Page 102 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

“Would anyone else care to threaten the rightful ruler of Aristelle, recognized by King Earle of Ravenia?”

But I wasn’t looking at the crowd or the carcasses leaking out onto the cobblestone. The show of violence wasn’t the point of this visit, though it was always good practice to remind the born of the power at my disposal.

I was looking at Durian, watching his face for clues. When I mentioned King Earle, his lip twitched. His eyes offered only the briefest flicker of emotional arousal. Not anger, and certainly not fear.

Durian was cocky, even if he had not a single reason to be. Though he appeared reckless in his recent ploys, skirting closer and closer to a move that necessitated full-blown war, I needed to see how he carried himself in person to understand how he truly felt. It wasn’t enough sometimes to hear secondhand accounts from my spies.

Sometimes more information could be gathered face to face with an enemy for mere seconds than from a hundred stories and rumors.

No, Durian was not reckless. Durian was calculated. His outfit—black robes in the style of an ancient born high priest—his every graceful movement, his careful words, his fabricated holy book. All of it was meticulous.

He carried himself like a cross between a born king and a holy man, a clan lord and a divine chosen one, artfully harkening back to the time before the war. He’d cleaned himself up quite nicely from his days as a street pest.

Durian and I held one long stare as the crowd slowly transitioned from shock to anger and vitriol. No one made another move against me, but gods, did they all want to.

Once again, I felt the spirit of early wartime rise from the earth in a familiar, mournful tune. I thought of Scarlett.

I lifted back onto Millie and stroked her massive head. “This crowd will disperse immediately or my shadowbird will disperse it for you.”

Millie roared thunderously, raising her onyx webbed wings. The wind she created slammed into the crowd, drowning out whatever irritating words Durian was giving them that only repeated my own command through his lips.

He wasn’t looking at his followers when he spoke, either. He was watching me. Calculating with keen, beady eyes, his mouth curved with arrogant humor.

Sadie’s estate on the lands outside of the city, but not yet in dry territory, was as massive and decadent as always. The woman notoriously had the most expensive taste of any being I’d ever known. She prided herself on it, in fact.

The lawns out front were artfully tended to, a mix of black and purple tulips, roses, and giant dahlias. The shrubs were sculpted into depictions of voluptuous nymphs and muscled faerie men. I shook my head and laughed.

Sadie had a refined taste for many things, men and women included.

In a long red robe of tulle and faux fur trim, showcasing the silk and lace black nightgown underneath, Sadie stepped out onto the front porch between the massive white columns. Her long, rich brunette hair billowed around her face in the wind. A group of a half-dozen men trailed her, half of which were on all fours, all of them wearing anything from a full leather gimp suit to nothing at all.

Sadie grinned, puffing a cigarillo three times before putting it out on the closest shifter man’s bare chest. He made no sound, his pecks flexing. A couple of the men were turned, unmarked, and uninitiated into the clan.

“Rune, darling,” she said, opening her arms wide as she stepped down the steps to greet me.

A mousy girl in a long white dress quickly took Millie’s reins, glancing at me once and trembling slightly before heading toward the stables.

“It has been far too long.” Sadie pecked both of my cheeks before pulling me in for a brief embrace. She was already a tall woman, and in those ridiculous pointy heels I didn’t overshadow her in the slightest.

“I see you’ve picked up some new ones,” I said, nodding at her pack of submissives.

“The shifter and human ones have this nasty habit of dying,” she said with a sigh. Her thin red lips pursed. “Witches can live much longer, but you know how I feel about my kind.” She laughed, tilting her head back. “Well, more like how they feel about me.”

“You just prefer being one of a kind,” I said, crossing my arms.

“Baby, I am one of a kind, hypocrite witches around or not.” Her eyes went so snakelike, I nearly flinched.

Just like in Crescent Haven, being around Sadie made me prone to regression, the past blending with the present in ways I couldn’t always control.

“How’s Cedar? That boy came into a helluva lot of power when he transitioned. Reminded me of you.” Sadie’s slow, playful grin fell when she saw the expression on my face. She let out a breath, understanding what I’d wordlessly revealed about Cedar’s fate. “That’s unfortunate.”

I nodded. “Indeed.”

Sadie suddenly stepped closer, her green eyes doing that unnerving thing where they pierced right through me. Sort of like how Scarlett’s did, but Sadie’s intentions were never anything less than wicked.

“What in the hell has happened?” she asked. Her bone-chilling magick pierced the air, sending all of her subs down to their knees, heads bowed, and gazes lowered.

“Her name is Scarlett.”

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