“You’re a new face,” said the elderly cashier as Sophie placed her items on the conveyer belt.
“I just moved here yesterday,” Sophie replied, glancing at the woman’s nametag. Doris.
“It’s so wonderful to see fresh faces in our little town. And yours it such a pretty one.” The register beeped as Doris scanned Sophie’s groceries.
Sophie smiled, cheeks warming. “Thank you.”
“Did you buy the yellow two-story down the street? Gorgeous flowers.”
Sophie shook her head. “No. I’m in a log cabin off the old highway, about twenty minutes outside town.”
“That ole hunting lodge?” Doris’s hand paused, and she frowned, her eyes moving over Sophie. “A young lady like you shouldn’t be out there all by yourself.”
“I’m fine. I actually…really like it. It’s a nice change from the city.”
“Well, just be careful.” She placed the final item in the bag. “I could send my Ron out to check on you from time to time, if you’d like. That old bugger needs something more to do besides pinching my behind.”
Sophie chuckled and shook her head. “No, it’s all right. I’m fine, really. But thank you.”
Doris rang up the total and wished Sophie a wonderful day after she passed over the receipt.
While loading her bags into the car, Sophie paused. She felt…lighter. It was strange to realize that she actually could have a good day without fear of consequences.
Time. That’s all I need.
Sophie watched the words race across the screen as her fingers flew over the laptop’s keys. The story was pouring out her; each scene played vividly in her mind, and she wrote as fast as she could to preserve all the details. She stopped occasionally to refill her iced tea or admire the view of the woods through the window.
It took her a while to realize she was enjoying herself. She was writing, and during that time, she was free of worry, free of fear; she was just…being herself.
Even the lingering feeling of being watched, the presence she swore was hovering somewhere nearby, couldn’t diminish her elation.
Whether it was a result of an overactive imagination, her paranoia, or both, she swore something was there with her. She wanted to believe it was a kind entity, this ghost, or spirit, or whatever it was, that it was there to watch over and protect her.
She didn’t want to think about the alternatives.
A knock at the front door made her jump. It was so sudden, so unexpected, that her heart leapt into her throat. She stood up and stumbled backward, nearly knocking over her chair. Panting, she clutched the fabric of her shirt and pressed herself back against the bookcase as though she could shrink into it. Her chest ached, her heart was racing, and she couldn’t breathe; terror had taken over.
No! He’s not here. He hasn’t found me. I’m safe. Safe. Safe…
Sophie closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe slow and deep, hoping to curtail the frantic beating of her heart.
“He’s not here. He’s not here,” she whispered to herself over and over. “I’m safe. He’s not here.”
Tears stung her eyes. She shifted to the desk and lowered her hand to the middle drawer; she knew how to use the revolver, and that knowledge lent her some strength.
The knock repeated, louder and more insistent than before.
“Who is it?” she called, proud that her voice didn’t crack.
“My name is Dan,” said a man from outside. His voice was nothing like Tyler’s. “I’m from Sky Link Telecommunications, here to install your internet.”
Sophie released another shaky breath and brushed the moisture from her eyes. Her limbs were weak and trembling as she walked to the window and peered out to see the white and blue van in the driveway with SKY LINK on the side in big letters. That eased her some, but not entirely. Tyler was cunning, and determined, and when he wanted something…
She unlocked the front door and opened it a crack. Looking up, she met brown eyes. Brown. Not blue. Dan, not Tyler.
“Sorry,” she muttered and took a step back, opening the door wider.
“No problem,” he said with a smile. He hesitated as he opened the screen door. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Sophie replied. “Just a…little lightheaded.”
Dan frowned. “Do you have a certain spot you want it set up?”
“I’m all wireless, so anywhere is fine.”
“All right. I’ll take a look around and see what we have to work with then I’ll be out of your hair.”
“Thank you”
The technician was a tall man, and though he seemed friendly, Sophie couldn’t help her unease at being alone with him. Leaving the front door open wide, she moved back to the desk and kept out of his way as he worked, drawing comfort from the gun in the nearby drawer. She felt horrible about it — Dan was just trying to do his job — but she couldn’t shake her fear. It didn’t matter how many times she told herself it was ridiculous; the damaged had been done. Tyler had made her this way, and she hated him for it.
Dan worked swiftly and kept to himself, focusing on his task. Once her internet was up and running, he had her sign the work order on his tablet, bid her a good afternoon, and left.
After the front door was closed and locked, Sophie leaned her back against it, struggling for calm. Anger and shame swirled inside her. She wanted her confidence, her courage, and her security back. She just wanted to be normal. But Tyler had stripped away the person she’d been one day at a time. In the grand scheme of things, five years didn’t seem like so long, but it had been a living hell for Sophie. Six months hadn’t been enough to heal her internal wounds — especially when the first few weeks of it had been spent in the hospital, recovering from the beating Tyler had given her.
Pushing away from the door, she stepped into the kitchen and threw together a ham sandwich, pairing it with chips and a bottled water. She carried her simple dinner to her desk and ate slowly as she wrote, managing a few hundred more words before calling it quits for the night.
She looked out the window. The sky outside was lit only by a faint orange glow. It’d be full dark soon, and she still needed to call Kate.
After cleaning her dishes, she took a quick shower, pulled on some soft, cozy pajamas — complete with oversized, fluffy socks — and sat down at her desk again. She opened the Facetime app and clicked on her only contact. She was brushing her damp hair when Kate accepted the call.
Kate’s wide, green eyes and infectious smile instantly filled Sophie with warmth.
“Hi!” Kate exclaimed, waving. “Looks like someone just took a shower.”
Sophie smiled. “Yeah.”
“So, you had someone out to install your internet, hmm? Was he hot?”
Sophie’s hand stilled. Kate leaned closer to the camera, smile faltering.
“Soph, what’s wrong?”
Sophie shook her head and set the brush down on the desk. “It’s nothing. Just…”
Movement in the corner caught her attention. She snapped her head to the side, eyes darting back and forth, but there was nothing there. A chill ran up her spine; she could’ve sworn she’d seen something.
“Sophie?” Kate urged.
“It’s nothing,” Sophie repeated, more to herself than to Kate. She slowly faced her friend again.
“You had an anxiety attack, didn’t you?”
“I…almost, yeah,” Sophie replied. “I guess I just wasn’t expecting the installer. Well, I was, but I was distracted, and he startled me, and all I could think of was…Tyler. That he’d found me. That he was here.”
“He’s not, sweetie. He’s still here, across the street, in your old house. Hundreds of miles away.”
“I know that, Kate. That’s what makes this worse. He’s not even here and he still has so much control over me. I can’t get away from him. He’s always here, in my head.” Her eyes stung, and her vision blurred with tears.
“Aww, Sophie. It will get better with time. I promis
e. I will do everything I can to make sure he never touches you again.”
It didn’t matter that she’d only met Kate a few years ago; Sophie felt like she’d known her forever. She was a sister, a confidant, a guardian angel. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Kate smiled. “Go get some rest. We’ll talk again soon.”
“Good night, Kate.”
“Night, sweetie.”
Sophie disconnected the call and leaned back, settling her heels on the edge of her chair and drawing her legs to her chest to lean her chin atop them. She stared out the window, past her reflection, to the shadows outside. She stayed like that for a long while. Exhaustion — mostly mental — had caught up to her, but she wasn’t ready to go to bed for fear that she’d see Tyler in her sleep, as she so often did.
The nearby presence hadn’t diminished, but she found a strange degree of comfort in it now. Logic told her it wasn’t real; there was no one in the outside, no one house, no one here. She was by herself. It was likely that overly imaginative part of her mind seeking out a substitute guardian angel while she was so far away from her real-life hero, Kate.
With a soft sigh, she unfolded her legs and rose. She added a couple logs to the woodstove, arranging them with the poker to give new life to the fire, and closed her eyes to savor the warmth before closing the door. She went about her new nighttime routine — she turned off her computer, checked the locks on all the windows and doors, and went into the bathroom to brush her teeth and relieve herself.
Sophie looked in the mirror and tilted her head. It wasn’t the battered wife of the last few years staring back at her, but it also wasn’t the carefree young writer she’d been before Tyler. She was at a crossroads. Though her body was no longer a tapestry of bruises and split lips, she would always carry scars upon her soul. But she had a chance to define what those scars would mean going forward.
She entered her bedroom, pulled the covers back, and climbed into bed. Reaching over, she shut off the lamp. The soft nighttime glow from outside bathed her room in gentle silver. She stared up at the dark ceiling after pulling up the blanket.
“Please don’t let him find me.”
Cruce formed himself in the corner, drawing the ethereal tendrils that comprised him into the pathetic shadow of a body. The mortal on the bed, Sophie, had closed her eyes, but her breathing suggested she was not yet asleep. Her features were strained, and the last words she’d spoken had carried a desperate tone. After overhearing her conversation with Kate through the strange, magical device on her desk, he knew that Sophie was haunted by something.
By someone.
His urge to shelter her from her emotions was an unfamiliar one; Sophie’s distress had created tension within him that he’d not felt since before his damnation, and he’d wanted nothing more than to soothe her. Seeing her in such a state had brought him no pleasure.
And yet her past, her traumas, were meaningless to Cruce. Her life was measured in the space between his heartbeats — or would’ve been, had he a physical heart. Tyler had done her harm at some point, but these humans should’ve been nothing to Cruce but potential sustenance.
He eased closer to the bed. Outside, leaves rustled in the autumn wind, and the boughs of ancient trees creaked and moaned, but in here there was only the crackling of the fire from the next room and the gentle sound of this mortal’s soft breath. It would take but a few moments to steal that breath from her forever. Given her state, would that not be a mercy?
Just as he might’ve ended the suffering of an injured hare, he could eliminate this human’s fears and anxiety, could grant her eternal peace.
Even now, wisps of shadow extended toward her, hungry and probing, seeking out flesh through which to drink her essence. As much as he loathed his need to steal life from earthly creatures — leaving behind meat and bones to rot away — he could not deny its thrill. It provided him some of the only pleasure he’d known during his years as a cursed thing, however fleeting or shameful that pleasure proved.
He yanked back those tendrils abruptly. He’d not yet had his taste of her. He’d not yet felt her skin with his own fingers, had not yet drawn in her scent with his own nostrils or sampled her flavor with his own tongue. Until he came to know that physical contact with her, she was worth keeping alive.
At that moment, he found himself longing far more for her warmth than he did the sustenance of her life force.
He sank down beside her bed, lowering his viewpoint to her level. She lay on her side, facing the wall behind him. Her breathing slowed and evened out gradually. For a long while, Cruce remained still, watching as her expression drifted between serenity and distress. Was she so troubled that even sleep could not grant relief from whatever burdens she carried during her waking hours?
Despite the occasional worry straining her features, she was beautiful.
Hers was not the beauty of the fae or the other ethereal beings that dwelled beyond the veil between worlds; hers was the beauty of mortality. She wore her struggles and triumphs, and her imperfections only sharpened her allure. Sophie possessed no glamour or magic to hide behind. She didn’t have the cold, graceful sensuality of the fae queen or the raw sexual allure of a nymph. She was human. Short-lived, fragile, and oddly unique.
Moving carefully, he peeled the blanket off her body. The demands of his forest vied for his attention, but he had none to spare. His focus was solely upon Sophie.
She wore the same type of bedclothes she had the night before, and her position pulled the fabric taut over certain parts of her body — her backside and her small, rounded breasts primarily. Were it not so likely to wake her, he’d find it worth the effort to strip her clothing, to give himself direct access to her pale skin.
Cruce extended a tendril of shadow and trailed it along her outer thigh, moving it steadily higher. The same heat he’d felt the night before flowed into him, chasing away some of the eternal cold. Again, the fabric of her pants felt far-off, more like a memory than a current experience. But the heat! Sophie’s warmth radiated beneath his touch, inviting him to move his shadowy limb higher. He gave in to the urge, sliding the tendril up to hook the hem of her shirt, brushing the waistband of her pants.
Sophie shifted and released a soft whimper. Her movements tugged her shirt slightly upward, exposing a strip of pale skin around her waist. Cruce lifted the shirt a little further, careful not to touch her skin directly.
There would be no turning back from this. If he touched her now, he would taste her life force — the life force that had teased him, maddened him, and called to him since her arrival. Despite his control up to this point, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to resist his hunger after touching Sophie.
Shaping the tendril into a hand, he lowered it onto Sophie’s skin.
Fire blazed through Cruce, spreading across his shadows, devouring them; thrilling, tantalizing, and painful. For an instant, he lost control of his shape. His form swelled and dispersed throughout the room. Jolts of energy crackled within him, and Sophie’s sweetness — her taste and scent — permeated him.
The sensations were overwhelming. His mind, which had comprehended the complex networks of plants and roots throughout the entirety of his forest, which had been connected to the thoughts of thousands upon thousands of the creatures that called these woods home, which had perceived the webs of magic running through all existence, was temporarily dominated by this mortal — and she was a mystery beyond his understanding. She consumed him, flooding him with emotions and imaginings he could scarcely piece together. Sophie left room for nothing inside Cruce but herself. Had he breath, it would have been stolen; had he a heart, it would have ceased beating.
She moaned appreciatively and nuzzled her face into her pillow.
Cruce withdrew and shuddered back from her, mind spinning. Icy cold flowed into him in the absence of contact between them, but its familiarity brought no clarity — instead, it only increased his want for her, his need.
Li
ngering pleasure rippled through him as he drew back the wisps of darkness that had been drifting across the room. He gathered himself into a tight bundle. Her scent remained with him, and her warmth seemed to pulse from the bed, just strong enough to keep his desire burning. He needed more — not of her essence, but of her.
All Hallows Eve could not arrive soon enough.
He departed from her home and sped into the forest to feed; he would control his hunger over the next week, would ensure he was in a state in which he could protect her. And, when the full moon restored his physical form, he would take Sophie as his own.
Chapter 3
Sophie moaned. The soft, breathy sound was muted by the mist around her. Lust consumed her, dominating her senses and thoughts as a shadowy caress drifted over her body. There were no hands, only the illusion of them, their gentle touch sending tingles across her skin and heightening her desire.
A shadow loomed over her, dark and powerful but not threatening. It exuded raw sensuality rather than menace. The shadow parted her thighs, and Sophie gasped as it swept a dark tendril over her exposed sex, its touch cool against her heated skin. The darkness stroked her; its wisps ran across her entire body, curling around her breasts to tease her nipples, filling her with its essence. Liquid heat flooded her. She cried out between panting breaths, arching her back as pleasure blazed through her.
“Please,” she begged, reaching her hand out. Her fingers passed through the insubstantial form. Tendrils of shadow swirled around her wrist and flowed up her arm, leaving thrills in their wake. The shadows sank into her, became her, engulfed her, and she screamed with the force of the climax that overtook her.
Sophie was startled awake by her own sharp cry. Breathing raggedly, she sat up and placed a hand over her racing heart. She was hot — too hot — despite the chill of the air against her flushed cheeks. Her body buzzed with arousal. Her skin was warm and so sensitive that even her super-soft pajamas were irritating and stifling.
His Darkest Craving Page 3
