Page 10 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

Stop, Rune.

I needed to stop obsessing, but I didn’t know how. I could delude myself into believing that by staying in the shadows, there was no harm and no foul. But I knew better.

What I was doing wasn’t good.

Being good hadn’t been a concern of mine for centuries. If Mason or any of my closest clan members knew the man Little Flame could resurrect, for one fleeting moment in early autumn, they’d probably hold me down and rip all the skin from my body inch by inch to snap me out of it. At a certain point in immortality’s long march, pain became the only means of effective communication. They’d shit their pants if they knew about any of this.

My city needed me ruthless and of sound, calculated mind. Not inexplicably captivated by a random human child—the only little creature capable of bringing back what I could never admit I missed dearly.

6

RUNE

Present

After the last time I’d seen Little Flame, when she was seventeen years old, I’d decided I could never see her again.

That was six years ago.

She had been on the cusp of adulthood, and though I knew the logic was faulty, it felt more innocent to watch her when she was a child. Maybe a part of me was frightened of the shift—to see her as something other than pure and unactualized. I’d decided it was best to let her go, for her future to exist only in my imagination. Just as I would only ever live in hers.

When I crossed into Crescent Haven, my foot landing decisively over the line I had drawn for my sake and for hers, a speck of guilt broke through my shields.

Guilt. That was not an emotion I could harbor. For everyone’s sake. I was different in this village, and that was supremely dangerous, now more than ever.

Fallen leaves and twigs crunched under my black boots. I was in all black, an embodiment of shadow itself. The thorny vines on my arms vibrated, itching to crawl off my skin and stretch out in all directions.

Shhh, I whispered to them. Not here.

They stilled. Perhaps they were reaching for her, sensing she was near.

No. She wasn’t why I’d come. For the first time in my vampiric existence, I had a legitimate reason to be here.

Could I have sent literally anyone else to do this job for me? Obviously. I should have done that. My talents were needed in the city, not doing the work that any semi-competent underling could do.

Mason had merely shaken her head at me when I told her I was going to follow the scouts myself. Though she knew I came to Crescent Haven every year or two, she didn’t know that my reason for doing so had shifted seventeen years ago.

“Do you think you’ll ever let it go?” she’d asked, rubbing her short, wiry black hair before crossing her arms over her chest. Her deep brown skin had a reddish hue under the warm lighting of my study.

I’d stared back at her. She was a wall of finely tuned vampire muscle and might, stubbornness woven into the fabric of her impassive, strong features.

“It’s not about that,” I said, standing straighter as my power thrummed. Mason wasn’t short, but I still towered over her, towered over everyone. “They’re breaking my laws and preying on mortals in dry lands. They’re in direct violation of the treaty that they agreed to, and it’s only getting worse. I need to send a message myself.”

“Okay, Rune. As if this isn’t the same old shit we know they’ve been doing for decades—centuries even. Far be it from me to warn you against showing weakness during a time of escalating tensions with the born scum,” she’d said, a hard edge to her voice. She was one of the few people who could speak to me this way without losing their tongue and finding it shoved back down their throat.

My lips had curled, revealing my fangs. “They. Don’t. Know. Anything. All they will see is the torture and execution of human trafficker scouts, which is well within the bounds of both my power as a ruler and my character as a monster.”

I came back to the present. Yes, that was what I needed to remember tonight—that I was a monster. I couldn’t see Scarlett, not when she encouraged the ever brief and slippery delusion that I was once something more.

Here on the edge of the forest, I could already scent her, which made my whole body tense and teeth clamp down together. She shouldn’t still be in Crescent Haven. She should be off seeing the world. She knew it, and I knew it too.

I’d hoped she’d moved on. Not just for my sake, but for hers too. Especially with predators lurking in the area, searching for beautiful humans who’d make them a fortune in the underground trafficking ring.

Born vampires—descended from Lillian, the Dark Goddess of death, chaos, and desire—had never been human. They grew until adulthood and then froze in place for an eternity or until they were taken out of their misery. Because they had never known mortality—had never faced death bravely each day and had chosen to keep marching forward still—they had no regard for mortal life. They saw existence as a game of winners and losers, violence and pleasure their native tongues. They were demons on earth, and they could never be anything more.

Turned vampires were once human. To the born vampires, we were abominations. Forsaken by Helia and rejected by Lillian, beings with no god and no right to exist except the space we stole for ourselves. But it was only because of us, because of me, that the island of Valentin remained autonomous and Aristelle the prosperous, thriving den of sin that it was, with plenty of mortals willing to offer their bodies for feeding. Or the occasional capture, splurge, and release, because vampires needed a thrill every once in a while. As long as we weren’t in bloodlust, it was completely doable for us to stop ourselves before we ripped off a head.

But that wasn’t enough for Lillian’s demon spawn. They wanted human slaves. They wanted to hunt for the kill. They wanted to breed chaos, and if they were allowed to act with reckless abandon as they did centuries ago, then Valentin would fall. The kingdom didn’t want that—they relied on our exports too dearly, especially those crafted by the witch and the shifter populations.

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