Page 35 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

He hadn’t corrected me when I called myself one of his staff… Did that mean I was hired?

“You don’t believe me,” he said.

My eyes snapped to his. What game were we playing?

“Of course not.”

His eyes danced with amusement. “I have you alone, secluded from prying eyes and ears…”

My breath hitched. I was suddenly hyperaware of our closeness, our size difference, the speed at which he could clamp down on my vulnerable neck. And what exactly were his powers? These shadows that slithered, reached, and teased.

“…surely you’ve heard all sorts of rumors and scary bedtime stories about who I am and what I’ve done,” he continued, his voice so low I had to lean in closer. His breath was warm, his scent going straight to my already floaty mind. “And yet…”

Breathe. You need to get away from him. You need to clear your mind and regroup. I took a sip of the fizzy water.

I tried to remember all the horrible stories. The annihilation of entire born vampire lineages. Heads on spikes. His ungodly powers making the world go dark and the ground turn to rot.

“…you were trembling more in front of the table of born men,” he said. “I could’ve killed them all in two seconds flat, barely lifting a finger.” It was as though he were whispering directly into my mind. A shudder rolled through me. He gently twisted a strand of my hair around his index finger, and I gasped. “I wanted to kill them, for making you scared.”

“I wasn’t…” I trailed off, deciding against telling him that I’d been playing up my fear in order to manipulate them.

He considered me, letting the strand of hair fall back to my shoulder. “Why don’t you fear me?”

I should’ve. He’d singled me out, isolated me from the rest of the club. There was no reason for him to be this interested in me except for sport, a cheap thrill. I was just another name on his list of victims.

Maybe I still had time to turn the tables back around, to get what I needed, too. I could hold his interest, secure this job, and use his connections to find my sister.

“Why should I be?” I asked, and his eyes darkened. “Are you going to hurt me?”

When he smiled, I felt it in the rush of pleasure through my core, the tightening of my muscles, the subtle rub of my thighs together as I shifted on my feet.

Rune’s mask slipped, finally, briefly. His pupils widened, his body tensing.

Suddenly the energetic call from underneath our feet surged, and I again glanced to my left, toward the staircase.

Rune noticed my eyes wander, and he shot me a curious look. “Interesting.”

“What?”

He shrugged. His smirk faded, and then he pinned me with a sudden glare of pure ice. He moved close, causing me to jerk back and slam against the wall behind me. His arms shot out, encasing me on either side as he bent his neck. His tattoos came alive, thorny branches escaping his skin and a cloud of shadow swirling forebodingly.

“You will never, under any circumstances, go downstairs,” he said.

Indignation was my predictable first reaction, no matter how much my body trembled from instinctive fear at his intimidation display.

“Not unless you’re with me.”

My eyes narrowed, and he glanced at my tightened fist. My chest rose and fell rapidly, and I realized I could no longer see anything but Rune and his wall of shadow.

He chuckled. “Go ahead. Say whatever bratty thing you need to say. You’re still going to obey me.”

“Obey you?” I scoffed. “You think that because I’m human, because I work for you, that you own me?”

“No,” he said, slowly pushing off the wall. His cocky smirk remained, never faltering. “That’s not at all why I think that.”

It took me a moment to register what he’d implied, and as soon as it clicked, my brows shot up.

I opened my mouth to bite back, but in a rush of cold wind he was gone, not a lingering tendril of darkness in sight.

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