by Kat Kinney
“Someone’s trying to kill me.”
Hayden slumped against the wall just beneath a chalkboard welcome sign festooned with cinnamon-red maple leaves and pumpkins with long curling stems. My heart kicked in my chest, feelings that should never have been there in the first place threatening to force their way up from some long-forgotten recess of my mind.
“They’ll have to get in line.”
In answer, she flipped me off. I rubbed my bottom lip, hiding a smile. So not completely gone.
At twenty-two, she had dark hair that whipped around her face when she moved, long curtains of it that in sketches I would have burned my loft down before allowing anyone to find, knotted around my fist in a thick obsidian vine. Coal-lined eyes the crystal blue of the coldest winter sky. Wicked black Doc Marten boots that laced halfway up her calves. She stormed out of my life three years ago, and I’d wanted to kick myself every day since.
Nothing happened between us back then. Nothing that counted, anyway. My dad, Ben, came down hard on all of us about how certain activities with humans were extracurricular-only, and if he ever found out we hurt a girl or didn’t wrap it up, he’d make us wish we didn’t have a dick. Add that to the three years I had on Hayden and the fact that I’d never been looking to get into anything of the more-than-one-night variety, and that took care of that.
Mostly.
So maybe I could have told you the number of freckles on her nose (seven.) Or how she fretted chords when she was nervous or upset. Or that you could make her smile with just about anything involving chocolate, those devil’s food mocha muffins they sold at Blair’s bakery down the street being her secret kryptonite. We also wouldn’t talk about the morning after her eighteenth birthday when she showed up for her shift at Dark with a lip ring that’s starred in every wet dream I’d had since.
The clouds shifted, moonlight inching across the floor. Hayden’s pupils dilated.
“Please,” she rasped, starting to slide down the wall. “Don’t let me turn into that monster again.”
“God damnit,” I breathed. “Remind me to pay River to beat the shit out of me later for this.”
Catching Hayden just before her knees gave out, I carried her over to the bar. She arched up the moment I laid her down, wolf fighting to break free. Pressing a hand to her cheek, I let my wolf come to the surface, heat rising in my blood, banking on the fact his dominance would be enough to force Hayden’s wolf to submit.
It had to work because we were low on options at the moment. If Hays got out onto the street, she would kill someone. And I wouldn’t let her wake up tomorrow in a ditch with no memory of what she’d done. And a Trace out on both of us.
Her breath stilled the moment my fingers made contact, her hands flying up to cover her breasts. “No, please—”
“Hey, it’s okay, I’m not going to—”
Her forehead slammed into mine. Stars exploded in my vision. I shouted, jerking back. And that was when her teeth sank into my wrist.
Pain knifed up my arm, sending a jolt of pleasure twisting through my dick. Rolling to the edge of the counter, Hayden dropped to the floor. Quickly punching in the code on my phone to lower the blinds, I lifted my forearm to lick away the blood. And for one terrible, breathless second, the room swirled.
Hayden wobbled, sinking to her knees. I gritted my teeth as my skin dissolved in a fluttering wave of ecstasy, like being stripped naked and stroked with thousands of feathers without any hope of getting off from it. Hayden shivered.
Her lips parted, fingertips trailing down the pale column of her throat, a warm tingling spreading across my skin in their wake. Understanding punched me in the gut. It was my blood, my twenty-five years of hard-earned control that was drawing her back through the mark she’d just branded on my skin. And her savage newborn moonlust threatening to turn me feral.
I’d been claimed.
She glowered up at me, the utter blackness of her pupils and raggedness of her breathing betraying that she was feeling it, too, the wild, heady connection between us pulsing dark as a distant drum.
“What did you do?” she snarled.
I barked out a laugh.
“Yeah. Me. Word of advice? Next time you feel like getting kinky, ask first.”
“I came here so you could change me back. Not to be the next notch on Ethan Caldwell’s freaky leather sex cuff.”
“Thanks, but I wasn’t offering. And once the lycan virus is in your blood, there’s no reversing it.” I stripped off my apron. “You want to tell me who bit you? Ex-boyfriend? Bandmate?”
In answer, she flipped me off.
“Cute. So I’m going to go back and finish counting the till. Let me know if you want to talk—”
“You think I’d be here if I had any other choice?” Wobbling on her platform heels, Hayden backed into the corner. “Someone attacked me outside a club.”
My head snapped up. “Did he—”
“No,” she said quickly. “At least, I don’t think so. But the past four weeks… you don’t get it. I think he’s after me. And even if I’m wrong, I can’t go home. What if I—”
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Yeah, won’t pretend I do. There’s a world of difference in being a Born versus a Bitten.”
Although probably in most ways, I did get it better than she thought. Since Ben was both Alpha and sheriff, our house was kind of a drop-off point for strays. Being the oldest, Brody and Cal had always been allowed to stay in the room. That left me, West and Dallas hovering at the top of the stairs, trying to hear what we could over the hum of the air conditioner. Change me back was pretty much the universal first reaction, other than that one guy who lost it and threw a coffee table at Brody, then nearly walked away short an arm, courtesy of my mom. Sofia Montemayor-Caldwell gave up her days as a Tracer, bounty hunters for the werewolf council, years ago. But threaten one of her children and she could still throw down.
Hayden blew a strand of hair off her forehead. “You always seemed so normal. Even looking back, all those nights we worked together, and I never knew. Now the sun sets, and I—"
Blinking back tears, she quickly looked away.
“There’s no cure,” I said again. “We’re all pretty much managing it day to day like a really inconvenient meth addiction.”
“Great.”
“You figure out your own way to deal. Exercise. Cage fights.”
I licked the wound on my arm before blood could drip onto the floor. My cock swelled in response. Hayden shivered, then immediately looked up, cheeks flushing at the realization she’d just felt me get hard. I nodded.
“Yeah, that, too.”
“So sex—"
“Anything the wolf wants, you give it in small doses. Keep it in its cage. The three F’s. Fight, fuck and feed.” Or risk going feral and killing everyone you love.
She made a little sound in the back of her throat. “So what, you pick up random—"
“Yeah, lose the holier-than-thou attitude. You’d rather kill someone than sleep with a stranger where everyone’s on board and no one gets their throat ripped out at the end of the night?”
She paced to the far wall. “Is it normal that I’m having visions of burying you ten feet underground right now?”
“I get that a lot. And two apex predators in the same physical host is a mental shitstorm if you don’t take steps to manage the triggers.”
I took a step towards her. She sent a barstool clattering to the floor.
“Speaking of which, if you’re going to redecorate, at least give me an idea about my design budget—”
“There has to be a way to undo this,” she snarled.
When I didn’t answer, she squeezed her eyes shut, and I could see her hands were starting to shake. And in that instant, Hayden Crowe was the little girl in the sky-blue flip flops, holding out a daisy to a boy the rest of the world could see was trouble. And I would have done anything to spare her from what I knew lay ahead.
“This isn’t a death
sentence.”
“Maybe it should be.”
She clawed at her wrists as if there were a way to scrape the disease from her blood. I lunged for her, maneuvering between rows of tightly-packed tables and the huge potted ficus West said I had to get because the feng shui in here was seriously effed up. Quick as a cat, she dodged out of the way.
“If you think I’m going to sit here and watch you hurt yourself, keep dreaming.”
“Like it would even matter if I did.”
She stared down at her fingertips. The abrasions from trying to Edward Scissorhands her way through the front door were almost mended, replaced by baby pink skin that in an hour would look as if she’d never been injured at all. I took in the hopeless circles under her eyes, wondering what else she’d been up to the past few weeks besides looking me up, and not liking it.
“It would to me.”
Her eyes lifted to mine. A flicker of emotion I had no name for flared through our connection. My heart kicked against my ribcage, the urge to chase it pumping in my veins like a drug.
And of course, right then, the moon emerged from behind the clouds.
Hayden stiffened, lips parting in a silent scream.
“Daisy—”
An empty milk cannister came flying at my head, followed by the napkin dispenser. I ducked. The glass pastry case I helped Ben install two summers ago shattered, raining tiny crystal shards over rows of lemon pound cake, sour cream cranberry scones, and flaky butter croissants.
With a growl, I shoved past the two-person table separating us and yanked Hayden flush to my chest. She slapped me across the face, knocking me back into the nearest table. Chairs scattered across the floor. I grabbed for her, but she twisted out of my grip, leaving me clutching the sleeve of her leather jacket, and slammed into the wall by the community bulletin board.
Papers swarmed around us like a flock of black-winged grackles. Flyers for lawn cutting and guitar lessons spiraled across the wet concrete in a spray of yellow and taffy-pink confetti. I tossed the jacket to the floor.
"Hayden," I warned, allowing power to push back into my voice. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way. But I’m not going to let you hurt yourself. Or anyone else."
She shook her head. Her hair swirled around her cheeks like dark streamers circling a maypole. Something knifed through my chest. Damnit. I couldn’t do this. Even if she said the were who changed her hadn’t forced himself on her like that, every time my wolf got close, she practically blacked out. But if she shifted here—
Lifting my arm to my lips, I licked the wound left by her teeth. The connection was instantaneous. Our breathing synced. Her pulse thrummed in time with mine, a constant link to her I was reminded of every second in my fingertips and my chest and… other places, too. Hayden shivered, and hell if I didn’t have to lean against the wall for support. I blinked, trying to clear my head. She was no help, letting her eyes travel slowly up my body. She got to my mouth, tongue darting out to wet her lips. I felt myself thicken.
I pushed up my glasses, the room suddenly spinning like I’d been punched in the head. “Yeah, not happening.”
She smirked. “I thought hooking up was no big deal.”
“It is when you aren’t able to remember my name in the morning.”
Her gaze flitted to my arm. “Why isn’t it healed by now?”
“So was that it? I outed myself that time you nearly got scalded and I pushed you out of the way?”
“No, it was the night I left, the night we—”
She turned over her arm, tracing a tattoo inked along the inside of her wrist. My heart stopped.
Seven out of ten customers in Dark’s female ten to twenty-nine demographic ordered one of three things this time of year. Iced caramel macchiatos smothered in whip and drizzled in butterscotch topping. Hot mint chocolate chip cocoa, which sold out most days in both the warm and cold varieties. And seasonal lattes like eggnog and pumpkin spice, decorated with hearts, swirling flowers, or delicate, whimsical swans.
In other words, they wanted sweet, sugary drinks. Cozy fall memories in a cup. Happy fairy tale endings that everyone knew didn’t come true.
Hayden Crowe was the kind of girl who preferred combat boots to glass slippers. The kind of girl who painted her fingernails black. The kind of girl who once threatened to leave me facing down a peppermint latte zombie horde alone if she heard a single cheesy Christmas sleigh bell remix the entire month of December.
In short, Hayden Crowe didn’t do sentimental.
And yet I was staring at a midnight-blue daisy that wended its way up from the crook of her elbow all the way to the thin bones of her wrist. Its petals were carved of sharp edges, its stem a twisted scrawl of thorns. Each leaf was a brittle contrast to her pale ivory skin. A wild, fearless blossom that just kissed her pulse point.
I would have recognized it anywhere—not that I could have forgotten that night, or the way the charge in the air between us had shifted almost imperceptibly to something inevitable, something inescapable as I drew the tip of the pen across her skin. Some collisions couldn’t be avoided.
And some, you didn’t want to escape.
"You kissed me and I watched your eyes change. For a second, I thought I was imagining it, thought I was crazy. You’ve always had such unusual eyes.” Hayden lifted her head, voice hard. “But I didn’t imagine it. I’m not crazy.”
“Daisy—”
“Shut up.”
I started to come around the table. She knocked another chair to the floor.
I stopped. She glared up at me. As if we both didn’t know she had a right to be pissed.
So here was the thing about me and Hayden Crowe. Anyone who’s ever felt that draw towards something you knew you shouldn’t want understood how easy it was to twist that malleable space between truth and lie. Sometimes I tried to trace things back to where they went wrong, to where I could have changed the outcome if only I’d realized where we were headed. A look. A touch. A text.
But the God’s honest truth was I wasn’t sure when Hayden Crowe went from being the girl who used to annoy me by singing under her breath while she cleaned out the grinders to the one I caught myself staring at every day when she’d scribble in one of her notebooks on break.
But if I had to guess, it was probably the first time I heard her play.
WillKillforThinMints: I hate you for this.
Me: I’m announcing your song. You can thank me later.
WillKillforThinMints: Death wish?
Me: Like I didn’t always know you’d be the one to kill me.
Someone dug a finger into my armpit. I jumped a foot, splattering wet coffee grounds all over the floor.
Hayden laughed maniacally. I growled, pointing to the pair of cappuccinos over on the counter. “Wench. Table in the corner.”
“Do it and I will totally sing fifty verses of It’s a Small World,” she said a minute later, dropping the empty tray on the counter. “The heavy metal version. There will be broken glassware. Crowd surfing. Possibly a mosh pit—”
“Okay, Joan Jett, but it’s gonna go down as the first mosh pit in history for someone soloing on acoustic.”
“Bitch.” She flipped me off. “By the way, you have to pull the fire alarm if I suck.”
I flicked the end of her nose. “On it. I’m trouble. Haven’t you heard?”
And then she stared up into my eyes, so close I could see every streak of teal, dove gray, and dazzling iceberg blue in her irises, and said, “No, you aren’t.”
And I knew right then. I was screwed.
Watching Hayden play the guitar was like lying out in the bed of my truck at sunset as color bled in fiery streaks across the wide Texas sky. My hands twitched, hungry to grab a sketch pad even when I knew every pastel on earth couldn’t capture the beauty of the moment quite right. Some things were just a wild, terrible magic. Impossible to tame.
When Hayden sang, her voice captured fury and despair, hope and pain, all the things
I’d never been good at putting into words. She was unassuming, unapologetic, and when her fingers clawed at the strings, in the moment she closed her eyes and whispered lyrics to that crowded room some irrevocably screwed-up voice in my head wished were only for me, I gripped the counter so hard my knuckles threatened to split, the feeling of wanting, the need for possession so naked, so raw, it took everything in me to force my wolf back.
It had been seventeen years since Ben and Sofia rescued me and August from the system. They were my parents now in every way that counted, the reason I eventually stopped screaming in the night, no longer expected to come home to a garbage sack containing my clothes on the front porch and quit hiding food in my bed like it was the last time I’d ever see it again.
In seventeen years, I’d never come so close to refusing a direct order as the moment Hayden Crowe’s eyes found mine across that dimly lit room. As if we were the last two people left in the world.
And in the moment she peeled the yellow post-it with the daisy from her ridiculous hot-chocolate-double-whip-extra-Thin-Mints-because-ugh-come-on-Ethan (which wasn’t even on the menu) and tucked it into her pocket while biting her bottom lip with a secret smile, I knew I was a goner.
It wasn’t the first time someone noticed. Pretty sure everyone around me had been able to tell for a while there was something there I should never have allowed to grow. And not just because Hayden Crowe was human, although that was part of it. I couldn’t ever be with anyone like that. Not without destroying them.
“I couldn’t tell you,” I said at last.
“You lied,” Hayden countered, all icy rage.
“To protect you.”
She let out a bitter laugh. “Look how well that turned out.”
“Daisy—”
I started towards her. She swayed in place on those four-inch heels that brought her nearly to my height, visibly buzzing from the adrenaline. I balled my hands into fists, fighting to keep my heartrate down, the dizzying call of her blood thrumming through me like a siren’s song.
Her gaze flitted towards the door.