Page 25 of Bitten & Burned
“This is why I wanted to talk to them first, Vael. To avoid something like this.” I looked at each of them, venturing a glance at Quil and faltering slightly because the man was glowering, and it ratcheted my nerves up to an eleven. I took a moment to swallow thickly and choose my next words. “I’ll go back to my flat…”
“No,” Vael protested.
I put my hand up to silence Vael as well. He stumbled over his words, but began again, this time in earnest. “No, Rowena, you’d be safer here, everyone thinks so?—”
“As I told him,” I glanced over to Quil. “I’m talking. And you should be listening.”
Vael’s mouth snapped closed, and he crossed both his arms.
I continued, “I’ll go back to my flat, put it on the market, and I’ll move into Vael’s. ”
It was quiet in the room for a long moment.
“Are you finished?” Vael asked.
I nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“You don’t need to do that. This is an enormous house, there should be no reason why Quil can’t?—”
“This is his home. Not mine. I don’t have a right to it. He does.”
Vael looked a bit angry, his face puffing up as he tried not to raise his voice. “You’re with me. I live here. Therefore, you have a right to be here.”
“I am not one of you,” I replied. “End of discussion. I’ll leave at first light this next Comday. I was already planning on remaining for the week, so I’ll stay for the week.”
Vael was floundering, on the verge of panicking. “But what if something happens, and you’re alone? What then?”
“Pain builds character,” I stated, smirking a little, and hoping Quil heard me. “And that’s something of which I am apparently in desperate need. Thank you all for considering it. I’m going to go back to bed.”
I was tired in every sense of the word. Exhausted, even. I felt like crying, but not because of anything that happened here, but just because it felt like my life was closing in. I couldn’t travel now without being in severe pain. If I were alone, I would be at the mercy of the sun—with no Vael beside me once daylight drove him to ground.
“Rowena, don’t… we’re not through discussing it...”
“It sounded as if you were. It’s up to all of you. If one of you doesn’t want me here, then… I won’t be here.”
Quil was strangely quiet. His leg was bouncing rhythmically in the chair where he’d seated himself. He was chewing on his bottom lip.
“Quil isn’t the deciding vote,” Anton said plainly. “Ours is a democracy; if we did this pass-fail, we’d never do anything, because Quil doesn’t likeanything.”
It struck me as almost absurd—immortals older than dynasties holding to something like a council, as if centuries of Verdunian senate squabbles hadn’t taught the world better.
Quil made a noise between a growl and a hiss, baring his teeth. “I like things. Just because I’m not sashaying through life like some aged-out debutante with a bottomless coin purse doesn’t mean I don’t like things.”
“Sashaying?” Anton repeated, laughing. “My, but that’s a large word for you, Quil. Have you been reading behind our backs?”
Quil’s lip curled. “I’ve got something for your back?—”
He drew a knife from inside his coat, the blade catching the low lamplight as he lunged.
Cassian moved faster. One massive hand slammed againstQuil’s chest, the other catching Anton as he stepped forward—holding both men apart like they were no more trouble than children.
“Enough.” His voice cracked through the room like a thunderclap—low, final, and impossible to ignore.
I blinked, and an arm slipped around my waist. I recognized Vael’s comforting presence, his scent: agarwood and leather-bound books. I relaxed into him, reaching to clasp his other hand.
While Cassian’s command dropped the silence, the air was still humming with the threat of Quil’s violence.
He lowers the knife, still glowering at Anton. The latter smirks over Cassian’s shoulder, as if he’s already bored with the proceedings.
