Page 106 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

He’d written back instantly.

Looks like that spiteful little mouth can say sweet things sometimes, too. Maybe in another life… If you’re right about me still having a soul.

He had no idea. He thought that path was cold and dead, that he’d given up his ability to create art when he’d accepted his grander responsibilities. It was frustrating, like everything else about him. Like these feelings in my chest that expanded, leaking out everywhere as if I were bleeding for him.

I stopped pacing and sat on the carpet he’d bought for me, staring at his newest gift—a painting of tall evergreens and Valentin’s mountains that hung above my couch. All because I’d told him my favorite story as a child was about a girl who lived in the mountains, tending to her rose garden and climbing through portals to the faerie realm.

Staring down at the blank page, I didn’t know how to respond to his latest message. The subtle evidence of the guilt he harbored.

I didn’t know how to say that sometimes it felt as though I’d imagined him, like I was living in a state of perpetual psychosis, writing notes to myself. Because how was he all of these things? The violent, ruthless clan ruler; the tortured writer; the lover of art and music; the dominant, possessive sadist?

And how was I genuinely considering giving up my life for him? I was a human, and he was an immortal. That was something we never stated plainly, a reality that only existed in between the letters of our notes.

I finally wrote back to him.

We’re doomed, aren’t we?

My stomach sank as I stared at the steep incline of the mountains, tracing the gentle fog, the full bodies of the deep green trees.

Rune wrote back immediately.

Almost certainly.

I wondered where he was. It was comforting that we were both staring down at these connected notebooks, thinking of each other at the exact same time. In a dark sort of way, I laughed at his response.

The whole world is doomed, Little Flame. We live and love anyway.

Snow and I got ready for the opera together, gossiping about our last few shifts at Odessa. Tensions were higher these days. A fight had broken out between a born and a turned woman last night. Frederick had been mentioned in the heat of the brawl, before it had been broken up and the born banned from the premises. Frederick was the born creep who had all but condoned human trafficking and wanted to feed from me with his lover Liza. He was also one of the born who’d been strung up in Lillian’s Square.

At first, I worried he’d been killed because of me, but Rune told me he hadn’t. And I believed him. Rune made no secret of the violence he committed in my name.

I’d seen Liza once since her lover had been killed. Not in Odessa, thank the gods. Not that I thought she’d dare. She’d seen me with Uriah outside a coffee shop. Uriah and I were bickering as we often did when it was his turn to follow me around intrusively. I was telling him he was being too obvious about it.

When I’d seen Liza, I’d clamped my mouth shut and quickly shifted to a smile and easy, fake dialogue about how it was nice running into Uriah.

He’d stared at me like I was insane. “The fuck?—”

I’d given him a pointed look, and he quickly fell in line, glimpsing Liza just as she passed us and disappeared around the corner. She’d met my eyes briefly, but luckily didn’t seem all too interested. Her entire demeanor was rigid with ice and spite.

“Bold of her to step foot in Nyx,” Uriah had growled to himself.

As Snow and I stood close together, admiring our striking forms in our long gowns in my full-length mirror, I wondered if Rune would make it back in time to attend. He’d said he was still set to make it back before the show, but that was yesterday, and I’d been waiting all day for him to appear.

He never did.

My silky gold dress embellished with fine crystals and pearls glimmered under the overhead light. Snow’s pale blue gown was equally decadent and suited for her color palette. We looked like royalty from a different time, or perhaps from some great myth.

We hadn’t mentioned what the jealous witch in the spell circle had said about me—that I was Snow’s charity case.

I glanced at her, reading her smile for hints of spite or falsities.

“Scar, we look like goddesses,” she said. “Helia in her golden gown forged from the sun and Selena’s moon-touched silk.”

My shoulders relaxed, and when Snow reached for my hand, I didn’t tense at her touch. Gradually, I’d grown more accustomed to platonic displays of affection. From her and Penn primarily, though Penn’s hugs still made me feel strange. In her arms, I thought of my mother. Sometimes when I looked at Snow, I saw Isabella, too. But it was becoming easier to snap out of those gut reactions and to stay in the present moment.

I grinned back. I met her eyes in the mirror. “I’m terrified to know how much money we’re wearing.”

Snow’s eyes rounded, covering a choked laugh with her hand. “Mom would lose her damn mind. I don’t even want to know.”

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