Free Crave the Darkness by Amanda Bonilla

against the wall and he slumped to the ground. I squatted down, scooped up the envelope and my dagger, and leaned in toward Marcus’s ear. “Talk to me like that again, asshole, and you’ll have more than a headache when you come to.”
    Tucking the dagger back in its sheath and the envelope into my pocket, I became one with the light. Ty was back. He had to be. I tried to ignore the churning stomach acid eating away at my gut and the lump that had risen to my throat. My heart thundered in my chest, beating double time to the seconds ticking away within me. No time to put the emerald around my neck. I’d deal with that annoyance later. Right now, I had only one thing on my mind: Tyler.
    Like a breath of air, I swept through the city. I was fortunate that I could travel unseen whether it be day, night, or anytime in between. Stealth and speed were what I needed as I raced toward Tyler’s build clerte ting, and I used every preternatural gift at my disposal.
    I managed to make it across town in less than five minutes, but when the moment came for me to go inside, I found that my body refused to move. What if he wasn’t there? Or worse, what if he was. If he’d wanted to see me, he would’ve called. Right? Or maybe he was still upset and used Marcus as a means to reach out to me. In which case, it might not have been a good idea to knock him out.
    Fuck it
. Either way, I had to know.
    I wasn’t about to announce myself and run the risk that I’d be turned away. If Tyler was home, I wanted him to look me in the eye and tell me why he hadn’t at least called when he got back into town. It’s not like I expected him to forgive me overnight. After all, I had left him first. But, Christ, the past few months had been torture.
    I forced myself through the entrance, past the front desk, drifting up the stairwell like a wraith. When I reached the penthouse, I regained my physical form only to pace back and forth in front of his door for three minutes and twenty-two seconds. I’d never felt so spineless. Helpless and scared was not how I liked to feel. I’d spent my human life in a constant state of uncertainty and fear; I didn’t want to spend my preternatural existence reliving those crippling emotions.
    But I already had, though not for the same reasons.
    Depressed. Alone. Broken. Unsure. Good god, when had I become the poster child for antidepressants? Marching up to the door, I squared my shoulders and took a deep breath. Tyler was more than likely on the other side of the wall. Just a foot or two of steel, wood, drywall, and insulation separating us. My stomach clenched, and I rubbed at my sternum.
    I laid my knuckles to the door, bypassing the polite chime of the doorbell. I gripped the dagger at my thigh, sliding the blade in and out, in and out of the sheath. Thirty-four seconds passed, and I knocked again—louder this time. And still I slid the dagger in and out of its sheath. The sound of steel scraping against leather comforted me somehow. The door swung open, and I gripped the dagger below the guard, squeezing until I felt the sharp blade bite into my skin. The pain, accompanied by the warm, sticky trickle of blood confirmed the worst. I wasn’t dreaming. This was real.
    Beautiful didn’t even begin to describe the woman standing in Tyler’s doorway. Long chestnut hair, straight and shining like polished wood, hung to her narrow waist. Golden skin complemented eyes that weren’t quite green, or blue, or hazel, but rather, a harmonious blend of all three colors, pale and nearly translucent. Taller than me, with an air of sophistication I could never pull off, I was looking at pure, seductive, feminine perfection.
    “Can I help you?”
    God, even her
voice
was perfect. Not too high, not too low. Smooth like hot chocolate. A
pit, pat, pit, pat
sound drew my attention and I looked down at my hand, realizing I hadn’t let go of the dagger. I’d squeezed it so hard the blade penetrated a quarter inch into my