Page 139 of Taken By Touch and Torment

She offered the rarest of smiles. “Fuck no.”

Rune stood by the door, watching me with those sharp, prying eyes.

“I want to keep my appendages intact, so I’ll pass on that one too,” Uriah said. “I’ll see you soon, anyway, Trouble.” He gave me a lazy salute, and when I returned it, he chuckled.

Sadie entered the hall, her heels clicking against marble. “One last thing, Scarlett dear.” She was wearing a tight leather dress and chic cape that fell to her midriff. She walked all the way to me, towering over me in a way that had Rune tensing and moving closer. “From here on out, every doubt, every fall, every nightmare, every last drop of spilled blood is fuel. Don’t bury any of it. Use it all.”

Her green eyes ensnared mine.

“Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

I thought of every terrible thing that had ever happened to me. They used to be hindrances—my every success won in spite of those horrors. But now, I saw that every traumatic event that had ever happened to me had made me who I was. They landed me right here, in a room of powerful men and women who were rooting for me.

“Yes,” I answered, unflinching as I returned my own hardened stare.

Sadie was doing more than search my eyes. She was staring so deep inside of me that I wondered if she could see all the way to the beginning of time itself.

Her grin was nothing short of warlike. “You’re ready.” She stepped back.

Rune’s features relaxed an inch at Sadie’s words, a testament to how much he respected her. When I finally joined him on the porch, alone with him and my two escorts, he flickered between his stony demeanor as the vampire ruler of Aristelle and the vulnerable human man who loved me.

With a dagger on each hip, my succubus well of power overflowing, I’d never been more comfortable in my own skin.

I’d stood up to Isabella. It didn’t matter how she’d reacted. Because the important part was that after years of being a doormat, a punching bag, a people pleasing victim, I finally told Isabella my truth. And I’d done it with grace, compassion, and tact.

Being proud of myself was a foreign sensation, but that was exactly what I felt right now, heading into battle to protect this island I loved and all of her most vulnerable citizens. I was damn proud of my excruciating, vulnerable healing. I was proud of my progress, my bravery, my resilience.

The guilt was still there, but at least now it was drowned out by all this love.

Rune’s lips brushed my forehead.

“No more gooey words, please,” I whispered. “Save it for when you’re welcoming me home with fifteen more flavors of ice cream.”

Rune’s smile was strained, his eyes welling with raw emotion. “Okay, baby, I won’t give you any more of my beautiful sentences. You’ll have to earn them.”

I returned his smile. “Deal.”

He pulled me into his arms, ignoring the man and woman awkwardly shifting on their feet—the underlings we’d tasked with smuggling me across the border.

I breathed in his crisp, woodsy scent.

“You made sure the pen worked?” he whispered.

I laughed. “Yes. That would be a funny mistake.”

“It would absolutely not be funny.”

I was taking in a single slip of paper and pen, hidden in a secret coat pocket, to communicate with Rune.

I pulled back, staring up into his dark eyes. “You want to say something gooey sooo bad.”

He glared at me. “Get out of my sight.”

I nodded. “Yes, Sir.”

As I turned away from him, my lip wobbled, and Rune grabbed my arm and pulled me in for the deepest kiss of my life.

“I love you, my soul,” he whispered against my lips.

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