Page 2 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

“New dress?” Isabella asked, finally joining me after her shift at Theresa’s Inn, serving wealthy travelers on their stays. They were usually just passing through our dull, quiet village. Though my sister’s voice was sweet enough to prying ears, her eyes narrowed with disdain.

I clenched my fist as I nodded, my smile quickly fading. I adjusted my basket of vegetables and cured meats as she looked me up and down.

“It’s too short,” she scolded.

I had to stop my fingers from reaching for the hem of my skirt and tugging. I didn’t say anything, which only infuriated her more. I’d learned that saying nothing enraged her, but the fire typically fizzled out as quickly as it was lit. Talking back would make her boil over, her ire dragging on and on and hollowing me from the inside out.

Isabella and I looked nothing alike. While my hair was dark and wavy, contrasting heavily with my light blue eyes, her hair was blonde and eyes a warm chestnut. She was tall, and I was shorter than average. She was naturally thin, while I had a layer of muscle tone and a curve to my breasts and ass, despite my petite stature.

“Did you even pay for it?” she spat. “Or did one of your gross old patrons give it to you as a reward for sitting in his lap?”

I recoiled. “I don’t—I wouldn’t—” Again, I clamped my mouth shut. It doesn’t matter what she says or what she thinks.

I repeated this thought over and over until I’d squashed the urge to defend myself. Even as she regarded me with such coldness, I yearned for her approval as if it was everything I’d ever wanted dangled just a touch out of reach.

Though I returned to silence, I couldn’t stop my face from falling.

She smirked, satisfied, before turning away from me. “Of course you wouldn’t.” She paused for a moment, glancing around before letting out a small sigh. “I’m sure you can handle the rest of the shopping. I’m going to find Phillip. Don’t forget the rice this time.”

While I continued gathering our essentials for the next few weeks, I let my frustration melt away, my previous mantra replaced with a new one.

I am leaving her.

Soon.

I was finally leaving Crescent Haven to explore all of Valentin, the autonomous island affiliated with, but not ruled by, the Kingdom of Ravenia. Valentin was composed of several self-governing mortal villages, towns, and small cities, and at the center of the island was Aristelle, the sprawling city of vampires. That was one place I was content never to explore.

I was a twenty-three-year-old woman. It was time I lived for me.

And I had a plan. I was going to leave enough of my savings with Isabella to make her comfortable for several months, even if she were to be fired from her job next week. Despite how I felt about the man, it was clear that Phillip had every intention of marrying her. She’d be taken care of. A family with Phillip was all she’d ever wanted. He was a wealthy merchant, somewhere here in the stalls selling fine weapons, preying off mortals’ fears of the city vampires.

I supposed it wasn’t an entirely unfounded fear. Vampires did occasionally slip through the cracks of mortal land, but it was nowhere near a daily occurrence. Especially not in Crescent Haven. Not even other mortals cared much to pay us a visit. Why would they? We weren’t on the coast, we didn’t have any lucrative businesses of our own, no spectacular views or historical or religious sites. The days and weeks and years blended together in Crescent Haven, different characters acting out the same tired stories.

A flutter of excitement erupted in my stomach at the thought of a new story, with new characters. Breathtaking scenery and intriguing plots; witches, shifters, and humans who wanted more from this life than a quiet rural existence; mortals who made art, crafted magick, and chose what they did and who they loved, rather than accepting what their village and parents had prescribed at birth.

I snapped out of my reverie with a familiar tingling sensation crawling over my skin. A few feet away, next to a produce booth, a man turned toward me. His gaze lingered on my thighs too long, glancing back up my autumnal red, long-sleeved dress to my eyes. He smiled, revealing rows of crooked, yellow teeth. I averted my gaze quickly and turned in a new direction.

As I moved along, a pang of guilt dug into my stomach. I saw a flash of Isabella in my mind, remembering her moments of tenderness and care after our parents’ deaths. When she stepped up and became a mother figure to me, keeping a roof above our heads at all costs, even when that cost was torn from my own flesh.

That was before she’d decided she didn’t like me anymore.

I love you, Scarlett. But I don’t have to like you, she’d tell me.

I couldn’t argue with that. I guessed that was just how families were sometimes.

Maybe she had never cared for me, and she had only in recent years decided I was old enough to take the full brunt of her disdain. At first, her hatred made me work extra hard to earn back her approval and comfort. Sometimes I still slipped back into that instinct. But mostly I felt numb, helpless to the turbulent waves of her moods and intermittent reinforcement. It was a game I could not win, so I’d decided to fold up the proverbial board and walk away.

Yet I still harbored just as much guilt as I did exhilaration.

I’d been raised to be frightened of the world outside our protection spells, where the village’s vampire hunters couldn’t protect me any longer. Even if the vampires mainly stuck to Aristelle, there were plenty of reasons for them to venture to the surrounding mortal land. For the thrill. The hunt. Because they could.

I’d been raised to fear. But I didn’t. Maybe that was my youth and naivety, or because the cruelty of vampires had yet to touch me or my loved ones. To me, vampires were just bogeymen, appearing occasionally to kill or steal an unsuspecting human, witch, or shifter in the night. I’d probably feel differently if it had been me they’d gutted in the forest only two months ago.

Well, I wouldn’t feel anything, I supposed. Because I’d be dead.

I grimaced, shaking away the thought. I stared into the distance, past the bustling stalls and the men who unabashedly stopped to stare at me. I gazed past all of them to the looming mountain beyond and the sun that was making its lazy descent.

Sometimes I felt dead inside, but really, I was alive—so fucking alive—and my life was out there. It hadn’t even started yet. The future was as rich and juicy as the peach in my palm, just waiting for my teeth to pierce its skin and let its aliveness dribble down my chin.

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