Page 148 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

She spoke first. “King Earle has declared war on the turned and allied mortal forces of Ravenia. Dissenting members of his council have gone into hiding. His dignitaries are no longer meeting with us. They’re meeting with Durian.”

In all of our planning, this was always the most disastrous scenario. Yet I couldn’t even process the idea that we might have lost kingdom support, and worse still, that the kingdom might’ve already decided to take back Valentin for the born.

No. I couldn’t focus on this devastating blow, not with Scarlett’s guard in front of me, without her. Race stirred, slowly opening his eyes.

“What. Happened,” I spat.

Dev cleared his throat. “We found Liza. She murdered all stable workers in Lumina and commandeered a firebird. Then she knocked out Race and flew away with Scarlett, who we believe was on her way here.”

Flew away with Scarlett. On her way here.

The words echoed inside my mind, their horrible truth spearing me right through my chest.

“Did she put up a fight?” Mason asked, and by gods, I wanted to strangle her. She was still searching for any evidence Scarlett was working with the born.

Dev looked puzzled. “Um, yes. But she’s human. So she was easily subdued. She wasn’t conscious by the time Liza took off.”

“Leave. Out of my sight,” I growled at Mason, who showed only the briefest moment of confusion before she spun on her heel and obeyed. The born had taken Scarlett. She had gone unwillingly.

The born believed she was human.

The ground beneath us shook, my shadows spilling out of me. Uriah reached for Snow, pulling her away and shielding her from my wrath.

Race came to, but flinched when my face was the first thing he saw.

“She didn’t kill you for a reason, I presume,” I hissed. “Out with the message.”

It took everything inside of me to stop myself from exploding. Or perhaps it was the fact that I’d still yet to refeed. If I had, I just might’ve reduced the whole castle to nothing but rubble and ash.

Race stuttered, but I had no patience for his disorientation.

When my shadows crawled toward him across the floor, he finally found his voice. “She—she said, an eye for an eye. Scarlett for Frederick. She said that this was only the beginning, and soon the born would take back everything.”

I was in the woods out behind the castle, pacing back and forth. My clan would not see me like this, though my fury was not something that was easily concealed.

I kept reaching, kept casting out my invisible leash as the woman with my blood in her veins descended into Hatham. I saw where she was on an invisible map, a field of influence that I then converted into places and names.

Finally, she’d stopped moving. I unleashed a roar that shook the earth. The sound of windows shattering and shadow cyclones whirring filled the air. I could see nothing but obsidian and void, the endless emptiness our love would’ve left behind if Sadie hadn’t shown me the truth. I knew exactly where she was.

Scarlett, my frightened and heartbroken Little Flame who believed I had forsaken her, was now inside Durian’s palace.

68

SCARLETT

Behind my eyelids, I saw Rune. His thick dark hair, soft against my fingers. A harsh juxtaposition from everything else about him that was hard, rigid, unflinching. Beautifully terrifying and secretly vulnerable. I curled into him, and his shadows wrapped around me protectively, a comforting reminder that I belonged to him, mind, body, and soul.

You are the only thing that feels different in a world that never changes.

When I opened my eyes, I saw a man with a strong, indented nose and stony features, jet-black, cold eyes, and blond hair that hung straight and thin past his jaw. The floor beneath me was hard and uncomfortable, the lights above dim against a dark ceiling accented with gold detailing.

My head pounded, but still I jerked, attempting to scramble up and away from this man who drove icy unease into my veins. He yanked me back, a warning in his eyes not to try it again. I’d never sensed such coldness, such evil.

He smiled. The act was mechanical, as if he’d learned by studying other people smiling but could never quite perfect his imitation.

“No need to fear, Helia’s perfect child,” he said, his voice a sickening chill down my spine. “Such an innocent, pure, entrancing little creature doesn’t belong with the abomination who has scourged the realm with his blasphemous plague. You were born to serve Lillian and her descendants, Scarlett. To serve me, Durian the Chosen, destined to reclaim Valentin for the Dark Goddess’s glory and exterminate the turned from the face of the earth.”

No. This had to be some kind of strange dream. Where had I been before this? I blinked. Rune. I’d been on my way to Rune.

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