Page 115 of Bitten & Burned
Maybe that was the cruelest part—I’d only just begun to understand how badly I wanted them, and now they were already gone.
By the time Cassian returned with the tea, I was trying—and failing spectacularly—not to cry.
He moved slowly, bringing me the steaming cup of fragrant tea and setting it within reach, but not in my hands, as if he sensed even that would be too much right now.
“Chamomile,” he said softly. “With lemon and a touch of honey. It’s what I make for Vael when he’s brooding.”
I chanced a smile, but regretted it immediately. I clenched my jaw, willing it to stop quivering. “Thank you.”
Cassian sat down once more, pulling his chair a bit closer. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Yes,” I said. “No... I mean, yes. I mean… fuck, I don’t know. I wouldn’t make any sense if I did.”
“So don’t make any sense,” Cassian said with a smile. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m nearly five hundred. I’ve made peace with nonsense.”
My face twisted into some ghoulish half-smile, half-sob, and I buried it in the pillow.
“I’m so tired of being left,” I mumbled into the pillow. Clearly not mumbling enough, because he heard me clearly.
He didn’t flinch. He moved closer until he was kneeling beside me on the floor, his hand reaching for mine, resting his head on the bed as he stroked my back. “You haven’t been left, Rowena. They’d be here if they could be.”
The bond thrummed faintly with his steadiness, an anchor I both clung to and resented.
“Theycouldbe,” I argued.
“Not when the alternative is you being hurt again. That’s not a choice either Quil or Anton would ever make. You’re too special to them. This wasn’t even a decision. Of course, they want to be with you. That’s why they did this. So they can be with you, as long as you wish to be with them. They chose you, little dove. And part of choosing you is protecting you. You must realize—with five bonded vampires—you’re the most protected little witch in Verdune.”
He didn’t move. Not right away. He stayed, thumb tracing circles over the back of my hand as I tried to press myself deeper into the bed.
“I don’t want to be protected,” I whispered. The mark on my thigh pulsed angrily, as if mocking the words.
Cassian’s head lifted, his voice impossibly low and calm. “You do; you just want to choose how.”
“I don’t want to be alone.”
“You’re not.”
“I feel like I am. You’re here, I know that, but—” My chin wobbled. “I’m sorry,” I whispered automatically. “It’s not that you’re not enough...”
“Buthe’snot here, and he just was holding you hours ago,” Cassian said gently. I wasn’t sure if he meant Quil or Anton.
I wasn’t sure who I meant either.
And Vael…gods, even he felt absent, though the bond still carried the weight of his brooding silence.
But I nodded just the same, the tears coming, unwanted, but very predictable.
Cassian didn’t offer platitudes. He simply held me, let the tears fall where they would. He didn’t try to soothe them away.
He was just… there. He stayed. Steady as gravity.
“I know it hurts,” He said softly, stroking the back of my head. “You don’t have to pretend it doesn’t.”
That made it worse somehow. The kindness of it. The permission to fall apart.
A broken sound clawed its way up my throat. I shuddered, tried to bite it back, but Cassian was already there.
He moved, pulling back the blanket and climbing into bed with me.
