Crave the Darkness: A Shaede Assassin Novel

by amanda bonilla

  Raif inclined his head, though I could tell he wasn’t happy with the concession. “That should do it, then. I’ll—”

  “And Asher,” I said over the top of Raif. “I want him.”

  “I said four.”

  “I want him, Raif. I won’t take no for an answer.”

  Raif stalked to the double doors, shaking his head as he walked. “I suppose not, but there’s a first time for everything. I don’t trust him, Darian. He’s Xander’s candidate, not mine. Best to leave the boy to other pursuits. Take the four you’ve got. You’ve made a decent selection, and they’ll work well enough together.”

  “I’ll take the four. For now. I’m not giving up on this, Raif. There’s something about Asher. I can’t put my finger on it. You’ll cave and let me add him. Eventually.” Call me overconfident, but I knew that Raif would have no choice but to give me what I wanted.

  “Gods, but you’re a stubborn woman.”

  I followed behind him, thinking I deserved a nice, long nap for putting up with this circus. “Would you like me any other way, Raif?”

  “No,” he said, holding open the door for me. “I would not.”

  Chapter 6

  I left Raif, and my corporeal form, at the gym door and headed for my room. No way was I going to let him follow me around for the rest of the day. I’d been a good girl. Dragged my ass out of bed, ate breakfast, and played nice with the troops. Now, he could do me a favor and leave me the hell alone for a couple of hours.

  As I fell back onto the bed, my body became a solid thing. The expensive memory foam didn’t exactly let me land with a bounce, but it accepted my weight like strong, welcoming arms. I missed you, Darian. Why don’t you lie right here and take a nice, long nap. I was going to do just that. Screw Anya and her precious offspring. To hell with task forces, and mysteries, and loyalty. Take your brooding attitude and velvet voice and stick it right up your ass, Xander. The dark void called, and I was about to answer.

  I drifted—faster than I expected—toward sleep. Drift might be a bit of an understatement. I jumped in a freefall toward unconsciousness. My stomach rumbled with hunger; it was almost noon and I’d only eaten twice in forty-eight hours, but nothing seemed as important as leaving reality behind for a while. I rubbed at my sternum, knowing that it wouldn’t be long before the pain would be too great for me to handle. God, I missed him. Wanted him. Needed him to forgive me for how I’d left him and take the pain of my guilt away.

  “Tyler . . .” I whispered sleepily against my pillow.

  My cell played a muffled tune in my pocket, pulling me from near sleep. I swore under my breath and dug in my pants for the phone. Without checking the caller ID, I answered and held the receiver to my ear. “When I get my hands on whoever this is, I’m going to tear you a new asshole!”

  “Jesus, did I interrupt something?”

  I sat up, jumped off the bed and switched the light on, shielding my eyes from the sudden burst of light. “Marcus?”

  Tyler’s sometimes lackey laughed humorlessly on the other end. “Miss me? I sure as hell didn’t miss you.”

  I tried to speak, but my brain was cranking too hard and fast for my mouth to catch up. Why the hell was Marcus calling me? Was Ty okay? Where the hell was he? What the fuck was going on?

  “Since you’re not answering, I’m gonna guess the feeling’s mutual. I told Tyler never to send me on an errand that had to do with your scary ass again. Guess I drew the short fucking straw this time.”

  “What?” The word dragged out, like I was talking through a mouthful of pudding. Had I heard him right? Tyler had asked him to call me?

  “Tyler has a job for you,” Marcus said, slowly like I might be having comprehension problems. “Where you wanna do this? I’ve got the deets—and the confirmation on the wire transfer. The paycheck for this gig is too big for cash.”

  “My place.” Small talk wasn’t on my agenda. I wanted more than job information from Marcus and beating it out of him in public wasn’t an option.

  “No. Fucking. Way.”

  Coward. He was an insufferable piece of shit. “Fine. The back alley behind The Pit, then.”

  “I suppose it’s better than your place, but not by much. I’ll be there in a half hour.”

  “Marcus,” I said, grabbing one of my black dusters from the closet. “If you’re not there in fifteen minutes, I’m going to go looking for you.”

  Marcus cleared his throat. I could practically feel his nervous energy reaching out like twitchy fingers through the phone. “I’ll get there as fast as I can. But, Christ, Darian, give me some time to get through traffic. It’s the noon rush.”

  “Fifteen minutes, Marcus. Don’t be late.”

  * * *

  I’d never met any of Tyler’s people in the middle of the day. In fact, in all the years I’d worked for Ty, I couldn’t remember a single time an exchange had been made before midnight. All the more reason to be suspicious.

  The Pit hadn’t opened yet, so I didn’t have to worry about prying eyes. Usually, I’d never meet anyone—not even Marcus—in such a conspicuous place to make an exchange. But the fact that Ty had sent one of his employees on this errand without at least calling me first left a bitter chill in the bottom of my stomach. Why?

  I removed the emerald pendulum from my neck, just so I could count the passing minutes with perfect accuracy. I wasn’t screwing around. If Marcus was one half of a second late, I was going after his ass. Pacing from wall to wall in the narrow alley, I waited with what can only be described as forced patience. I fingered the dagger at my thigh, felt for the katana hidden under my duster at my back, and thought of the many ways I was going to use them to pry every little drop of information I could out of Marcus’s scrawny hide.

  “You’re certifiable, you know that?” Marcus said, coming around the corner. Four minutes early, smart boy. Running a shaky hand through his dark, greasy hair, his eyes darted from side to side. Beneath a worn, too small AC/DC T-shirt, every soft bulge of his middle was visible. Still wearing the same torn jeans and secondhand army boots, Marcus’s wardrobe obviously hadn’t improved since I’d seen him last. Sweat beaded on his upper lip, and he scrubbed a hand across his mouth. He looked nervous as hell, and he should’ve been.

  Without even thinking, I jerked my dagger free of the sheath and grabbed the little shit by the collar. Ramming forward, I slammed him in to the brick wall with all the care of a jackhammer and shoved the dagger’s point into the flesh at the hollow of his throat. “Marcus, you slimy piece of shit, I want to know what the hell is going on. Now.”

  “Jesus!” Marcus whimpered. “Are you off your meds or something? It’s just a job, Darian. You don’t need to go all paranoid, psycho bitch on me!”

  “Who sent you?”

  “What do you mean, who sent me?” Marcus had graduated from whimpering puppy to squealing girl. “Tyler fucking sent me.”

  “You talked to him?”

  Marcus swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, and he nodded his head. “Of course I talked to Tyler. Jesus-fucking-Christ, Darian. Who the hell else would send me?”

  The dagger slipped from my grasp, clattering to the pavement at my feet. Tyler sent him. Talked to him. And not me. “You brought something for me?” My voice had lost some of its fire, instead returning to the hollow-sounding representation of myself that had been dragging ass around Xander’s house for the past couple of days. My chest ached, my heart constricting to the point that I thought it would crumble. What the hell was going on?

  “You wanna take your hands off me?” Marcus must have noticed my systematic breakdown and thought it gave him the right to get cocky. “He’s pretty worked up about this job, said it’s a top priority. So if I were you, I’d step off the crazy train and get to work.” He pulled a folded manila envelope from inside his coat and dangled it in front of me. “Better get busy, don’t think you wanna upset the boss man.”

  I took two steps back and threw the punch
before I thought better of it. My fist caught Marcus square on the jaw, and he spun a full circle before his head knocked 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 building, 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 palm and blood was dripping onto the expensive hallway carpet. I released my grip and let the dagger slide back into the sheath before I forced myself to look up again. Over Miss Perfect’s shoulder, I saw him walk out of the kitchen.

  Tyler.

  Shit, what had my life become? Some cliché, melodramatic Lifetime movie?

  Air. I needed air. Where is all of the fucking air? My lungs stalled in my chest, my surroundings blurred out of focus as my eyes drank in every godlike detail of Tyler’s face. I would have wept at the sight of him if I’d had anything left to cry. But everything in me dried up; my blood turned to dust, my tears evaporated, and every soft part of me compressed into stone. Even my lips had gone numb. Was it possible to get hypothermia of the soul?

  Tyler stopped dead in his tracks, several feet and one gorgeous supermodel vixen separating us. The mask of emotion on his face was more than my brain could comprehend, because I knew it was a lie. His beautiful hazel eyes burned right through me, his brows drawn in what could only be described as pain. He looked like he wanted to say something, but was at a loss for words. Yeah, join the club. At the heart of it all, though, was a tenderness so intense I had to avert my eyes. There was no way he could look at me with that kind of longing while another woman stood between us. He didn’t have the right to do that. It just didn’t work that way.

  I had to get out of there. Now. As involuntary as breathing, my skin melded with the light. Thank god for it too, because it was the only sensation I could feel. Back through the city, I pushed myself as fast as possible, no longer a passing breeze, but a vengeful wind. A tornado. Hurricane Darian. No wonder Tyler sent Marcus instead of coming himself. Guess that explained his lack of phone calls—or any communication, for that matter—too. Why bother? There was nothing left to say, was there? A picture’s worth a thousand words, and I’d just hit the visual jackpot. No need to make a bad situation worse with apologies and awkward explanations. I got the message loud and clear: whatever it was we’d had was over.

  Chapter 7

  I walked through Xander’s front door as my solid self. With an assassin’s quiet steps, I made my way to my room, knowing if I ran in to any curious Shaedes with nosy questions I might just crack. I eased open my door, worried that even the slightest creak of the hinges would give me away. Just as carefully, I eased the door shut behind me and allowed for a deep breath. My lungs ached from the effort, my body rejecting the comfort of oxygen. I hadn’t taken a decent breath since leaving Tyler’s penthouse.

  “I’m surprised they don’t have an ankle bracelet on you. You know, the kind that human prisoners wear.”

  Holy shit! Anya’s voice gave me a full-body shock, effectively sealing off the smooth intake of air I’d been trying to enjoy. Why did everyone in this house have to be so far up my ass? “Anya,” I said, fighting for composure. “What in the hell are you doing in my room? Don’t you have leather booties to craft or something?”

  “You look like shit.”

  At least she wasn’t crying anymore. Her observation seemed pretty apathetic, actually. It’s not like I expected her to be . . . I don’t know . . . concerned for me or anything. After seeing her cry the day before, I guess I thought she’d be a tad more off-kilter. A little less like herself. I had nothing to go by, though. I didn’t have much experience with pregnant human women, let alone pregnant Shaedes.

  “If I look like shit, it’s because I have your ass to worry about,” I said, turning away so she wouldn’t have a clear view of my face. “What the hell do you want?”

  “You missed dinner.”

  No shit. “Is that why you’re sitting in here waiting for me? To let me know I’d missed another meal?”

  “I have to go out tomorrow,” Anya said. “I’m not allowed to leave the estate without an escort.”

  Escort, meaning me. “Fine.” No matter how much I wanted to hole myself up and tell the world to go to hell, I couldn’t let Raif down. “Are you going to tell me who’s threatening you so we don’t have to spend any more quality time with one another than necessary?”

  “Honestly,” Anya said, “I’d rather have bamboo slivers shoved under my
fingernails than spend time with you. But don’t think for a second that I’m going to open up. About anything.”

  “It’s your neck,” I said with an exasperated sigh.

  “That’s right,” Anya replied, heading for the door. “It is. By the way, I think you’ve finally pushed your luck too far with Alexander. His Highness was not pleased that you skipped the evening meal.”

  Anya closed the door behind her and I stripped off my coat, slinging it across the settee in the corner of the room. I kicked off my boots, peeled my socks off, and shed my pants lightning fast. I ran to flip off the light switch, blacking out the room, and jumped into bed. If I pretended to be asleep, maybe I could avoid the royal ass-chewing I was no doubt in store for. I didn’t want to see or talk to anyone else for the rest of my life. I just wanted to lie in bed and let the grief eat me alive.

  I closed my eyes and tried to appear serene, but the image of that inhumanly beautiful woman was burned in my memory. Maybe I could get rid of it if I washed my brain out with bleach, or scrubbed it clean with steel wool. Lobotomy, anyone? Sleep was my only sanctuary. What would I do if that tiny bit of peace turned on me as well?

  Panic overwhelmed me. The thought of returning to my life as it had been—detached, lonely, without compassion or companionship, without love and tenderness—made my head spin. Cold, clammy sweat broke out on my skin. Throat closing up, I felt the need to swallow ten times more than usual, and I launched myself out of the bed and beelined it for the bathroom. Palms slapped down on the expensive marble tile as I dove face-first over the toilet seat. My stomach clenched but I hadn’t eaten in so long, all I could manage was a succession of painful dry heaves that made every inch of my body ache.

  Warm hands brushed my neck and gently pulled my hair back. Shit, I hadn’t even thought of making sure the ends didn’t dip into the toilet. Lovely.

  “You certainly know how to take the wind out of a man’s sails,” Xander said close to my ear as he kneeled beside me. “I came in here prepared to fight and I find you hanging over the toilet. I feel cheated.”