Page 8 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

I watched with numb satisfaction as Jaxon executed my attempted rapists. But then the adrenaline wore off, and the shock set in. I clung to Jaxon as he held me against his bare, bloody chest all the way home.

I cried in a silent, catatonic way as the chills began, filling me with an eternal winter as my body shook. Tears streamed down my face, one by one, warm and slick.

“You’re okay, you’re safe,” Jaxon said, holding me upright in the shower as he washed the blood off both of us. He was a good friend. “Fuck it. Sell that necklace the farmer gave you tomorrow. And we’ll leave when the merchants do. We’ll catch a ride with one of them—one of the ones from a coastal town—and we’ll be there in a few days. We have plenty of funds now, all thanks to you. So will Isabella, even if she doesn’t deserve a dime of it.”

He stared into my eyes, and something bad must’ve leaked into them because he quickly swallowed and shut up.

“Sorry. Morning. We’ll talk in the morning.”

He stepped out and covered me with a towel, pulling me against him again. “You’re safe, Scar. You’re safe. Come back now.”

I blinked and reset.

When I pulled back, I nodded. “Okay. I’ll sell it tomorrow. Then the next day we leave. This place is cursed. There’s nothing left for me here.”

5

RUNE

Past

Little Flame was twelve now. I waited for her to finish her lessons with the other village kids in the heart of the city and make her way back to her cottage. I found a wealthy family’s grand tomb in the nearby cemetery to set up camp. I didn’t even scan the tombstones anymore, not since I started coming to Crescent Haven for Little Flame and her alone.

I’d seen her briefly last year same time, but hunters cut my visit short. I left without a trace or confrontation, sneaking through the hole I’d cut with an ancient athame in the witches’ wards before closing it back. I didn’t want them to see who I was. They would’ve recognized me immediately, if only by legends and word of mouth, and then I would’ve had to kill them. If rumors had gotten back to the city, they would’ve invited irritating questions that I would never answer. There was a reason I no longer had a last name. Monsters were far scarier when they had no beginning and no end.

Putting Crescent Haven on my enemies’ radar also might put Little Flame in danger. Though I watched her, for only a brief span every year or two, I would never let her see me. I would never let her know me, though I was sure by now she’d heard my infamous four-letter name. I would exist only in her mind until the day she died, after living a long, fulfilling human life—full of love, loss, grief, and joy—far removed from the city of the dead.

This girl belonged with the living. She was the fire of life itself.

I needed to stop coming back here. I couldn’t explain this compulsion, this need to check in on her and see how her life had evolved since I’d last visited. She was a perplexingly complex creature, full of such deep sadness almost as great as her bursting, uncontainable delight. It was as though she’d been here many times before. She knew how to roll with the punches. She knew how to pick herself up and dust herself off after a fall, understanding innately that every valley in this life promised a peak right around the corner.

She was a magnetic force. Her scent was everywhere, like she was the lifeblood of the village itself. When she spoke, people couldn’t help but turn their heads toward the sound. If only they’d heard her sing. I hoped they had—I hoped she didn’t save it for when she was all alone.

But I somehow knew that she did.

When she made it to the cemetery, I stepped forward, watching her walk with a bounce to her step. She was smiling to herself, humming something sweet.

She wasn’t alone.

“Scarlett,” a boy called from behind her. “We dared Phillip to kiss you.”

Little Flame finally had a name. Not once since I’d been watching her had I heard someone say it. It had become quite amusing to me. The way I’d show up at the tail end of conversations, always failing to hear what she’d been called.

Little Flame—Scarlett—flipped her long, wavy dark hair behind her ears. Before she turned to face the group of boys her age and a few older, her face fell slightly, her bright blue eyes losing a shade of their brilliance.

A jolt of anger turned my blood molten, and I was surprised by its intensity. I didn’t like the way they’d pulled her out of the happiness she’d wrapped around herself. The way they’d stolen her from her own, carefully crafted reality and made her an object in theirs.

Humans were so unobservant. None more than young men. Wounded women tended to believe that men noticed but willfully ignored their mental states, desires, and needs in favor of their own selfish aims. And that was sometimes true.

But most of the time, the truth was far sadder. Most men and boys did not have even the slightest capacity to ascertain the complex emotional landscape of another person’s mind, least of all one belonging to someone they wanted to fuck.

Little Flame was far too young to learn these lessons. I hoped to Lillian that Phillip was one of the boys her own age and not one of the older teenagers in the group.

When the tallest, oldest-looking human stepped forward, an anticipatory gleam in his eyes, a growl built up in my throat.

As usual, humans gravely disappointed me.

My lips curled, but I was glued in place as the boys crowded her.

---