Page 90 of Taken By Touch and Torment

Snow shot him a glare, but Rune didn’t back down. I didn’t give a shit about Rune’s domineering protectiveness, currently. I wanted to know what they were hiding from me.

“I don’t need anyone walking on eggshells around me,” I said, frustration leaking into my tone. “I’m not a victim. I’m a person. Do not treat me like I didn’t fight to be standing with you both right now. Neither of you have any idea…” I shut my mouth, a fury of buried emotion battering against my mental walls.

Rune’s shadows vibrated with power. He seemed to be calming himself down, his features slowly relaxing. He reached for my hand and brought it to his lips.

“I made good on my promise, baby,” he said. “Just before you were taken, I found Isabella. We rescued her cell of slaves before they could be relocated to the palace.”

Rune was taking me to a café in River. Other than stares from everyone we saw and brief exchanges between Rune and passing turned, our walk was uneventful. Rune didn’t miss the way I startled at every noise.

“Stay close, Little Flame,” he whispered, kissing the side of my head as I held onto his arm.

My stomach fluttered as I looked up at him. This tall vampire built of lean muscle and dark magick, who simultaneously ruled an island and cared for me like I was the only thing that had ever mattered to him.

I shed a lone tear as I observed the city. The frigid air was a bit quieter, more solemn than before I’d left. But crystalline domed temples still shimmered under the sunlight. Buildings were architecturally breathtaking—various shades of cream, white, black, and dark jewel tones. Some were decorated with blooming flowers and creeping vines, despite being the dead of winter. Vampires and mortals, alike, poured out of restaurants and shops to gather on the cobblestone streets.

Had Isabella bothered to leave the care center to see how wrong she’d been about Aristelle? No. That seemed unlikely. Even if she did have the gall to explore the city of vampires, I’d bet she’d find a plethora of reasons to hate everyone and everything she encountered.

We’d traded places, she and I. She’d been saved the same night I had been kidnapped. And I didn’t know how I felt about that truth, or even about her, anymore. I was glad she was safe, along with all the other rescued slaves. I was grateful to Rune for rescuing her even after he’d unclaimed me, for fulfilling such a lofty promise.

But I didn’t want to see her. Not yet.

“This is it,” Rune said.

I barely glanced at the tiny café, its patio lit up by string lights. I was looking at the view of the city from this high vantage point. The sun was starting its descent, bathing the world in warm, summery shades of pink and orange. The clouds were wispy and sparse. I could delude myself into thinking, for the briefest of moments, that nothing had changed—that the city was peaceful because the born were merely a nuisance, and not because we were in a tenuous ceasefire while the kingdom decided our fate.

Rune grabbed my waist, letting me gaze in silence at the city I adored. I backed up into his chest.

I jolted at a nearby burst of laughter, and Rune gripped me tighter. A few turned were nearby, watching the sunset over the city. When someone played a fiddle tune, shivers brushed across every inch of my skin, strongest down the length of my spine.

A woman sang, and I recognized the song immediately.

I spun. A woman and man had set up on the patio of the quaint café in a nook where a table had been pushed aside. The man was vigorously playing the fiddle, and a woman’s voice poured across the street, tickling my ears as it rose and fell like lulling ocean waves.

“Is that—is that Frida?” I squeaked, grabbing Rune’s arm in disbelief and excitement.

Rune chuckled, and his eyes lit up as he studied my face. “No, she’s long passed. But I found musicians from that region who were familiar with her work.”

“How… Rune!” I was so flustered I couldn’t string my thoughts together.

He gently pulled me forward, and we sat down at a table under the warm-toned faerie lights. On our table, a pair of thorny burgundy roses were displayed in a black vase.

When Rune had been off on official clan business, and we’d fallen deeper in love through notes short and sprawling—he’d often sent me to his favorite spots in the city. To taste foods he thought I’d love, listen to music, read poetry, observe beautiful holy sites. And everywhere I’d gone, I’d imagined a future where we could go places together, where we’d no longer have to hide.

I’d imagined this moment, right now, countless times.

Rune had made sure I was sitting in clear view of the musicians, and I was caught between staring at them and staring at him. Either way, I was endlessly mesmerized, caught under a spell not of my own making.

“This is only a drop in the ocean, baby,” Rune said. “You have no idea the lengths I have gone to keep myself sane. Since you were taken, I’ve spent every free moment making sure you came home to everything you’ve ever loved, in their most beautiful forms.”

“You are so… you,” was all I could utter, nervously reaching for my throat. When I felt my own skin, it shocked me. It was hard to rid myself of the paralyzing fear that I’d forgotten my collar, and Durian was going to hurt me until I left my body.

I blinked and reset, dropping my hand back down.

The music cascaded over me like the most refreshing bath, and damn this man, I didn’t jump out of my skin when someone dropped silverware. I barely processed the fact that we were the only ones on the patio besides the wait staff and the musicians, or the inner circle vampires standing guard a reasonable distance away.

All I could think about was Rune. It was that easy. I’d fallen right back into his web of words and shadows.

Rune grinned, leaning back in his chair as his broad hand closed over mine on the table. “I know why you asked me if I was sure I truly loved you, but gods above and below, Scarlett, what a ridiculous question.”

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