Page 68 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

When I was outside in the chill night air, I found my young protégé in a puddle of his own blood on the stone porch. Witch light illuminated his broken form, the way his head was now barely attached to his body and his heart had been ripped from his chest.

I held a tight leash on my wrath. I only gathered a cloud of shadow around me when what I really wanted was to propel my magick right into the born district to rot each vampire there from the inside out.

“We found him in Nyx. Our district. Not two blocks from Odessa.”

Durian was no longer abiding by our unwritten rules. The tenuous ways the turned and born had maintained peace since the war—the norms that were far more important than the treaty itself. He had spit in my face in my own home, and I knew that he’d done it so close to when the ambassadors were visiting as a test of my restraint.

Durian was a spoiled brat, a snot-nosed child with zero tact or foresight. He thought that just because he’d been born to a powerful bloodline and had foolishly claimed Lillian’s blessing, he stood a chance against someone with centuries of experience who had won either the respect or fear of all of Valentin.

He wouldn’t last long no matter how things panned out with King Earle and the turned in Ravenia. Gerrie had recently confirmed that forces were indeed stacking against the king, but it was too early to tell how effective they’d be. Either way, King Earle was going to hate Durian because of his arrogant claim that he was Lillian’s chosen one. And the turned and mortals in greater Ravenia would hate Durian because he was born.

All I had to do was follow the signs and act intelligently for the good of my people. Durian was doomed no matter what, and that brought me momentary satisfaction.

I knelt down and studied Cedar’s battered form, barely recognizable. His tattoos were burned or ripped brutally from his desecrated corpse.

Scarlett had asked me if I mourned myself. At this moment, I did. Because instead of seeing Cedar as a being, a brother, a son, a partner—I saw him as a message, a pawn on the board. I was already planning my next moves in my head, deciding how to best execute revenge, and solving a myriad of other complex puzzles present and imagined future.

“We will show Frederick the same consideration they showed our brother,” I said to Uriah, Mason, and the other clan members around me. “Then we will drag him out of the dungeon and string him up in Lillian’s Square before their Dark Goddess.”

At the nods of deference, I stood, my eyes never leaving Cedar’s—hollow and lifeless. I’d learned to channel grief into action a long time ago, but Scarlett’s roots in my mind made me remember how it was to be human, in ever-fleeting glimpses.

It was too dangerous for me to feel in so many shades and hues like she did, vibrant and all-consuming. A soulless monster couldn’t believe in love written in the stars. I’d seen what had happened when mortals planned for the future, when they romanticized their own existence despite all the evidence that it was just meaningless chaos and cycles of violence and greed.

Yet I still found myself stuck, for a moment, seeing Cedar through Scarlett’s pure blue eyes. A young man, a new vampire, maybe even a soul.

I’d let her run away from me after I’d shown her a glimpse of the pleasure that was to come. Maybe because when she’d asked about soulmates and fate, I’d seen clearly through my obsession at our stark differences, and I feared what I would do to her if we continued.

I was going to hurt her. Break her. And one day, she was going to die and leave me behind.

We would never last until then. I’d be surprised if we lasted the year.

Yet I equally feared that when she finally ran away for good, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from chasing after her. Just like I couldn’t help but follow her home that night and every night since.

Scarlett was not a plant, but Mason was right that she was a beautiful distraction. I wished I could say that I fully believed my convictions that Scarlett was a fluke, that she would eventually run, and that I didn’t belong in her constellation of karma and soul connections.

But the human part of me, the one I thought I’d killed but still rose every couple of years to haunt me, believed otherwise. That part of me was getting stronger, more dangerous, and out of my control.

The human side of me knew that Scarlett was mine, and he wanted to claim her in this life and every one of her lives after, for all of eternity.

I was peeling off skin from a screaming Frederick when I felt a strange prickling sensation on the back of my neck.

I paused, closing my eyes. Where was my Little Flame right now?

The mark of my blood echoed back to me when I called, and soon I’d placed her in between Nyx and River. She was likely with the witch, exploring the city. This thought made me smile.

But the strange prickling on my neck suddenly grew hot and then dimmed, as if my connection to her was draining away.

Had she found out about what I’d done? Was she getting the witch to remove my invisible leash?

She’d better fucking not. I’d force my blood right back down that pretty little throat.

Wait.

“Carry on without me,” I said quickly.

“What is it?” Mason asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Do we have eyes on Scarlett?”

---