Page 100 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

“Two things. First, I never want to hear you say you’re not good enough ever again. It’s insulting to my impeccable taste,” Rune said, a commanding edge to his voice as he traced my jaw. “Whoever told you that was dreadfully envious. Second, like I’ve already told you, you are capable of infinitely more than you give yourself credit for. And if worse comes to worse, I have a multitude of tricks to eradicate you of your fright. The only thing in this world you should ever fear is me.”

Envious? Jaxon always said that was why Isabella and the other women in the village hated me so much. But that couldn’t be the whole story. There had to be more.

Rune’s words made something in my chest cautiously bloom and open. He did have wildly good taste. In this moment, I didn’t want to doubt his motivations. I wanted to believe that every word he said was straight from his soul—the soul he didn’t believe he had anymore yet I felt flirting with mine so shamelessly.

“I’ll make you a deal,” I whispered. Now that Rune had revealed these pieces of himself that no else knew, I couldn’t get enough of him. I wanted more. He was like this pool that sunk down endlessly, and I wanted to swim deeper and deeper in search of the bottom. If it even existed.

Rune chuckled. “Let’s hear it.”

“I’ll sing for you if you write for me,” I said, my heart pumping hard with aching vulnerability. “Write. Anything at all. I want to read it.”

Rune was silent. His silence spread out for so long that I nearly accepted its finality.

He kissed my hair, his shadows pulling me tight to his chest. “Go back to sleep, Little Flame.”

Disappointment cloyed in my guts, a strange sinking feeling that weighted and rooted. It was as though I’d taken a leap, and he hadn’t caught me.

In the morning, I found a thin notebook and pen on my charming black dining table, a fresh bouquet of dark red roses beside it. I thumbed the dark brown leather cover before opening it, my eyes widening when the blank parchment paper came alive under my touch.

A note appeared, written in Rune’s handwriting.

There’s a bookshop in River that has live music out on the back patio Thursday evenings. When you go, ask the shopkeeper about a book I left behind for you. One of the best poets to ever live, a witch who spoke of soulmates and divinity, juxtaposed with violence, tragedy, and the grit of existence. Love as inseparable from pain. No greatness achieved without sacrifice. You’ll love it.

Write me back in this notebook, and I will see it.

I hadn’t realized I was smiling until I’d reached the end and touched my lips. After I’d read the note a handful of times, his words faded away, leaving nothing but a blank page behind. It saddened me that I couldn’t hold on to his words—reread them over and over again and search for hidden meaning between the letters.

I wondered where he was. Stupidly, I hoped he was safe. Though I knew it was far more likely whoever he was visiting was the one in grave danger.

Maybe he was doing something that would help Isabella. I hoped so.

A familiar flood of emotions wrestled for dominance in my heart. Disappointment in her as a sister and guilt for claiming any semblance of happiness and pleasure in her absence, when I was the reason she’d been taken. Then, the worst feeling of all, the dread of what she was likely enduring. What I tried hardest not to think about.

Because I knew she likely had an empty place of her own now, the gray void of numb escape that relieved the body of absorbing shock. And it didn’t matter to me that she’d blamed me for my own, accused me of inviting men to hurt me. I wouldn’t wish what had been done to me on anyone else. She hadn’t understood that pain when it had been carved into my skin. She did now. And that brought me nothing but unrelenting torment.

The only way I could live with myself, with my growing, untamable feelings for Rune, was to believe it was all for her.

Even if only part of it was for her, my last surviving family who I would never let go, no matter what cruel words she said to my face or as a ghost inside my mind. Even if the rest of my actions were my own, desire blooming inside of me that belonged only to me for the first time in my life. Desire for Rune. Desire for Aristelle. For literature, music, and art. For novel experiences and stimulating conversation, even with the vampires I’d been raised to hate.

Over the next week, Rune and I wrote to each other in disappearing notes. It was the first thing I did when I returned home, the only thing I wanted to do when I visited the beautiful sites he recommended. I sat on temple steps, in gardens and parks, outside hole-in-the-wall cafés and eateries, and I wrote to him.

I knew you’d love it,

Rune wrote one evening when I ate dinner alone before my shift at Odessa. It was rare we were available at the same time. I could sense he was busy with whatever he was up to, and the gaps between our correspondences only made me more insane with yearning for his next words.

Order the chocolate torte.

He was demanding even when he was being sweet, which made me smile. A vampire at a nearby table looked up to stare at me, lust expanding in the air between us. That was when I knew Rune had infected me with his depravity. Because I wished Rune was here to see it, so that I could provoke him, tease out his need to claim me before the world.

I looked away from the man and back to my food. I wiped the smile from my face.

If I was in danger before, I was downright fucked now. I was on the precipice of a life without any semblance of freedom, barreling for it like an asteroid, incapable of avoiding the inevitable collision.

I knew that Rune’s most trusted were watching me, everywhere I went. I had to pretend they weren’t to be able to live without self-consciousness. I much preferred when Rune was the one lurking in the shadows.

Helia, save me.

Each time I managed to convince myself Rune was evil, toying with me out of pure, sociopathic impulse, my fight against our connection was obliterated with his next note. Or the next adventure he sent me on.

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