Page 110 of Bitten & Burned
“We can run very quickly when we need to,” Anton murmured. “I felt your panic. I was closer. But Cassian’s likely been running since then.”
“I felt the bond settle about halfway here, but I wanted to be certain,” Cassian explained.
He entered the room fully, still flushed, hair mussed. He knelt beside me, ran his knuckles down my cheek, and wiped away a tear.
“Are you alright, little dove?” he asked, pressing a kiss to my forehead.
No. I wasn’t. But if I said so, they’d unravel.
“I’m fine,” I whispered. “Quil took care of it.”
Cassian’s eyes flicked to Quil. “Good. I want a full report. I’ll be with you in a moment.”
“You can discuss it in front of me,” I said, firmer than I felt. “I’d prefer it. I don’t like being left in the dark.”
“Of course.” He kissed my brow again, then straightened. “What happened?”
Anton began. “I left to go to the market in Serpentine Bay. I wanted to buy some gifts for Rowena.”
Cassian nodded. And between Quil and Anton, I heard everything.
Every detail. Quil’s voice broke more than once
When I realized how close it had gotten—how close they’d come to doing more—I broke down completely, sobbing into Anton’s shirt.
“Darling, what is it?” he asked.
“I thought they—” I choked. “Quil, thank you. I thought?—”
“No, no. They weren’t trying to… anything like that,” Quil soothed.
“They weren’t?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Why?” I asked.
“Yeah, why?” Anton added. “Why would they go to all of that trouble just to… ” He gestured vaguely with his hand.
“I don’t know,” Quil said with a shrug that felt just a bit too practiced.
Cassian, ever the soldier, narrowed his eyes. “Is there more you’re not telling us?”
Quil sighed, wiping his hands on his trousers before looking back at Cassian. “They were on bloodroot,” he stated.
“Bloodroot?” Cassian and Anton echoed in unison.
The word echoed inside my head, like it was trying to carve out meaning.
Bloodroot.
Where had I?—?
I blinked.
The letter. Thalia’s letter.
She hadn’t explained it, not fully—just written in her hurried, smudged hand that she’d come across the word in old records. That it felt important. That I was better at piecing these things together than she was.
