Page 13 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

I smirked. This girl. This precious, cunning, honey-sweet girl. I had the sickest urge to see her taste real fear—to face me—and see if she could still find it within herself to brat off.

Something told me she would. And something else told me I’d delight in bending her over my knee for it.

I’d long since given up keeping my filthy thoughts at bay. As long as she never heard any of them, they were merely more fuel for my self-flagellation. No harm, no foul. Just like the following and the watching.

I was glad to see her walk away from the scouts. But her refusal only meant that the men would likely send a vampire or two to snatch her from her bed and drag her out of town before anyone heard her scream. Or, they would’ve, if Little Flame didn’t have a deathly powerful and monumentally pissed off vampire stalker.

She and her shifter friend would escape them—and escape me—like they’d always planned. They’d go somewhere full of life, art, beauty, and love, and most importantly, free of immortal beasts that went bump in the night.

The life I’d always known she deserved. Ever since I first saw her hold a trapped, dying rabbit in her arms and mourn its loss as if she and the creature were one and the same.

I was supposed to be following the traffickers home, to kill one and subdue the other, dragging him across village borders to be tortured out in the unpatrolled woods beyond.

But then I overheard two ugly old fucks planning to follow Scarlett and have their way with her, and goddessdammit. What did I say about me being the only one who was allowed to creep on my spitting, fiery Little Flame?

As I followed the stumbling drunks following Scarlett, I realized one crucial problem: I’d made a vow to never reveal myself to her.

I could kill them both near instantly, but there was little chance I’d avoid her turning and seeing me. And I had no idea how I’d react to that. I’d like to think I’d use my inhuman speed to run far, far away. But after the uncharacteristically low level of control I exhibited tonight, I didn’t trust myself enough to do that.

So for now, I merely watched them, and I hoped I wouldn’t be forced to intervene. Maybe she was armed. It wasn’t uncommon for humans to arm themselves, especially with weapons crafted with paralytic magick that slowed down vampires enough to give mortals a fighting chance at killing us. Mortals were downright terrified of vampires, for good reason. They guarded themselves to the teeth against us, even if it was relatively rare for vampires to leave the city and venture into dry land—vampire safe zones established after the war.

It was far more likely mortals killed each other out here.

I gritted my teeth, my predator instincts kicking into overdrive as I watched these men gain on Scarlett. One of them was bald, the other had patchy hair that was barely hanging on. They weren’t exactly fit or healthy-looking individuals, but Scarlett was tiny and female. She stood no chance against them in hand-to-hand, unarmed. Unless she’d been trained very, very well. Which was unlikely.

I would’ve trained her. I would’ve made sure she knew how to defend herself against anything and anyone who stood to threaten her. If I’d been anyone else. If I hadn’t made a vow never to let her know me as anything other than the infamous vampire lord of Aristelle.

“Scarlett!” one of them slurred. “You said your name is Scarlett, isn’t it?”

“How would you feel about pocketing a little extra money tonight?”

A little? I scoffed. As if she wasn’t worth more than all the gold in Valentin, and even the kingdom too. Human men were extraordinarily delusional. They probably thought with enough convincing she’d want to be with their revolting, low-life asses for free.

We’d left the town behind and entered the cemetery, where I jumped from one tomb or headstone’s shadow to the next. Quicker than eyes could catch, like the demonic entity that I was. Scarlett ignored them, quickening her pace, and I picked up on the sharp smell of her fear.

Fuckkk.

That scent might’ve been intoxicating enough to trigger bloodlust if I was any other vampire. If bloodlust hadn’t been beaten out of me long ago. I saw Sadie’s face for a moment; that day she’d punched me so hard I saw the gods. I loved that woman—my ruthless mentor and dear friend. She’d taught me what it meant to master control. Hunger, desire, and impulses of the mind and body, all just fleeting whims that arose and faded like billowing smoke.

“Is Scarlett the color that pretty face turns when you come? We’d make you feel real good tonight. You’d come first, and second, and third. Because we’ve got manners and shit.”

At those words, scarlet became the color I saw behind my eyelids. I couldn’t keep the vines from leaking from my skin and crawling the earth, but I managed to stop them right before they found their marks. It was nearly painful to draw them back in, rather than letting them wrap around each of the old men’s bodies and squeeze until their eyeballs popped out of their sockets and blood oozed from the dozens of thorn punctures in their flesh.

“All that hair would look so good wrapped around my fist, baby. You like it rough, don’t you? The innocent lookin’ ones always do.”

A growl nearly escaped my curled lips, my whole body vibrating with power and rage. These two fucks were going to die so slowly, so painfully, and I would revel in every moment of it.

The only thing in this world Scarlett should fear was me.

She spun on her heel, and I saw in her eyes the same look she had when she punched Phillip in the mouth a decade ago in this same cemetery. I found it fitting he was now engaged with her cruel sister, all the while still looking at Scarlett the same way he did years ago.

Scarlett’s teeth flashed pearl under the moonlight. “You will never know what I like in bed, because I don’t fuck pathetic, drunk old men with tiny limp dicks.”

That mouth. That filthy, beautiful, spiteful little mouth.

My first instinct was to feed her praise. Then I remembered how outmatched she was, and my vow never to intervene—never to reveal myself and ruin her life that had only just begun.

Scarlett realized her misstep at the same time I did, and soon she was running and so were the men. I took off with them, a specter of darkness to join the other ghosts.

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