Page 17 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

Beatrice cackled, throwing me a knowing look. Then something strange passed through her features, something she quickly concealed. I got the strange intuition that she knew something I didn’t.

“She’s as well as she is capable of being?” she replied.

I nodded with a shrug. “Precisely.”

“I’ve always liked you, Scarlett. Cunning recognizes cunning.”

My smile faltered. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that assessment. But now wasn’t the time to disagree with the woman who was deciding how tight our travel funds might be until we find work.

“Whatcha got for me?” she asked, tapping her foot. She finally nodded at Jaxon. “And I assume I don’t need to tell either of you what would happen if you dragged me into thievery schemes and legal troubles?”

Older witches tended to be prejudiced against shifters, especially young shifter men. Vampire history wasn’t the only history marred by blood, violence, and vying for power. There was a time on mortal lands when shifter packs were constantly at war, with each other and with the witches.

But when push came to shove, mortals banded together against vampires. Every single time.

Jaxon thankfully fought off his urge to grow irritated by Beatrice’s insinuations. “No thievery. It was a gift from one of her suitors.”

I stepped forward and handed her the wooden jewelry box.

“Didn’t return the affection?” she asked me, flipping it open and inspecting. A glimmer of amusement shone in her eyes.

“I can’t be bought,” I said, and her eyes lazily moved from the necklace to me. “I don’t want men to want my body. I want them to love what’s underneath.”

Jaxon groaned, muttering something flippant as he always did when I talked about romance. I crossed my arms, defiance licking my blood.

“Just when I was about to tell you how wise you were for staying away from men folk and their tricks,” she said with a tsk. “And then you start spouting off nonsense about love. Love is inside of you. Love is in your friends.” She tilted her head toward Jaxon. “Your family.”

I didn’t have a family.

“Stick to the real love. The kind that fills you up. The other kind is merely manipulation of the highest degree, and it will leave you emptier and lonelier than you ever thought possible.”

I swallowed. Beatrice didn’t have a life partner, and she wasn’t jaded about it at all.

Jaxon closed his wide-open mouth, and we traded a look and then quickly averted our eyes so that we didn’t burst out laughing.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, and she grumbled in response.

She inspected the necklace for a few seconds longer, then sighed. “Two hundred.”

Jaxon didn’t hide his scoff, and Beatrice lifted her dark brows.

“Three-fifty,” I said. “That’s how much it’s worth.”

“It doesn’t matter how much it’s worth,” Beatrice said with a sly grin. “What matters is how much it’s worth to you. And you both reek of desperation.”

“We do not,” Jaxon snapped, which was probably the least convincing retort we could’ve come up with.

At the sharp point of my glare, he huffed, looking away. This was why I’d said to let me handle this.

I refocused on Beatrice, and I wondered what it was she desired.

I remembered that she’d once had a daughter. My mom told me about her, when I was too small to understand grief even as it barreled straight for me. She said Beatrice’s little girl fell into the creek and hit her head and returned to the gods too early. I still heard Beatrice’s wails sometimes—the way they’d echoed through the walls of her townhome on my walk to morning lessons.

What did she desire?

Beatrice didn’t want word to get out that she’d gone soft, especially not for a shifter boy. She wanted to make a good profit. That was why she lowballed us. But there was another desire, a deeper, purer one, that came from somewhere both suffocating and dark, unburdened and soaring. The feeling I got when I stared up at the stars and felt like a speck of sand on a shore that went on forever.

“We’re leaving, Beatrice,” I said, and her smirk dissolved. She was lost in my eyes, caught in my trap, and I took my opportunity. “Ever since I lost my parents, I’ve been stuck underneath the dirt with them.”

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