Page 52 of Bitten & Burned
I was sitting in front of the door when I heard footsteps. Perhaps Anton, coming back for the tray he’d left earlier. I wasn’t sure if she’d eaten from it, but I’d placed it just inside the door.
It wasn’t Anton.
It was Vael.
He stopped beside me.
“Move,” he said. But there was no venom—nothing sharp left in him. Just something raw and painful. Ruin. His voice cracked around the word like brittle bone.
I looked up. He looked worse than I had ever seen him. Coat unbuttoned. Hair in disarray. Blood still crusted at his temple, smeared into his hairline. A man unraveled.
I shook my head. “Leave her be.” My voice was quiet, no louder than a murmur.
“I need…” Vael trailed off, running a hand over his face, his mouth. “I need to see her, Dmitri… please…”
A quiet plea. Not the scholar’s measured tone. Not a vampire’s icy calm. Just a man, utterly broken.
“Not like this, you don’t.”
“Don’t you see? I need to speak to her. I need to… fix this. I don’t know how—throw myself at her feet, at her mercy, take whatever judgment she gives me? I don’t know. All I know is I cannot sit here one second longer without seeing her.”
“Maybe you can’t,” I said. “But you will.”
Vael’s breath caught, harsh and sharp, a sound escaped, something wriggling and almost too quiet. A sob. He scrubbed his hands over his face, pressing both against his eyes hard as if he could stop it from coming. Hold back the tears, but they came anyway.
“I ruined it,” he whispered. “Ruined her… gods, Dmitri, I threw her— did you see it? Did you see what I did to her? I threw her, I threw her, Ihurther.”
He hadn’t thrown her.
But he might as well have.
She’d stumbled when he let her go, hit the ground hard, the pain clear in the sound of her breath.
And now he couldn’t stop saying it—“I threw her”—over and over, like bleeding the words out would absolve him.
It wouldn’t.
Guilt was easy. It made him the victim. Made this about how he felt.
But Rowena was the one still on the floor where he’d left her.
And I wasn’t about to let him near her again just because his grief got loud. I didn’t move. I was solid—a sentinel between them. He had hurt her. And there was no way anything else was getting through me to hurt her again. Vael included.
Vael’s breath came in sputtering gasps as he tried to form the words. “She looked at me like she didn’t recognize me. Like she couldn’t believe what I was saying to her. Like I’d… ripped the rug out from under her. She just… I saw it. I saw what I did! I plannedsocarefully and I did everything, all of it for her, and then I…” he was full-on weeping now. “Ihatemyself.”
I looked at him. Softened when I realized that he was just a man. An incredibly intelligent man, but a man nonetheless. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, but he had. “I know you hate yourself, but… this isn’t about you.”
“How can you say that? I am the one who caused all of this. I’m the one who did all of it. I’m the monster.”
I nodded. “Yeah. You hurt her. You did. I know you didn’t mean to. I know you’re gutted, but do you want to help?” I leaned forward, dropping my voice so only he could hear, and only if he leaned closer. “Stop making it about how you feel. Let her breathe. Let her cry. Sit in this for a while longer. Accept that it’s not getting fixed tonight. Let her hateyou for now. And then… when the storm calms. You show her you’re more than your worst moment.”
Vael’s mouth opened and closed. No words came. His shoulders sagged, all that righteous fury hollowed out to something brittle.
“I just wanted—” he tried, but it crumbled. He buried his face in his hands instead, shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
He quieted down eventually, though not completely. The silence that followed was splintered, thousands of pieces strewn about. Grief echoed even in his breath.
Then the door rattled softly behind me.
