Page 95 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

My voice flew through the air like a firebird gliding through clouds, ascending over mountain peaks and diving to streak low across the sea.

I was bleeding through the song like Frida and the others in Rune’s music collections, and I didn’t know why, only that I wanted everyone’s wishes to come true.

When I finally opened my eyes, I was floating as high as a human tasting elixir for the very first time. Every pair of eyes in the moonlit grove was on me.

“Scar,” Snow said, her green eyes wide. She lifted a hand to cover her lips.

I came back to myself slowly, unsure of what had just happened or why. “Did you enchant me?”

Everyone was still staring except those who had closed their eyes as I had, reaching up toward Selena.

Snow slowly shook her head. “No.”

Stranger still was that I didn’t react to the crowd’s attention like I expected. I didn’t cower from it, not at first. I didn’t begin to wall myself up until I felt this familiar surge of dark satisfaction in my gut. It was the same pleasure I tasted when I manipulated a mark to do my bidding, the delight of a successful seduction.

It was only when I heard Isabella’s familiar scorn in my ear that the mortification took hold. Because this was not my gathering, not my goddess, not my devotion to feed off.

Selfish parasite. Attention-whore.

The floaty headspace remained, and the celebrating witches slowly resuming their activities. Some of the men’s eyes lingered, partners and friends having to shake them out of their trance.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Snow. “Your magick made me want to sing. I don’t know why.”

What the hell was wrong with me? I’d only just recovered from the embarrassment of singing in front of Rune.

“For the love of Selena, don’t apologize,” Tera said, smiling wide.

“That was the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard,” Snow echoed, though I saw something shift in her eyes. They widened and then narrowed as if she couldn’t quite recognize me.

Eli only stared at me, blinking a couple times before he finally spoke. “That was really nice, Scarlett. I had no idea you were a singer.” Desire bled from him as he pushed his glasses back up his nose.

I shook my head vigorously. “Oh, I’m not. But thank you all, for the kind words.”

My ears burned, picking up on a conversation behind me as Snow, Eli, and Tera continued to regard me in a mixture of disbelief and curiosity.

“She’s just Snow’s human charity project,” a woman said, her voice venomous. “Why do you care so much who she is, Devin?”

I peered over my shoulder and cringed hard at the familiar scene of a man getting yelled at, presumably by his partner, for having too much interest in me. When I met the man’s gaze, he quickly looked away.

I hated myself. Why was I like this? The woman’s cruel words echoed in my ears, and for a scary moment, I wanted to steal him away to punish her for her undue malice.

I hadn’t chosen this. I hadn’t chosen any of this.

I turned back to my friends—the friends I was one wrong move away from losing—and I knew I had to get away before I showed them any more of myself. Before I showed them whatever Isabella had seen to make her despise me so much.

“Don’t listen to her,” Snow said. “I don’t know why she said that.”

“Quite unlike her,” Eli said.

They all looked at me with cloying pity. I suddenly felt like a poison, a corrupting force, a creature that didn’t belong. An ill-fitting piece in a world that hadn’t been built for someone like me.

“I’m going to head back,” I said.

“No, Scarlett, don’t go,” Snow said, reaching for me.

I pulled away, forcing a smile even as my lips trembled. “No, it’s okay. I had a lot of fun. I love hanging out with you guys.”

My next shift at Odessa couldn’t come soon enough. That was an energy flow that made sense to me. The lust and the games of pleasure and conquest, the delicate dance of denial and release. The dark thirst and the enthralling mysteries of the exclusive dungeons below our feet. I didn’t feel out of place at Odessa, surrounded by vampires who thirsted for my blood. And I knew how little sense that made.

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