Page 139 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

“He’s going to kill me,” I whispered to Snow with a morbid certainty. My heart squeezed, my eyes closing.

If our love was a lie, why then did I still feel it buried deep, spilling out of me like a gaping wound?

“No, he won’t. He said if he ever harmed you, then I could kill him.” Snow’s face shown with indignation. “And that is precisely what I will do.”

I stared at her, guilt eating me alive. I would never allow her to put herself in harm’s way. When Rune came for me, I wanted my friends as far from me as possible. I didn’t need anyone else getting hurt on my behalf. Even if Isabella hated me, it was because of me that she was a slave. No one deserved that fate. Especially not because they got too close to a sex demon.

It was for Snow that I finally ate. I wanted her to be triumphant, to feel good about helping me. It was the least I could do at this point. I was going to die soon, anyway.

The light in her eyes watching me soothe my aching stomach gave me the tiniest glimmer of warmth.

When I ate as much as I could hold down, she moved to sit across from me, her legs crossed and her face all-business. “Okay, here’s what I learned. The glamour was what was blocking me from getting a good read on your aura, just like it masks your powers and deflects suspicion about your true nature. Succubi are born with a glamour, a magickal veil that works in tandem with your human appearance to soothe curious eyes and project false humanity. It’s not something you have to learn, though some are stronger than others. The more powerful you become—the more you, um, feed?—”

I cringed.

“—the more powerful your glamour and influence. As for your powers, I really wish succubi and incubi weren’t so rare, because mentorship is always best when it comes to learning our own magick. So much of what your kind do is shrouded in mystery and secret, for good reason.”

“Why are we so rare?” I asked.

“Most offspring born to human-born pairings are sick and don’t survive outside the womb, or pass shortly after. So they are rarely born. Then when they are, they’re likely to be killed in crimes of passion.”

I swallowed. That checked out. I thought of all the times I’d been followed, threatened, or invited unwanted obsession.

“Or they’re killed if anyone discovers their true nature, especially if they’ve been using their powers to commit acts of subterfuge or influence over money and politics.” Snow held my hand. “This was why you healed without a blood transfusion, and also why the transfusion failed. You live in a human body, but you stop aging once you reach maturity just like the born. You have a vampire’s immortality but a mortal’s fragility, though you tend to heal faster than humans. It’s part of a sex demon’s nature to appear…”

“Vulnerable,” I said, clenching my free hand into a fist. “It’s a trick. A trap.”

Snow studied me carefully. “It’s just nature, Scarlett. Always selecting traits for our best chance of survival. Right now, your powers are all gunked up. Sometimes they’re blocked, and other times your emotions are causing them to leak out all over the place. You’re operating off pure instincts. Imagine being completely in control of who you are influencing and how.”

“Can you see it now? Inside of me?”

Snow’s enthusiasm faltered, her eyes going glassy for a brief moment as she scanned my body. “Yes. I can see your magick. It’s concentrated in the lower half of your energy centers, below your stomach—the half of your aura that corresponds to sex, desire, impulse, and survival. A human’s aura softly churns. It’s self-contained. Yours is loaded with influence, with power that extends outside of you. Although right now you’re dim, your powers stunted by fear. And, I’m guessing, these past couple days of solitude. You need to be around other people to sustain yourself.”

“To feed,” I spat with disgust.

“Scarlett, feeding isn’t inherently?—”

I cut her off. I didn’t want to hear any more. “I don’t want to learn about my powers. I don’t want to control them. I want to turn them off.” Another sob built inside my throat, my voice shaking with frustrated desperation. “Please, Snow.”

Her face crumpled with sadness as she watched me unravel. It only drove me further down into hopelessness. The light in her eyes drained when I pulled my hand out of hers.

“I want to turn it off. I want to cut it out of me,” I pleaded. “Please cut it all out of me.”

64

RUNE

Isat in my study, corresponding with Sadie about the new wave of turned heading into the city this evening. I told her about Scarlett, and she demanded I fly to her immediately.

At the thought of the succubus, the lights flickered. My power threatened to leak, to rot everything in a mile radius. I checked incessantly that she was still in Lumina. The connection wasn’t always so precise, but in recent days I’d been able to pinpoint exactly which room she was in, as a sharp intuition. Which was why it confused me that she hadn’t left her bedroom.

She was still alive. I could feel her heart beating through the invisible leash. But it was slow. She was fading.

And I hated that I still worried for her. I hated that everything inside of me yearned to go to her. If only to yell at her and demand to know why she wasn’t leaving her bed, why she wasn’t attempting to flee. Why she’d seemed so heartbroken and confused.

Her craftiness was unparalleled, and I had to remember this was likely all a part of her game, her defense mechanisms clicking into place now that she’d been caught.

But why? We had eyes on Isabella. By all appearances, she really was a human slave, which backed up Scarlett’s story of why she came to Aristelle. Isabella looked nothing like Scarlett, either. Plus I’d seen them grow up with my own eyes, the way Isabella had treated her sister with contempt. Were they even sisters? Or half sisters, perhaps? How long had Scarlett known she was a succubus? Who was her handler, and how did they know where I was from?

---