Page 48 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

Cut it out, I snapped. There is something so fucking wrong with you.

Fine. If he wanted to ignore my boundaries and violate my autonomy, then I was going to carry on with my plan to ignore his note and teach him some humility.

Though I knew he’d broken into my apartment, during the days, he obeyed my command to stay away completely.

This infuriated me.

I hadn’t seen him once my next five shifts at Odessa. I continued to gather information, attract attention and stoke desire, and assess patrons’ potential usefulness in helping me find Isabella. Tensions had abated since the rally-turned-riot, and I was glad to hear that Snow and her coven had made it home after unscathed. The organizers had been detained, but they’d also made it back to Lumina alive, though intimidated and deflated.

The message Rune and the turned clan had left us with was clear. There would be no more rallies, and the next instance of violence in the streets would be handled without a semblance of mercy. Rune wanted the city to believe that he was cracking down on the slave trade. He promised all perpetrators would be brought to justice and all human blood bags would be returned to their families.

But none of his promises mattered as long as the traffickers had Isabella. Soon, I would demand he find my sister. At first, I was going to ask nicely, but the hot-and-cold of stalking me then ignoring me didn’t encourage my manners.

Tonight, as I worked the room, I recognized many repeat faces. The regulars were my bread and butter. Seduction was best as a long game, especially when it came to using people for material benefit. Tease then withdraw. Reveal then hide. Exude confidence then stoke confusion. Each game was a delicate dance, and worming deeper into someone’s subconscious slowly over time yielded the best results.

As I moved, I shared my tips and insights about certain customers with Snow, who acted nothing but grateful for my help. I was waiting for her to turn on me. Although I enjoyed feeling like we were a team, I kept one of my feet firmly out the door to avoid receiving the full brunt of her inevitable rejection.

It was a lonely way to do friendship, but I was used to feeling alone.

I scanned the room for Rune again, my hundredth time tonight even though it had only been a couple hours. He was nowhere in sight, though a turned vampire woman with deep brown skin, short wiry hair, and tattoos that formed waves and droplets met my eyes. At the fierce hit of her cold, trained gaze and the size of her muscles, I swallowed and quickly looked away.

This wasn’t the first time she’d focused on me so intently, and each time she did was scarier than the last.

“Scarlett, doll, how was your weekend?” Reggie asked from a chair next to one of the plush black couches. One of my most generous tippers, he was an older turned vampire, frozen as a charming silver fox for all of eternity. His pearly fangs sparkled under the dim chandelier lights, and his light, short hair was thick and impeccably styled.

I smiled big. “It was amazing! I finally got to explore more of the city with some friends.” I nodded at Snow as she passed.

Reggie’s eyes flickered as he watched Snow wink. He grinned wider. Our customers loved hearing how close Snow and I were. It fed into their objectifying woman-on-woman fantasies. So, naturally, we played into it as much as possible.

“How was yours? Did you get that piece you wanted at the art show?”

He swirled his witch elixir cocktail and nodded, his eyes glazing over with confidence. “I get everything I want, Scarlett.”

“Do you?” I acted coy now, lowering my lids slightly as if I matched his desire, yet stepping back and putting physical distance between us. “What do you love about the piece?”

His mind churned, assessing me, enjoying the opportunity to both show off his prowess and expertise as well as dig somewhere deeper and unexpected.

“The artist is turned, you see,” he began, staring beyond me as he went inward. “And he paints in the abstract, the only discernible features of his work being bondage and confinement. Chains, cubes, circles, rope, cages. He manages to convey the imprisonment of immortality so heartbreakingly, even as he uses only the brightest, most vivid colors. It’s a juxtaposition, you see. Because you cannot actually live forever. You can only exist.”

I halted in place, a strange sadness gripping my heart. I’d been raised to see vampires, even the turned, as power-hungry, selfish, deceptive, and cruel. But the more time I spent with them, the more I saw this loneliness inside of them that I fundamentally understood but didn’t know why.

I wasn’t like them, and yet, in a strange way, I felt more akin to them than fellow humans.

Maybe it was my trauma and the way it had alienated me, like Snow had said. By virtue of once being human and now living as the perpetual undead, loss and grief was an inherent understanding I shared with the turned.

For a moment, my façade dropped, and I inhabited a space with Reggie that was pure and untainted. My blue eyes locked on his, and his mouth parted slightly as he flashed surprise.

“Do the turned mourn themselves?” I asked softly.

The tragedy of such a thought slammed into me much harder than I expected, and for a moment, I saw Rune’s face.

Reggie set down his drink, a sad smile tugging at his lips as he leaned closer. “Some. I do every day.” He shook his head, rubbing his chin dotted with silvery stubble before shaking a finger at me. “You, my dear, are quite unlike any mortal or immortal I have ever met before.”

I couldn’t stop the involuntary lapse in my mask, the frightened micro-expression someone as perceptive as Reggie was sure not to miss.

“Hmm,” he said with a tilt of his head. “Why do you want to be like all of them?” He gestured around, scrunching his face into playful disgust. He chuckled, and I allowed him to pull my hand into his. “Something tells me you will become your most powerful self when you learn to love what makes you stand out.”

I tentatively drew my hand back. I didn’t know what to say.

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