Page 138 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

“Penn made you food. Too much food, honestly,” she said with a small smile. “Eli, Tera, and Winnifred are doing some more reading, but we’ve already learned so much. They say hi, and that they still care about you. We’re keeping your identity a secret from anyone outside our little circle. Don’t worry.”

I stared at her in disbelief, nearly wondering if I was hallucinating. She approached, setting a glass of water on my bedside table.

“I can bring the food into the bed,” she said. “Anything you need. I just want you to eat. You still deserve to be here with us, alive and happy and loved. So much has changed, but your worth has not. You mean something to people, and you add something remarkable to this world.”

I glanced around the room for a split second, as if it was possible she was speaking to someone else.

“I don’t deserve this—you,” I stuttered. I forced myself up to rest against the headboard, still pulling the sheets up around me as a shield.

Snow shook her head. “There is no deserve when it comes to love. There are no conditions or stipulations. You just love.”

This didn’t make sense to me. All my life, love was something I reached for. It was a scarcity, an unknown. Sometimes it was there, and other times it wasn’t. Sometimes it felt in my control—like if I behaved a certain way, it would be given. Other times it was unpredictable, doled out in a system of intermittent reinforcement. The love that Snow showed me wasn’t choppy, with tumultuous ebbs and flows. It was steady and reliable, a gentle river that went on and on.

It made no sense and yet it was there—I could feel it like a charge of magick. But it was not a desire I could wield or influence, as if it existed on a mental layer I had no access to.

“I can’t make people love me,” I said, my brows furrowing. Something strange flickered in my chest, some spark of intuition, of knowing. It was as if I was peeking underneath my own glamour to see the side of myself I’d avoided for so long, making sense of these magickal fragments and feelings and connecting them to my lived experience.

“No, you can’t,” Snow said. “Succubi cannot induce love, Scarlett. Succubi influence and feed off desire. Love is not a desire. Not like lust or hunger or want. They’re all related and connected, but you cannot force anyone to love you.”

I stared down at the bed. Her words resonated. It wasn’t like Isabella had been forced to love me, no matter how badly I wanted her to.

“I know I frightened you when I pointed out your influence over the crowd at the rally. But I also want you to remember how you affected the circle of witches and shifters when we were celebrating Selena and her magick. Almost everyone in that circle felt lighter, more healed and hopeful after you sang. The desire you were encouraging in that moment was pure and good, Scarlett. Do you remember your intentions when you sang?”

I thought back to that moment, seeing everyone gathered and laughing and smiling. Hearing Snow pray for protection and healing, for us to be conduits for Selena’s magick and splendor.

“I wanted everyone to have the same beautiful life that I wanted for myself, for all of our dreams to come true,” I said. “I wanted to amplify what you were saying. I don’t know.”

“You do know. That was what you did, Scar. People were inspired after that circle. Eli started drawing again. Winnifred dedicated herself to her chaos magick studies with renewed passion. Not everyone was primed to receive your magick, because not everyone had a strong enough desire to change themselves or reach for more. Some people reacted poorly, as if you stoked a lack or insecurity inside themselves—like that woman who was cruel to you.”

“I thought she’d turned hostile because her partner had shown too much of an interest in me,” I said. I found the strength to sip on water, feeling self-conscious when Snow watched me and smiled.

“Could’ve been a bit of both,” she said. “What you do is intense. It’s a magick that cuts to the very core of us. Desire is the key to our survival. Without desire for food and water, we perish. Without desire for companionship, we grow isolated and our souls and minds decay. Desire is amoral. It’s the trajectory of our intentions and actions that determine our goodness.”

My head spun and spun. What Snow was saying was generous. But I remembered the disdain in that woman’s eyes when she called me Snow’s charity case. It was the same disdain I’d received over and over, no matter how much I tried to be good, to be quieter, to be less. And it was nothing compared to the hatred in Rune’s eyes. This vampire who’d been alive for centuries, who’d not only known succubi and incubi, but had tortured and killed them too. If he thought we were evil, then he was probably right.

I was half born.

I clutched my stomach, the water I’d just swallowed threatening to come right back up.

The room of music and stars stretched out before me, Rune’s hand brushing mine. If he hated me after he saw through my glamour, then I supposed he’d never loved me at all. Or what Snow was saying was witchy, wishful thinking that I was all too happy to believe. Because the alternative—that I would never be truly loved—was too crushing of a weight to bear.

This fear slammed into me, and for a moment I couldn’t breathe, like my lungs were mummifying and my airways squeezing shut.

“I’m going to make you a plate of food,” Snow said.

“Not hungry,” I choked out.

“Still doing it.”

While I caught my breath, Snow disappeared for a moment. Then she sat with me, my plate of pasta and bread untouched in my lap, for a long stretch of silence.

I only thought of Rune. How he’d looked at me after he’d found out, comparing it to how he’d gazed at me before. After he’d fed from me, he hadn’t spent more than a couple minutes away, without some physical touch between us. Holding me, bathing me, running his fingers through my hair, his lips grazing my skin.

It felt as though we’d been connected, body and spirit, in a way that transcended logic or reason. But as soon as he’d discovered my nature, I’d meant nothing to him. He thought I’d been feeding off him, that our love was a lie, and I was a born plant.

If all that Rune and I meant to each other was a product of my demon magick, then I wasn’t sure what more proof I needed.

I was doomed.

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