Page 75 of Bitten & Burned

A NEW NORMAL

Kravenspire, Sol, Verdune

Two Months later

The fire crackled in the hearth, and I turned the page in my book.

“Wait…” Quil’s voice in my ear. “I don’t read as fast as you…”.

I sighed good-naturedly, waiting for him to finish. His lips moved against my ear as he read, and I snuggled closer to him in the chair.

“There, now I’m done…” He kissed my temple as I turned the page.

Pain twinged in my hip, nothing like before Silas had been dispatched, but still not as painless as I would wish it to be. I grunted softly.

On bad days, the pain could be pretty terrible. But, on good days, it could be scarce or near non-existent. I wouldn’t know until I got out of bed, usually. Today was a bad day.

But I wasn’t letting it keep me down.

“You alright?” Quil asked, his nose brushing my ear. “Need to shift around?”

“I might need to stretch my legs,” I said softly as I rose, reaching for the cane I thought I’d left by the chair.

But my hand found only air.

“What are you looking for?” Quil asked.

“My cane…” My gaze darted around the room until I spotted it leaning against a chair on the far side. Relief slipped into a whisper. “There you are.”

I held out my hand. The cane trembled, then lifted—wobbling, awkward, but rising all the same. It floated across the room and dropped into my palm with more weight than grace.

A breath shuddered out of me. My leg still ached, but something inside me hummed, alive.

“I would have gotten it for you,” Quil murmured, a smile in his voice. “No need to show off.”

It was a lovely rosewood, carved into a vine and topped with a wide flower that was easy to get my fingers around as I walked. As much as I hadn’t wanted to get a cane, I had to admit, it helped immensely on days like today.

The bond hummed just there, a comfortable, low pitch that didn’t interrupt me from completing tasks, but comforted me when I needed something constant.

That’s what they were, my boys: constant.

They’d all proven to me that they were there for me in so many ways.

Dmitri, with his grounding presence, calmed me when I cried or when the feelings were too much for me to handle. I recalled how he’d spent time with me, helping me calm myself in those first tumultuous days of the bond after Vael had… after everything had happened.

“Careful, sweetheart.” Quil’s hand appeared at my lower back as I stepped over a cushion someone had left on the floor earlier.

Quil. Who had literally saved my life, carrying me away from my bad decisions and letting me lose myself in that cave of his. I would never be able to smell cave moss without thinking of him.

“Anton said he made you panno-chocolate or whatever,” Quil said softly. “If you want me to go get some for you?”

I smiled at Quil’s obvious and purposeful butchering of Anton’s language. When I looked into his eyes now, all I saw was warmth.

Warmth that had been there all along. I just didn’t know how to see it before.

“I’ll go now,” I said softly.

“He’s going to get mad I let you walk all that way.”

“The cane is so I can walk, Quil.”

“I know that, but you try explaining it to the Drama-Lord.”

“Drama-Lord?” I asked, laughing.

“If you don’t think that suits him, you’re lying.”

I shrugged. “You’re not wrong. But I’m going to get my ‘panno chocolates’ myself.”

Quil smirked. “I’ll come with you so he has someone to take it out on. I’ll just steal stray chocolate once he gets going.”

As we moved slowly down the hall, we passed by Vael’s chamber, the door wide open as we walked by.

“Rowena!” he called from his desk inside. “I had this manuscript sent to me, and I feel like your eyes would be better than mine…” He came out to stand alongside us as I stopped walking to look over the cover of the manuscript.

“This is the old Nordania script you were talking about, isn’t it?”

“That’s what I thought at first, but…” He pointed to one of the symbols, and I gasped. “It’s Elder Norlese!”

He grinned widely as if he’d just given me a gift, and, by all rights, he had.

“This is a complete manuscript, and it’s in Elder Norlese,” I murmured. “Gods, how long have we been looking for something like this?”

“You’ve been looking for it as long as I’ve known you, so…”

“Gods, I can’t wait to read it!” I grinned, and Quil reached between us to pluck the manuscript from my hands and give it back to Vael.

“Snacks first, old boring ledgers after.”

“How do you know it’s a ledger?” I asked.

Quil gave me a flat, sardonic look. “Because it’s always ledgers, Rowena. That’s all people keep—lists of debts, florins, gold, silver, whatever-the-fuck currency they’re hoarding.”

“If it’s Elder Norlese, it would be Druvenvolt coins,” I corrected. “Druvenvolt’s an old tree, nearly gone now because of deforestation, but they used to carve—”

“Yes, I know what Druvenvolt is,” Quil cut in. “I’ve known Dmitri, and the handle of his axe is made from the stuff. Now let’s get your snacks before you start giving me a full lecture.”

“I’d quite like the lecture, actually,” Vael said.

“Snacks first. Sapiophilia later,” Quil retorted.

“Later works for me,” Vael said smoothly. “Anticipation is half the pleasure.”

I rolled my eyes, stomach growling in protest. “Alright, you two—enough. I’m actually hungry, so let’s go get snacks before I starve.”

“Good plan. Sugar rush, then old ledgers,” Quil said.

“Old ledgers after washing my hands. I don’t want to get chocolate on the Elder Norlese manuscript,” I added.

“Oh gods no, what would everyone think?” Quil drawled.

Vael rolled his eyes. “I would love to hear your thoughts once you’ve read it.”

“Oh, try and stop me from giving you my thoughts,” I said with a little laugh.

Quil slipped his arm around me and steered me to the kitchen. “Come on, you said you were starving.”

I could smell the kitchen long before we got there, and it made me want to hurry in, but I knew that today, I wouldn’t be able to handle such a pace. Instead, I steadily made my way there.

“Darling, come now, why did Quil force you to walk all the way here? I would have come to you!” Anton gushed, rushing to my side.

“Anton, I know you’re looking out for me, but the cane is so I can walk. Not so I have to remain chairbound.”

“I know, but I would serve you no matter what…”

“I know you would, Anton,” I murmured as I tugged him closer, pressing a kiss to his jaw. “Now, Quil says you have my favorite?”

“Mmmhmm, indeed I do…” He found my lips and kissed them softly. “I also have pain au chocolat.”

Quil groaned behind me.

I grinned and took a seat at the counter, resting my cane against the chair’s leg.

He brought over a plate with not just pain au chocolat but also some little miniature crepe suzettes (complete with mini flambe) and mille feuilles.

“My, but you’ve been busy,” I crooned, pulling him down for another kiss.

“Yes. Now eat up, darling.”

“You’re going to make me fat,” I grumbled.

“Good. If that is what your body needs, that is what I will give you,” Anton countered.

Quil nudged my shoulder with his. “You think I won’t still absolutely devour you if you put on a little weight?”

“If I keep eating buttery pastries and sugar all day, I’m going to put on more than a little weight.”

Quil rolled his eyes. “I’m with Anton. You’ll put on what you need to, and then you’ll be content. Finally.”

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 was there. 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 course he could 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.

And, compared to a year before, of course, it was worse in the mobility and pain management department, but I had expanded in other areas.

I’d fixed my relationship with my father. I’d added more to my love life until it was full to bursting.

And I was… dare I say it? Happy.

“If lifting her and holding her in the air is cheating, then so is… whatever that position is, Quil…” Cassian mused.

“He’s just showing off because he’s lithe and flexible. He can’t compare with my pure strength,” boasted Dmitri.

“Gods, I don’t even know how to compete with any of you,” Vael said softly. “If only there were some way….” He glanced over at me and winked.

“That’s well and truly cheating,” Anton protested. “He can just talk her there with his voice. None of the rest of us can do that.”

I was happy. Not happy despite anything. Just… happy.

And of course, there would be days that felt worse than others. But there would also be better days.

My compass had shifted. True north was different. But it just meant I had to make changes to my navigation plans.

I took a deep breath, breathing in the sweet and buttery air amid the thoroughly raucous debate that had devolved into which one of them ravishes me the best, and I knew that I would never let this go.

This was my life now. The good days. The bad ones. The ravishing.

Not the life I had before, not the one I’d dreamed of—but the one I had fought to live. The one that I wanted to keep. And as I looked into each of their faces, laughing now instead of arguing, I knew this was the one that wanted to keep me.