filthy vampires and let them do badly what I would do so well.”

“Ugh… You disgust me.” I wrinkled my nose. “Let me make this crystal clear: I will never be yours. Not in a million years. Not for all the money in the Verdunian Vaults. Not now, not ever.”

“Not with them in your veins, you wouldn’t… they’ve got you glamored.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Vael said. “Just because you’ve never had anyone who actually wanted you, doesn’t mean that’s what’s happening here. Rowena doesn’t bow to magic; she wields it.”

“Doesn’t wield it anymore, does she?” Silas asked with an evil grin.

My temper flared, and I had to physically stop and take a deep breath. When I opened my eyes, I stared at him again. Silas smiled like he’d won something.

“How does that feel, Mr. Vexley? Knowing that since she has that sigil, she’ll never be as powerful a witch as she once was? Especially since that’s what attracted you to her in the first place. You’re a collector, just like your wretched little maker, aren’t you?”

“That’s not true,” Vael sneered, turning to look at me, “It’s not true, Rowena.”

“I know, Vael.”

“Enough talking.” Anton lunged forward, teeth bared.

“Ah, yes, the savage pretty-boy. Tell me, pretty-boy, how long before you gave her your blood, hm? I’ve heard tales. “Did it work? Did she open her legs after you opened your veins? Did that maker of yours teach you how to get them to beg for it?”

I blinked. That was the first I’d heard about Anton’s maker, and it clearly wasn’t anything good based on his reaction upon hearing it.

“He taught me ruin. He made me a monster,” Anton snarled before he lurched forward.

Dmitri grabbed Anton before he could pounce. “Shut your damn mouth or I’ll shut it permanently…” Dmitri hissed.

“Volkov. The wolf. The loyal dog who fetched the mongrel pup. Do you really think she’d stay with you if she had a choice?”

Dmitri didn’t say anything, even as Anton thrashed in his arms, trying to get at Silas still.

“Hold steady, he’s trying to bait you all. All he has are words,” Cassian interrupted, calm and cutting.

Silas moved a bit closer, looking Cassian up and down. “The strategist. The fallen general. Tell me, do you plan out her pleasure the same way you plan out your battles?”

Cassian shot him a level-headed glare, but didn’t rise to the challenge.

Silas took a short walk around the balcony before turning and singling out Quil. “And you, Ashborne… back so soon? Here to tear me to pieces, hmm? ”

“Here to do whatever Rowena asks.”

“Well, that makes two of us, now, doesn’t it?”

“Don’t pretend you want anything consensual with her,” Vael seethed.

“Yes, yes, Mr. Vexley, I haven’t forgotten about you. A contemporary, so they say… tell me, how is it, sharing her with the other four in your coven? Perhaps we could work something out… You deliver her to me, and I still let you use her for whatever it was you used her for.”

“Interesting; you default to sexual insinuations.”

“Is it? That’s all you bloodsuckers care about. Sex and blood.”

“Those are both quite lovely, separate or together, that’s true. But…I’ve never once had to capture a woman to make her mine. They usually come on their own. I suppose you wouldn’t know about that, would you?”

If there was one big flaw that Silas had, it was that he could never back down from a verbal challenge, and Vael backed him into one very quickly. Quil began to move.

“Deliver her to me, and I’ll let you keep your pride, Vexley.”

“My pride, yes… Yours was stripped away, wasn’t it?

I suppose in your mind, loss of pride is the worst thing imaginable.

Let go from the Arcanum. Your wards were erased from Blackthorn.

Everyone is looking at you in disgust because they know what you are, now.

Quite a bit to happen to one man all at once, isn’t it? ”

I didn’t look as Quil snuck around the perimeter of the room, climbing up a ladder with the stealth of a snake slithering through the trees.

“Once Rowena’s mine, she’ll explain everything, and I’ll be reinstated.”

“Is that so? That’s awfully nice of her, considering what you’ve done.”

Quil moved quickly and silently as he moved in behind Silas.

“Yes, it is, she’s a clever girl. Too clever for you. She’ll tire of your petty tricks and come back to me.”

“And yet here she stands, the cleverest woman I know, and not yours,” Vael smirked.

Silas opened his mouth, but at that moment, Quil wrapped his arm around his neck and squeezed.

Silas rasped and clawed at Quil’s arm, which only made him hold tighter. “Not so verbose now, are you? You fucking bastard…”

A croaking sound came out of Silas’ mouth.

“By Camarae, I just want him to shut the fuck up,” Quil muttered, gingerly laying the man down on the floor of the balcony.

It wouldn’t be for long, and the others hurried as they went up the ladder as well, wrapping Silas in the rope they brought.

Quil knotted everything tightly, and they began to carry him down. Once on the ground, he awoke again. His ever-open mouth, still making noise.

“No, go ahead, drag me out onto the lawn,” Silas said, voice slurring and grinning madly as Dmitri tossed him over his shoulder and made for the door to the corridor.

I rolled my eyes hard. He didn’t shut up as he made it down the stairs.

“If you truly think that my followers would allow me to be carted off like this, you’re woefully more stupid than I originally thought, Dearheart.”

“Does that mean you’ll stop this madness and stop trying to control me?” I asked bluntly.

“I’m not trying to control you; everything I’m doing is for your own good!” Silas argued.

We moved quickly, the five of us surrounding Dmitri, so no surprise attacks could happen from the flanks. Then we quickly went out the front door. I was a bit on edge, especially when Silas started laughing and I saw the remaining Ashbornes circling us.

Quil put his hand out to stop us, and he strode forward, cupping his hands around his mouth.

He yelled loudly into the night. “Ashbornes! If you allow us safe passage with our bounty, you may keep Dun Drummond for your own. You will never see us here again.” After that, Quil made a sound that could have been a wolf howling, if not so jagged and raspy. It made my hair stand on end.

There were muffled and hushed words that flew through the air like flies on a rotting carcass, but soon came an answering sound to the howl that Quil had emitted.

Quil smirked and nodded at the rest of us. “Let’s go.”

“What did you say? What did he reply?” asked Vael.

“Doesn’t really translate, but I suppose I told him to ‘end the hunt’. He agreed. We’ll be safe to leave now.”

“Ah,” Vael said with a nod.

It was then that Silas started to look worried, tied from head to toe and bouncing on Dmitri’s shoulder. “What are they… Why are they just listening to you? Letting you pass? I… they get nothing if not from me!”

Dmitri chuckled as Silas started to struggle. Wriggling around like a worm.

“Stop it! Stop them, you inbred goons! You belong to me! You obey only me! Stop them!! I command you!!”

“He’s going to give me a headache if I have to listen to him the whole way,” I said, reaching up and rubbing the back of my neck.

“Ah, yes, of course…” Vael stuffed a handkerchief in Silas’s mouth, which muffled him considerably.

“Better?” he asked.

“Much.”