Page 42 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

“Young, beautiful, and human,” Snow finished.

I remembered Isabella’s scream, and I heard the sound of the men’s voices.

Did you not smell her on those sheets?

This isn’t the one.

Fate buzzed loud in my eardrums, and it was as though I could sense mortals gathering already, hear their hearts thumping and feet stomping as one.

This was why I came to Aristelle. This was how I would prove I was worthy of the love always kept just beyond my reach.

21

SCARLETT

The energy of the crowd that had gathered in the glamorous square next to Odessa was just as infectious as the inside of the club. The collective desire here was different. It was fiery, teetering on the edge of violent. Anger was a thread that bound us all together as we flooded the glittering white cobblestone, watched over by Lillian’s beautiful onyx statue.

Snow was quick to assure me that this was only supposed to be a rally, not a riot. Rune wouldn’t be happy with any unrest, and he would never allow violence in his streets. And if everything I’d ever heard about Rune and his clan was true, it wouldn’t take long for this crowd to fall in line if it came to brawls.

I suddenly remembered Jaxon making fun of me when I’d said that there had to be other mortals here in the city fighting against the slave trade. Others who’d been affected like I had. I’d been right. He and Phillip had tried to make me feel crazy for coming here, like as soon as I stepped foot in this place I’d be tackled by the nearest vampire and drained. But gathered in this square, surrounded by other impassioned humans, witches, and shifters, it was as though whatever power was guiding me through this life wasn’t so delusional after all.

The sun was fading quickly. Some of the shifters had gathered in their animal forms, from wolves and bears to black panthers and other large cats. Others remained in human form, joining the witches and humans as we gathered around Lillian.

Snow had introduced me to her witch friends who belonged to her coven. Tera was short and curvy, with curly black hair and big brown eyes. Winnifred had short brown hair and was thin and pixy-like, moving as though she was full of pure energy and forward momentum. Whereas Eli, sandy-haired and bearded, was the more standoffish of the bunch, appearing slightly nervous as he glanced around the growing crowd. He looked a little wild, his hair unkempt and glasses slightly crooked. All of them charged the air with magick, and it made me feel a lot safer knowing that I had some strength to back me up if things went south.

“They took our friend, Molly,” Snow said softly at my ear. “I’d wanted to get involved before she was taken, but the devastation of her loss made everyone in the coven get on board.”

Eli nodded, solemn. “I’m going to go find Molly’s parents. They need support. It was nice to meet you, Scarlett.”

I nodded and smiled at him, giving him a small wave goodbye.

The crowd quieted down, and I realized it was because a group of witches in a crescent formation had gathered before Lillian. An older woman in the center stepped forward, holding a quartz rod to her lips. When she spoke, I realized the rod amplified her voice loud and clear over the square.

“Thank you for being here today. What we’re doing is risky. It’s terrifying to stand up to powers so much greater than our own. But the vampires of this city need us—it’s our blood that sustains them. Without us, they would fall. Every last one of them, born and turned.”

Turned vampires gathered on the outskirts of the crowd, their faces stony as they radiated dark power. Heat coiled around my throat, and I gasped at the strange sensation.

I heard a few lupine and feline warning growls from somewhere to my left.

“Despite the war we fought for a land of peaceful coexistence, the treaty has not been duly upheld. The slave trade is only getting bigger, not only here in Valentin, but in Ravenia too. Valentin was supposed to be better than the rest of the kingdom. The mortals and the turned once fought together for this great island, and now we are being picked off one by one to live and die as slaves.”

A shout rang through the air, and then a bone-chilling howl that had me flinching. Snow rubbed my shoulder before dropping her hand back down to her side.

“We put our trust in Rune and the turned for protection. That is the only reason why the mortals of Aristelle have settled here, started families and businesses, and have fallen in love with this great city. We feed you and keep you alive!” Her voice sharply rose, urgency and raw emotion sending sweeping shivers across my skin. “And what have you done for us in return? You’ve allowed the city’s most vulnerable to be treated as nothing more than livestock. Ninety percent of Ravenia and Valentin’s slaves are human. They are virtually helpless to these acts of utter cruelty. Daughters and sons ripped from their mothers’ and fathers’ arms. You turned were once human.” Her voice was gripping, holding me in a trance as my anger and heartbreak broke the surface. “Or have you forgotten?”

Her voice shook with grief, with rage. It cut through my smooth denial, the mental barricades I’d constructed to stay focused on finding Isabella rather than drowning in the guilt and devastation of her loss.

I allowed myself to travel backward to Crescent Haven. I heard Isabella’s terror, saw her blood, heard the vampires talking about me as if I was nothing more than an object.

The dull emptiness in the back of my mind reached for me, reminding me of all the times I’d been treated like a dreamless, wantless, faceless composite of flesh.

The energy of the crowd shifted with my own. Every cell in my body came alive, and I became a part of a whole, lost in the collective wave of desire that rippled from here in the center of Aristelle outward.

We wanted action. We deserved action. I had never been angrier. It was as though this buried wrath leeched from my bones and burst into the autumn evening air, wrapping us all together as one reaching, spitting flame.

More shouts and growls erupted. Fighting had broken out. My skin was burning, scalding, as the air grew more volatile and violent. The crowd wanted to be heard and now it wanted blood.

I wanted blood.

---