Page 142 of Bitten & Burned
“We?” I bit out. “Who’s we? Because last I checked, I’m the one with a godsdamned brand carved into my flesh. I’m the one?—”
“—who is dying,” Vael interrupted, and the room went silent.
His voice broke at the end. Just a little. Just enough. “And I’m the one who’s trying to stop it.”
“No,” I snapped. Too fast. Too hard. “I am not dying.”
Vael opened his mouth, but I didn’t give him the chance.
“I’m tired. I’m in pain. I’m angry and sick and miserable and yes, maybe I’m a little out of my godsdamned mind—” My voice cracked, but I pushed through it, breath coming sharp and shallow. “But I’m not dying. I won’t die. I haven’t come this far to just… to end here.”
“Mishka…” Dmitri said softly. I ignored him.
“I don’t need anyone calling in reinforcements. I don’t need my father barging into my life just because you all think you know what’s best.”
“I don’t know what’s best,” Vael admitted quietly. “That’s why I sent for your father. He needs to look at that amulet.”
My jaw clenched. My heart ached. I wanted to scream, to hit something, to run into the forest and tear at the trees until they bled.
But I couldn’t move.
Dmitri stepped closer. Not enough to crowd me, just enough to be there.
“We don’t want to lose you in pieces,” he said, voice low, velvety, and grief-stricken. “We don’t want to lose you at all.”
My breath caught. My legs wobbled.
Because I knew what he meant. I felt what he meant.
He wasn’t just talking about my body. He was talking about my mind. My spirit. The way I’d been unraveling—slowly, steadily—thread by bloody thread.
Suddenly, I didn’t know where to look. Vael’s eyes were still on me, golden and fierce. Quil’s hands held mine again, rough and steady. Dmitri stood at my side, every inch of him carved from quiet strength.
And me?
I was just… breaking.
Tears spilled before I could stop them.
“Why do you think it’s the amulet?” I asked, voice ragged. “Why does everyone keep blaming that? Silas said it was meant to help me?—”
Vael looked at me like I’d just cracked his ribs open with my bare hands. His lips parted. Then closed. His golden eyes shimmered—but not with light. With terror.
So it was Quil—blunt, broken Quil—who filled the silence.
“Why do you think it’s helping?” he asked softly.
Iturned to him.
“You think the timing’s a coincidence?” he went on, still holding my hands. “You wore it, and you got worse. You took it off, and you got better. You put it back on, and now we’re watching you bleed yourself raw because the pain won’t stop. You think that’s helping?”
“I don’t know what’s helping,” I said, sobbed, frustration shredding my voice. “I don’t know what’s hurting. I don’t know anything except—I am so tired of being the battlefield.”
I pulled my hands from Quil’s, clutched my head like I could hold my skull together.
“You think it’s the amulet?” I barked a bitter, shaking laugh. “You all think it’s the amulet?”
I looked around at them—Dmitri, Quil, Vael. Their faces carved from worry, lit from within by fear.
