Page 9 of Dark

"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.