Page 8 of Dark

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.