Page 143 of Bitten & Burned
“Well, what if it’s not? What if it’s just—me? What if it’s stress? Or fatigue? Or travel? Or—hells—fuckingstressagain?” My voice cracked on that last one. “Because that seems a more likely explanation than a necklace that Silas himself gave me, trying to kill me. If the sigil’s Ashborne blood magic, wouldn’t Quil know about the amulet? And you don’t, right? Or Vael wouldn’t be sending for my father?”
Quil shook his head.
My eyes burned. “I’ve slept fitfully for months. I’ve been poisoned, hunted, drained, bled. I’ve run myself ragged trying to be useful. I haven’t rested. I haven’t breathed. Maybe I’m just breaking, and it has nothing to do with magic at all.”
I turned to Vael then, eyes shining.
“So go ahead,” I spat. “Tell my father I’m weak. That I couldn’t handle the pressure. That you had to send for him, not me. Tell him his daughter finally fell apart.”
Vael’s voice was quiet. Steady. “That’s not what I told him. And that’s not why he’s coming.”
I stilled.
“He’s coming because he loves you, Rowena. Because he had no idea you weresuffering.”
I blinked hard. My jaw trembled.
Vael stepped closer, his hands loose at his sides, like he didn’t dare reach for me again without permission. “You didn’t tell him. You wouldn’t. So I did.”
“I told him about the wound. I told him when it happened.”
“And you never updated him on it. He was of the understanding that it had healed because he hadn’t heard from you in months.”
“And what did you say?” I asked, the question small, strangled. “What did you tell him, Vael?”
“That something was wrong. That you weren’t healing. That you were in pain and afraid and getting worse. That we didn’t know why. And that you needed your father.”
I shook my head, a tear spilling down my cheek. “He’ll think I’m broken.”
“No,” Vael said, firmer now. “He’ll think you’re brave. For surviving this long. For holding it all together. For trying to protect everyone but yourself.”
His eyes were so soft it almost hurt to look at them. “He loves you. You’re his daughter.”
“Silas gave me the amulet to help with my symptoms. And when my father arrives, and looks at the damn thing, that’s what he’ll tell you.”
“And if that’s true, I will be the first to lie prostrate at your feet,” Vael replied.
“You should already be doing it,” I grumbled.
Vael’s lips twitched. Just slightly. “Noted.”
Dmitri exhaled a ghost of a breath that might have been a laugh, and Quil muttered, “You’re not wrong.”
But the air still pulsed with something sharp and unsure, grief tangled with love, fear knotted with duty.
“I don’t want him to see me like this,” I said quietly. “I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”
“You say that,” Quil murmured, his thumb brushing my knuckles, “like we haven’t already seen you like this.”
Dmitri added, voice velvet and aching, “And loved you for it anyway.”
I closed my eyes.
Loved me for it…
As if he could read my mind, Quil reached for me, his hand trailing down my arm to my hand. “Not loved. Not past tense.”
I blinked. He looked wrecked, like saying it cost him something.
