Page 79 of Bitten & Burned
You’re not broken for wanting it.
You’re not weak for enjoying it.
And you are not to blame for the moment it stopped being safe.
A sob slipped out of me—thin, more breath than sound.
Cassian just held me tighter. “If he’d bitten you and it hadn’t felt good, we’d be having a very different conversation.”
That startled a laugh out of me, wet and shaking. “Gods, that’s true, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is.” He rested his forehead gently against mine. “Pleasure doesn’t make you complicit. It makes you alive.”
I settled into the warmth of his embrace, letting things stretch…then jolted upright again. “Oh gods. Did you all know it? Could the bond like… tell you that I was—that we were...doing things?”
His expression shifted… he pointedly did not look me in the eyes. “Well…”
“Oh gods, this is embarrassing…” I groaned, scooping Fig up and crawling out of Cassian’s lap and into my bed, where I promptly burrowed under the many blankets. Fig didn’t seem to understand my immense embarrassment, so he climbed back out to perch on my pillow and clean his face. Cassian shifted at the bottom of the bed where he sat, turning to look at me, the lump who used to be Rowena.
“Rowena…”
“I’m not here. I’ve perished. I died from mortification, not blood loss.” I burrowed deeper. “Tell everyone I went peacefully, and it wasn’t Quil’s fault.”
Cassian sounded like he was trying not to laugh. “It’s not like that. We didn’tseeanything.”
“But you felt it?” I asked, poking my head out once more.
He paused. Holding the silence before replying.
“Vaguely.”
“Oh gods, that’s so muchworse…”
“Rowena, you don’t need to be embarrassed—wait—how is that worse?”
“Because itis,” I wailed. “Gods, Vael is going to scowl at me until the end of my days. He’ll never forgive me at this rate. I should be locked up or something. I shouldn’t be allowed to… make these decisions right now. I’m too… strung up.”
“Well, yes… we could tell that as well. Emotionally. Not physically. Although… that too.”
I let out a sound somewhere between a whimper and a shriek. “You are not helping.”
“I wasn’t trying to,” he replied, the smile apparently in his voice.
“This is why people write tragic vampire poetry, you know.”
“We’re deeply misunderstood.” He chuckled, warm and accepting. “And you are r?—”
“Ridiculous?” I cut in quickly. “Yeah, I know. I think I’m just nervous from the… near-death experience or something.” I laughed—light, brittle. My limbs still felt too loose, my heartbeat still too fast. Jumpy. On edge. Like I was still waiting for something to go wrong. The bond still felt frayed, echoing with leftover panic that wasn’t just mine.
Cassian’s voice came softer now.
“No,” he said. “I was going to say radiant.”
He held my gaze, steady and sure.
“The last thing you ever are is ridiculous.”
I blinked, taking a breath.
