Page 71 of Taken By Touch and Torment

“Do not speak to me like that, Rune,” Sadie snarled. “Now is not the time for childish, short-sighted blunders. Every move has to count no matter how much of your humanity you’ve allowed to cloud your emotions.”

I laughed bitterly as we moved toward each other. The room shook with dark power.

“Hungry? I know where they keep the snacks,” Uriah said to Snow, tilting his head toward the doors.

“I’m not defenseless, you know,” Snow said, crossing her arms and standing her ground.

“You wouldn’t be nearly as hot if you were,” he retorted.

Snow’s lips parted as she glared at Uriah.

Sadie’s focus had strayed to Snow and Uriah too, her anger melting as she watched Uriah flirt and Snow fluster.

I reeled my shadows back in, and Sadie’s magick quelled in equal measure. Her heels clicked against the floorboards as she continued to approach me. Her hand softly rested on my bicep before falling back down.

“I push you because I care,” she whispered, her voice covered by Snow and Uriah’s bickering. “Yes, about Valentin and her future. But also, about you.”

A muscle in my jaw ticked as I stared into those reptilian green eyes.

“And you know what my judgment of Scarlett was at first glance?” She grinned, that infuriating all-knowing wisdom in her features. “That she is far more than a survivor. She’s a facet of the divine dark feminine. She’s a powerful being with her own gravitational field. If she wants to fight, when the time comes, you need to let her.”

I swallowed down my anger. The thought of putting Scarlett in harm’s way ever again made me want to go on a born killing spree.

Sadie lifted her chin. “She will want to, eventually. And when she does, she’s going to claim her own kind of vengeance.”

My mentor acting as if she knew Scarlett better than I did pissed me off nearly as much as her desire to use Scarlett as a weapon. I’d watched my Little Flame her whole life. I knew more than what could be seen on the surface. I understood every facet of her perfect, fiery soul, because it was a part of me—it always had been.

As I had every few minutes since she’d been taken, I followed that invisible leash that tethered her to me. I remembered watching my blood slide down her throat like it was yesterday, marking her as mine before she’d consciously understood it.

I sucked in a breath, and all heads turned toward me.

“She’s moving. She’s left the palace.”

29

SCARLETT

“Kole wants to go to Black Sapphire with you, Rosalind, and me,” I told Brennan when he snuck me into his chambers later that night. “It would provide us an opportunity to be alone finally, away from him.”

Brennan’s eyes widened, looking down at the way I’d placed my hand on his chest as I stared up at him. I positioned myself as weak and fearful, an entirely different game than the one I played with Kole. Only the barest sexual undertones arose from my rapid breathing, my dilated pupils and flushed cheeks. Rosalind had been helping me master control of my body, training it to show physical signs of arousal or other emotions necessary for a proper seduction, even when I was feeling another thing entirely.

“He does?” Brennan asked, confusion twisting his features. “With me? And not Durian?”

“He doesn’t want to offend Durian. But he sees what I see—that you’re a formidable leader who warrants far more recognition than you’ve been given. He wants to spend time with you somewhere you can’t be overshadowed.”

Brennan tried to mask his satisfaction, but I homed in on the upward tick of his lips. The way he stood a little taller, lifted his chin an inch.

Another powerful tool of seduction—making sure I was consistently the bearer of good news, never bad. I’d not only been boosting Brennan’s ego, but now I was providing him with tangible evidence of my version of reality. Nothing was more powerful. In his subconscious mind, it was me who was elevating him, not Kole. I was the one who made him feel like a big strong man. I was the one who made him feel like more than what he’d been before, who held the keys to his every last dream in my palms.

There was no stronger force when making a man a slave.

He kissed me, and I pretended not to be revolted by his soft lips and forceful tongue. Suddenly, he pulled back.

“He wants to bring you?” His brows furrowed. “Durian will never allow it.”

I let my piercing blue eyes pin him with the deepest sorrow, my bottom lip trembling. “I know. That was what I told him. He hoped you could sneak me out, just for one night of fun. I told him that was too impossible of a task, even for you. I’d never want to put you in a position that might get you in trouble with Lillian and her chosen future king.” I stepped away from him, slipping from his grip and letting my shoulders slump. “I should get back. I wouldn’t want to raise suspicion.” I smiled sadly, and Brennan huffed in frustration.

“Fuck this,” he said angrily, grabbing my arm and pulling me back. “It’s a crime that you only get to be your true self when you’re with me. You’re so much sexier when you’re free.”

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