Stalked by Seduction and Shadows (Eternal Obsession, #1)

by Maggie Sunseri

“If you want to manipulate me, you’d better try harder than that.”

The pain a living parent could inflict was much more excruciating than that of a dead one.

Only I was allowed to creep on Scarlett. I shook my head. Gods above, I was well and truly doomed.

And now I imagined that tiny neck with a collar around it.

Rune the Ruthless, head of the turned clan, and ruler of all Valentin vampires.

The taste of blood reflected a person’s essence, and this guy’s soul was full of shit.

I wanted to hold her trauma in my palms and study it, find where the tears began so I could help her mend them.

Live. Burn. And never, ever, let them dim your fucking light.

Cunning recognizes cunning.”

“Stick to the real love. The kind that fills you up. The other kind is merely manipulation of the highest degree, and it will leave you emptier and lonelier than you ever thought possible.”

Wide words actually 🧐

In the fizzy electrolyte water, I’d planted a drop of my blood. As soon as Little Flame had taken a sip, she’d been marked. My essence was planted inside her, forever. No longer would I need to track her by scent.

“Because you have a big heart,” he said with a cold, sinister smile. “And seeing your lovers lose appendages or disappear off the face of the earth might make it crack a little. I don’t want to see you hurt.”

“I will ruin all others for you, Scarlett,” he said. “Anything else but us will only feel empty, meaningless, soulless. I will be the only thing you can see, the only being worthy of touching you, of seeing all of you.” His power stilled, a resolute calmness eclipsing his features. “That is what I will demand of you, and what you will eventually give freely. All of you. The parts that you hide, the parts that you hate, the parts that others have made you ashamed of, the parts that you flaunt and wield as weapons.”

“Baby, if you wanted my attention, you could’ve just used your words,”

I shouldn’t have been putting all my eggs in Rune’s basket. His depraved, toxic, fucked-in-the-head basket.

“And yet you burn. Despite everything you’ve endured, all the pain and the loneliness and the grief and the betrayal, you burn fucking blindingly, like you can’t help but be anything less than radiantly alive. In you I see hope that never dies, and some might call it weak or naive, but I think it’s the most beautiful thing about you, this radical choice to be open and warm in a world that is overwhelmingly cold and brutal.”

“Scarlett, my beautiful, helpless toy, I will bring you more depraved ecstasy than you could ever conceive. I will bring you to the edge of your limits, flood you with so much pleasure and sensation that your body will give out, and then I’ll do it all over again. I will find and exploit your every weakness and use them to both satisfy and torment you endlessly. I will fuck your perfect mind even harder and deeper than I will fuck your divine body. I will make you the best, strongest, most powerful version of yourself. I will destroy you and remake you in my image as your Master and God.”

“Scarlett,” he said in my ear. “Spread your legs, or I will do it for you.”

I was literally encouraging a full-blown psychopath to stalk, hurt, and control me.

“You’re so pretty when you’re putting that spiteful little mouth to good use,”

“Artists, witches, and mystics often speak of the phenomenon of two souls meeting here on earth who knew each other in past lifetimes, or on some other plane of existence that we traversed before our lives began. And that’s why it sometimes feels like we know people before they tell us who they are. That’s why certain beings draw us in and others repel us. Because we’re all stuck in this karmic web together, predestined to love and hurt the same souls over and over until we finally learn the gods’ will.”

Resentment is a hollowing emotion. I think holding on to it can be a way to perpetuate our pain.”

“There are many people in this world who would love nothing more than to clip your wings. Stop doing it for them. Soar instead.”

“Don’t you dare give up, Little Flame. Or I swear I will fight Helia herself to drag you right back down here to live in hell with me.”

“There is no competition in trauma. None of it is ever better or worse than any other. Trauma is not what happens to you. It’s what happens inside of you as a result of what happens to you.”

“You deserve so much more than what life has handed you, Scarlett. Don’t accept the half-love that you’ve grown accustomed to. Only accept the full, staggering devotion that you deserve. It’s what we all deserve. To feel wholeheartedly chosen, desired, secure, and nurtured. Anything less is theft.”

You are the only thing that feels different in a world that never changes.