Page 137 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

“There was this moment, at the mortal trafficking protest,” Snow said quietly, looking at the floor before her eyes trailed to mine. “I saw you get angry. Felt it from you, like a spark. Then the whole crowd got angry, right alongside you. It was the moment the tides turned.”

My eyes widened. I shook my head slowly. “You don’t think—did I do that?” I covered my mouth, my body shaking.

Snow went into fierce protector mode again, projecting the same expression she had when she stared down Rune as if he wasn’t infinitely more powerful than her.

“We’re going to figure it out,” she said, so confidently I nearly believed her without question. “I’m going to consult with the elder witches. In my coven and in sister covens, if necessary. I’m going to gather more information, whatever it takes, until we understand the nature of your powers and how to control them.” She gripped my hand in hers and lifted her chin, pouring fierceness into her green irises. “You might not be mortal, but you do have a soul. I see it right now, buried under all those secrets, grief, trauma, and confusion. You are not what Isabella said about you. You are not what he said about you. You’re compassionate and soft, intelligent and perceptive, well-spoken and unfathomably generous. You are even more beautiful within than you are on the surface. And I believe in you, Scarlett. I believe in your goodness and your light.”

“I don’t.”

“And I don’t care,” she fired back, rising to her feet and placing her hands on her hips. “Rune has much grander battles to concern himself with right now. Fights have broken out in the born districts, a few turned killed on the border. The born aren’t taking well to his new policies.” She took a breath. “We have time. I’m going to figure this out. You sit tight.”

As if I had a choice. There was no way for Snow to know that we had time. Rune could come for me any moment. But who was I to destroy her defiant perception of reality?

When Snow finally left, I lay back down on the carpet and stared up at the ceiling. Our love story replayed in my mind on repeat, each time containing more of the truth, more of the poison. The melody of our songs twisted into cacophonies of noise and screeching. Poetry rearranged itself into cruel words, repeating over and over that I was unclaimed. Soulless.

Nothing.

I cowered away from mirrors, and I avoided looking at myself at all costs. The sight of his marks on my skin made me violently sick. What had once been wanted above all else had soured. Evidence of his lust on my body only served as reminders of everything broken and lost.

In the span of an hour, I’d lost my parents a second time. I’d lost all hope for my sister, who was not truly my sister. I’d lost the man I thought might love me forever, who might fill the aching void in my soul that I’d secretly hoped he would mend.

But Rune couldn’t heal what was wrong with me. No one could. I finally had my answer, my reason for why everyone close to me either hurt me or abandoned me. The cause of all violence that men had waged on my body and mind. All the rejection and the heartbreak.

After all these years, I’d finally uncovered the reason why I would never be truly loved. Did other succubi mourn this loss? How did they live with the knowledge that all the love we were given was fake, products of our inherent manipulation? How did they live knowing soulmates were for other people and not for us?

Isabella had been right all along. I was a parasite.

I closed my bloodshot eyes. The emptiness finally caught up to me. It swallowed me in one decisive bite, snuffing out the hope I thought would always sustain me. My tired limbs that had always reached for the cosmos fell back down to my sides, the stars blinking out one by one. My voice that had once soared went deathly quiet. My vision of the horizon, that ever brighter tomorrow, turned inward to gaze into the maddening darkness instead.

I was alone.

63

SCARLETT

Ididn’t leave my bed. I didn’t eat. I didn’t feed on people’s souls or whatever the hell it was that I’d been doing my whole life without realizing it. I cried. I lay. I curled up and hugged myself and sobbed and sunk deeper and deeper.

I hated myself for it too, for all of it. For being locked in a bed as if it were an iron cage—something I promised myself I’d never do again—not since I’d told Isabella what Trevin had done to me and she’d said it had been my fault. I’d made a promise to myself that no matter what, I wouldn’t be this person. This useless, weak woman wasting away.

I despised myself for not seeing it sooner, the truth that Isabella had known for years. I should’ve known. The darkness in my soul, my impulses and talents—I knew something was wrong with me, that there was a reason people reacted to me so intensely. Above all else, I hated who I was.

What I was.

Everything had finally felt good, for the first time in my life. I’d had friends and people who genuinely cared about me and took an interest in what I had to say. I’d had a job that challenged and excited me. I was living in a city that made me feel alive, with endless opportunities to learn and experience everything I’d always dreamed of exploring. I’d had Rune. The grand romance I never believed was in the cards for me, yet I yearned for above all else. He’d claimed me, and when he had, it felt like an unbreakable promise, like he would never forsake me.

Like he would never let me go.

But he had, in an instant, without a second thought. The rug had been pulled out from under me as soon as I thought I’d realized what I deserved—the life of my dreams that was finally in my grasp. I was foolish, blind. I hated myself, but I hated him too.

Even if I wasn’t a demon born of his enemies, Rune had lied to me. He’d dosed me with his blood. He’d watched me as a child. Who even knew the extent of his obsession, his violations? Not that any of it mattered. As he’d said, it was only because of my magick that he’d taken such an interest in me to begin with.

It was all a lie. Our intensity, our love, our fate. He did not belong with me. Just like my parents weren’t my parents, my sister wasn’t my sister, and I was not a human.

I was a demon, and I was alone. I would always be alone, without any way to tell if people liked me for me or if I was manipulating them. I didn’t even know anything of use about my nature except that succubi and incubi were hated by just about everyone in existence, unless they were being used for some clandestine purpose. Even then, being used was different from being loved or even liked. I knew that well.

I clutched my comforter as I shook. I wondered if tears ever ran out. I couldn’t bring myself to drink water, so it was only a matter of time.

When Snow entered my bedroom and saw me curled into myself, I thought of Isabella. When she opened her mouth, I expected her to yell at me for being dramatic and lazy. Pathetic. Or to tell me that she’d broken out of my spell, and she was here to reject me like everyone else.

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