Page 116 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

He wanted to tell me more. He desired to open up to me. I repeated these mantras, willing him to bend to my will.

“Probably because your home village reminds me very much of my own, virtually unchanged through the centuries,” he continued.

My ears perked up. That certainly sounded like Crescent Haven.

Something else had stuck with me. Though the chapter was this genre-bending piece entrenched in metaphor and irony, there was the briefest mention of the born that read like foreshadowing. The story clearly took place before the war, though the parameters were fluid. Was Rune writing his own story? His human story?

“Something happened, didn’t it?” I asked, and his eyes flashed surprise before narrowing. “Something horrible that made you want to become strong enough to challenge the born on behalf of all mortals.”

“Well, that makes my motivations sound so very heroic, which is more generous than I deserve.”

I was unflinching. I needed him to open, to show me the things he clutched most tightly out of my reach.

Rune sighed, grabbing and lifting me like I weighed nothing. I wrapped my legs around him, and he sat down on the couch with me in his lap, straddling him.

“I do not enjoy how difficult it is to say no to you,” Rune muttered.

I smiled widely, tracing his sharp jaw as he shuddered and frowned.

“My sisters were killed by the born,” he said.

The smile dropped from my face, my stomach churning with horror. “I’m sorry, Rune.”

He lifted a shoulder, shaking his head slightly. “It was a very, very long time ago.”

Though I wanted to know more, I didn’t push him. His human life had been appalling. Having to kill his abusive father to protect his mother and sisters, only to have his mother shun him, was bad enough. Now to know that his sisters had been slain by vampires? Rune was nothing if not a protector. He must’ve felt so anguished, completely helpless. No wonder he’d chosen to become the strongest version of himself, to avoid ever feeling that way again.

I ached for him, my heart squeezing as I sunk into his hold and continued tracing his hard edges.

“Maybe you acted out of vengeance too, but your thirst for retribution was born out of love,” I said gently. “And grief, which is love’s natural consequence.”

Rune stared into my eyes, his guardedness cracking but an inch. He looked like he’d fallen under my spell and was somewhat irritated by it.

“I promise I still think you’re a vile monster,” I said, and his eyes danced with humor. “But I see goodness, too. I swear I’ll keep it to myself.”

“You’d fucking better.” His lips spread as he flipped me underneath him in one fluid movement. He bent down, his body far too large for my elegant, dainty couch. “I’m your worst nightmare, Scarlett darling, and I’d sooner die than let you ever forget it.”

54

RUNE

As I watched Scarlett sleep, my thin threads of control pulled taut. She was on her side, her comforter and sheets clinging to the curve of her body. I’d watched her for a couple hours at Odessa tonight, though she hadn’t known it. She was up to her usual tricks, despite no longer desperately needing money or help finding her sister.

The cunning, contradictory little creature was in it for the love of the game. She enjoyed understanding another’s mind just as much as I did. Though while I looked for weaknesses to exploit until I broke a man, she looked for ways to turn a man into her denied and flustered slave.

It was fucking sexy.

Despite her concern, I knew that if Sadie were to meet Scarlett, she’d see they were often frighteningly similar. They’d each feel threatened at first, and then, after an entertaining battle of the wits, they’d become the best of friends.

Maybe one day I’d take Scarlett to Sadie, after Scarlett had been claimed.

The only thing that kept me sane when Scarlett and I were ever apart was the blood I’d forced down her little throat, the invisible leash that tethered her to me at all times. I tracked her always, making sure she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

Though I was anxious to mark her before the world, she was already mine. She might’ve always been mine. I’d long given up denying what the human side of me knew in my bones.

My soul somehow escaped the gods’ condemnation to remain intertwined with hers, fated since before we’d inhabited our mortal forms.

I crept closer, watching her chest rise and fall steadily. When she moaned softly, her heart rate picking up a notch, my eyes nearly rolled back inside my head.

---