Page 187 of Taken By Touch and Torment

“Um,” I said slowly. The whole circle erupted in laughter as I performed my mental calculations. “Five? I think?”

Snow’s eyes widened.

Uriah clutched his heart. “You’ve made your instructor proud.”

Sadie smiled. “You’ve made us all proud, Scarlett. You claimed your own kind of vengeance. It was a privilege and honor to witness.”

Emotion welled in my heart as my gaze flitted around the circle. My friends, my allies. These beings who believed in me, not in spite of who I was, but because of it.

“You all did more than witness me step into my power,” I said to them. “You each helped me make that leap, in your own way. And I will never forget to be grateful for your patience and your generosity.”

Rune’s hand rubbed soothingly on my upper thigh. He kissed my ear, and I leaned into his touch.

“None of us make it through this life without help,” Sadie said, her power flooding the room. Her darkness teased mine and Rune’s, forever intertwined. “The weak fall alone and the powerful rise together.”

“I am grateful to have met you, Scarlett fucking Hale,” Rosalind said.

Everyone echoed the sentiment, making my cheeks flush with heat. Rune felt my face with his cool fingers, chuckling at my embarrassment. I attempted to elbow him but was immediately restrained by shadow.

I met Snow’s eyes—that soft green that had comforted me in my darkest moments inside the palace. Her wisdom that had broken through my walls of shame and fear. The voice that had taught me how to finally accept the love always dangled just a touch out of reach.

Love for myself, the greatest love of my life.

She smiled. “You used to clip your own wings when you flew too high. Now, you can’t help but soar.”

73

RUNE

Iwatched early morning sunlight fall across Scarlett’s fair skin, illuminating the slight rosiness of her cheeks, the long, dark lashes that softly fluttered as she dreamed.

I was sitting up, resting against the headboard.

It was comforting and familiar to watch her while she was unconscious and unaware of my obsession. I got to admire her exposed, nude body in peace, without her sharp tongue and bratty banter.

I loved it all.

I loved her silent and vulnerable, and I loved her wicked and unrestrained. I loved her wild and covered in enemy blood, and I loved her docile, on her knees, staring up at me with the recognition that I was her one and only God.

She breathed deep and slow. When her hand twitched, I wanted to kiss every finger.

I tried not to think about when Scarlett’s heart had stopped beating. In that space of lost time, my body and brain had been operating, but my soul had left in search of hers.

I’d only experienced that kind of cavernous, obliterating terror once in my life. And that was the day I’d found my sisters’ bodies in Crescent Haven’s woods in early autumn.

Scarlett still didn’t know anything about her birth parents or why she was left at Helia’s temple in some nowhere village. She wanted answers, and I would support her in that endeavor.

But, personally, I enjoyed the serendipitous mystery of it all. She was new life that had sprouted in a decayed wasteland, the spring that followed winter. I’d been powerless to save my sisters, and now Scarlett was mine to protect forever.

Early autumn had once been a time for mourning. Not only my sisters, but my humanity too. Now autumn was a time for gratitude. Because of all the places to leave a vampire-human baby, Scarlett’s savior had put her in my path.

I wanted to believe it was all magick, all karma and soul connections, and who was I to rob myself of this humanlike devotion to the ethereal?

Scarlett stirred, and my gaze jumped to her features, assessing them for signs she was trapped in a nightmare.

They remained peaceful.

I slowly trailed my fingers through her long, dark hair. She only relaxed deeper; her soul knew it was safe with mine.

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