Page 67 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

I met her eyes again.

“I won’t try to talk you out of this,” she said. “But I do need you to stop calling yourself names. You’re not crazy or stupid. You’re one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met, and I know that you understand the risks. Which means you’re unfathomably brave for forging ahead, anyway. For leaving the only home you’ve ever known to come to a city ruled by vampires. I only want you to be as safe as you can possibly be.”

I nodded. I still didn’t know how to receive her kindness, so I just made a promise instead. “I will be.”

“One last thing.”

She looked back at the city, her blonde hair whipping about in the wind. I gazed up at the stars as her next words left her lips.

“There are many people in this world who would love nothing more than to clip your wings. Stop doing it for them. Soar instead.”

32

RUNE

My inner circle and several rising members of the clan had gathered in the castle for dinner and drinks. I sipped from a chalice while I watched Uriah drink straight from the tap, a human woman with long red hair and moss-colored eyes.

As I sipped the lukewarm blood, I struggled to find satisfaction from its lackluster taste. Not when Scarlett’s scent was still all over me, impossible to wash away. Not that I desired to ever be rid of it.

The main entertaining wing was alight with conversation and banter, and I made sure to put on a mask of calm resoluteness, with only a hint of comradery and amusement. Just enough to make my men and women comfortable.

These were wartimes, and the clan needed a vision of absolute strength.

“How is she?” Uriah asked. He licked the girl’s neck wound closed and sent her off with a rakish grin. She blushed as she turned away from us.

Every time she’d looked at me, she’d shaken with fear like a small dog. I had that effect on people.

I took a sip of blood and pinned him with a stare. “Mercurial and difficult.” And fucking irresistible, sexy, and captivating. But Uriah didn’t need to hear that.

“No wonder you’re obsessed,” he said, his grin cocky as he lifted a brow. Blood and its subsequent power boost made him cheeky. “Sounds like she’s you. And you love you.”

Mason reached us, and she laughed heartily. “Finally, it all makes sense.”

I glared at both of them, though the corners of my mouth tipped up. It felt strange to talk about Scarlett out in the open. I still needed to keep her a secret from the born at all costs, but now that she belonged to me, she needed more protection. There were times I wouldn’t be able to look out for her, and I trusted my inner circle and top men and women to follow my orders absolutely.

“Well, I wouldn’t say it makes sense,” Uriah said, exchanging a glance with Mason that had my tattoos trembling with power. “She’s not one of us. And she’s also a human. It’s all very…”

“Perplexing,” Mason finished, crossing her arms as she watched me carefully. “She’s a seductress and a distraction, and I don’t trust her. How do you know for sure that she isn’t a plant?”

I let my shadows leak, and several heads turned. Mason didn’t bat an eye, didn’t stand down an inch.

“Because I vetted her,” I said. “Thoroughly.”

I wasn’t about to tell them that I’d watched her for a brief time every couple of years as she grew up in Crescent Haven.

“She’s just a bright-eyed human who escaped her small village to find adventure in the big city. A tale as old as time.”

“Hot,” Uriah said.

One of my shadows broke free, sharpening into a point, and shooting out to rest underneath Uriah’s chin. He swallowed.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Bad joke.”

Mason didn’t soften her skeptical, hardened stare. She opened her mouth to speak, but she was interrupted by a shout from the back of the room.

The servers and courtesans went still, and the vampires all leaped to their feet and conjured their magick.

“It’s Cedar,” was all I heard before my shadows and I were across the room, following the scent of vampire blood to the heavy front doors.

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