Page 99 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

I waited for him to put out the flames he’d stoked in my blood, but he made no move to do so. And I refused to give him the satisfaction of asking for his touch only for him to deny me again. His talk of humbling me had my lust twisting into infuriation.

I despised this man.

“Now let me watch you get home.”

It took me a moment to realize what he’d said. I rolled my eyes, and Rune kissed my forehead.

“And you adore my insanity.”

“You wish,” I said, my voice throaty and flustered and not nearly as convincing as I’d meant it to sound.

The corners of Rune’s lips quirked up. “I’d walk you there if I could. Hell, I’d carry you.”

The reality of our affair came back to me. If Rune was seen with me by anyone outside his inner circle, I would never be safe again.

“You’re really going to find Isabella?” I asked him as dread ate me alive. This was what mattered. Bringing my sister home was going to make it all worth it.

“I do not break my word.” He strode back to the tree and yanked out my dagger before placing the hilt in my palms. “I will do everything in my power to locate her. You will just need to have patience. One wrong move could have disastrous consequences. Not to mention how well-hidden slaves are from anyone outside the trade, by magick, drugs, and ever-shifting location. I will find her, but I need you to promise me that you won’t get yourself needlessly killed or captured in an attempt to do this impossible task yourself.”

I considered his words, searching for hidden meaning or reasons to doubt him. He’d called it an impossible task, and yet he promised me he would complete it. Was he trying to temper my expectations?

“I will trust you to find her until proven otherwise,” I said.

Rune’s eyes narrowed, but after a couple beats, he nodded in acceptance. He tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. He pulled me to his chest for a moment, catching me off guard as I melted into his strong hold.

“I heard you with the witches,” he said softly, holding me tighter when my whole body tensed. “One day, I want you on a stage before hundreds. The entire world should hear your voice.”

46

SCARLETT

At one point, I woke up in the middle of the night in Rune’s arms. He was combing through my hair, kissing my shoulder softly as soon as I stirred. Cold air billowed toward us from the open window, but I had never been warmer cocooned under my pile of blankets with him.

“When I was a child,” he said softly, his words bringing me back up from the lull of my dreams. “I wanted to be a novelist. I wanted every library and bookshop in all of Ravenia to showcase my name.”

Surprise and intrigue flooded my body, not quite believing this was truly Rune speaking, and not some strange dream version of him.

“I wanted fame, but it was infamy I was destined to claim instead. Fate has a way of taking our dreams and twisting them around in her palms.”

“Do you regret it?” I asked sleepily. “Not following the other path?”

“Gods, no,” Rune said. “I had a responsibility. A calling. No one else was capable of doing what I did for Valentin and all of her mortals.”

I thought about how Rune killed his own father, and I saw clearly this overarching theme in his life. Slaying his family’s abuser was a violent microcosm of what was to come. Though he’d done it out of love for his mother and sisters, his mother never spoke to him again. I couldn’t imagine that kind of pain. To do the right thing and still end up misunderstood. Was that how he felt about the mortals who detested him? After he’d overthrown the born who clearly only wanted to keep us all as sex and blood slaves?

“You wanted to be a novelist?” I asked, relaxing into Rune’s slow trail of touch down the side of my body.

“When I wasn’t protecting my mother and sisters from my father, I was reading. Anything I could get my hands on. Chivalrous knights, ruthless conquerors, romantic rakes, fearless explorers—I imagined myself as them all. Books raised me, shaped me.”

“They were your escape,” I murmured. “You must’ve been so lonely.”

He paused, his hand going still against the curve of my waist. “Indescribably.”

For a moment, I forgot I was talking to a vampire, a darkly powerful one who strung up brutalized dissidents in Lillian’s Square. A vampire that no one truly knew, who’d fashioned himself as a mere legend. A god with a four-letter name, with no beginning and no end.

It felt instead like I was talking to a human. One that reminded me of myself, in a way that had my heart fluttering, reaching for him.

“I was a lonely child too,” I said. “I did want to be a singer, once. But other responsibilities took precedent over indulgences. Even if I was good enough to take a stage, I’d never be able to get over the stage fright.”

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