Lunar Rebirth (Lunar Rampage Trilogy Book 3)

by Samantha Cross

  “By sacrificing yours?”

  “Nobody’s getting sacrificed.”

  Priscilla scoffed. “Not if the lord of darkness has anything to say about it.”

  “Priscilla, can it,” Max barked while snapping his fingers at her. “He’s not getting his hands on Melanie, either.”

  “So what will you do?” Daggett asked. “It’s not like you can take Melanie back into the general population, get an apartment, and start a new life. Everyone she’s ever known thinks she’s long gone. How will you explain her condition?”

  “Rickey, stop,” Dana whispered under her breath.

  I looked over at Melanie who was deep in thought. Her eyes fixated on the rug beneath her and her face was completely expressionless. She was listening to us, but she wasn’t saying a thing. It made me more than a little nervous because it’s never good when a person clams up like that.

  “One problem at a time,” Max told him. “The first problem we need solved is getting you three out of town. I’m calling a taxi.” He whipped out his cellphone and wandered away, leaving no time for them to argue about it.

  The three of them practically swarmed me the second Max had walked away. “Why are you letting him do this?” Dana asked.

  “His pride is gonna get you killed,” Daggett added.

  “No,” I replied with a slow headshake. “If it’s just the three of us, we’ll have a better chance of not being found. Three people on the run is a lot easier than six.”

  “How will you live, though?”

  “Max owns a store, and he can get someone to take over for as long as we’re gone. It’ll be an income for us. Support. I can do more freelancing as well. We’ll be alright.”

  Priscilla’s gaze locked onto me. “You actually believe that.”

  I had to. I had to believe we’d make it out of this alive.

  I rubbed my freezing cold fingers against the top of my jeans and then stood. They were all still seated, still looking up at me when I said, “Why don’t you guys go find your rooms and relax before you leave?”

  It wasn’t like me to walk away from a conversation without really hashing it out, but I was afraid if I continued to sit there with them that they’d talk me into letting them stay. They may not have realized it, but Max and I were doing them a favor by forcing them out.

  After I walked away, I expected to run right into Max, but he was nowhere in sight. I went upstairs to the room that we had reserved for the two of us, and that’s where I found him. The glass doors leading to the room’s balcony were wide open and he stood out there with no coat on, his hands gripping the ledge as he solemnly stared out into the black void of the winter night.

  “Max?” I called out.

  He must have been lost in thought because it took him a second before he turned around to look at me. Once he saw me approaching, he said, “I got a hold of the taxi. The roads are icy on their end, so it might take up to an hour.”

  “It’d make me feel better if they got here sooner.”

  “A lot of things would make me feel better right about now,” he said with a heavy sigh.

  I joined him on the balcony and leaned against the ledge. The wood from the balcony was layered with ice and snow, and my skin burned when my elbow brushed against it. “Are you all right?” I asked. “Whatever happened back there seemed to really shake you up.”

  His hands were still gripping the ledge, and because of the freezing snow between his fingertips, his skin turned bright pink. I put my hand over his in an effort to heat up his flesh. “What happened?” I asked.

  Max licked his bottom lip and closed his eyes. “Seeing Molly was…fucked up. It made me feel rotten in my core, you know?”

  “I only saw her for two seconds and I know how you feel.”

  “I’m not sure you do. I carried all this guilt for everything that went down between Molly and me in the past. I’m not exactly the type to hyper-focus on who I dump or if it was the right time or whatever, but…after we found her body in the trunk, and we learned about all that shit with Owen and what he did to her, I kept thinking it was a miserable ending to her life. It felt like a waste that someone that young and headstrong was snuffed out, and there was no family left to give a shit. She just stopped existing while the rest of us continued on.”

  “It’s not like you’re to blame for any of that.”

  “No, I know that, but it doesn’t stop it from feeling fucked up. Especially now, because the twisted shit that happened to her is happening again, and I’m gonna have to kill her.”

  A cold chill ran right through me. His encounter must have been nothing short of a nightmare.

  Max twisted his body away from the ledge and faced me. His face was somber but focused. “I don’t want to scare you, but I can’t keep you in the dark about this. She knows you’re the one that put Owen down.”

  My heart dropped. One of my worst fears came true.

  “I don’t know how she figured it out, but she did,” Max said. “I tried to tell her it was me who did it but, for whatever reason, she didn’t buy it. Cora, she…she’s looking to hurt you.”

  His insistence on killing her made more sense.

  “I guess it’s a good thing we’re sending everyone away,” I said. I was doing my best to joke around, but my voice was trembling.

  Max placed both of his hands on my shoulders and held me in place. Despite the flushed nature of his skin, his touch felt several degrees higher than mine. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he declared. “I don’t care how many people she has on her side or how many mental tricks she has over us, I won’t let her so much as touch a damn strand of hair from your head.”

  He couldn’t promise that. No one could.

  I wrapped my fingers around one of his hands on my shoulder and leaned my cheek down against it. “I know,” I whispered. I had no doubt Max would risk his life for me, but I wondered if that would be enough. As Daggett said, we were outnumbered. We were outmatched.

  “Cora, I mean it.” He knew I had my doubts.

  “I know.”

  “Once Daggett, Priscilla, and Dana are gone, the three of us can take the rental and head to Brinly’s. We’ll have extra protection there. We’ll wait till sunrise to leave, head to another state, someplace far and sunny even.”

  Max was rambling, running through these ideas at a fast pace and barely taking a moment to catch his breath. He was wired up from nerves and I absolutely hated it. I needed him to stop and try to calm down.

  I shushed him and asked, “Do you hear that?”

  He honed in on his superior werewolf hearing, and a confused expression took over his face when he didn’t sense danger. “Hear what?”

  I refused to speak again until he could hear it. It was the distant sound of music coming from beneath us on the first floor. Someone was playing a slow song that hauntingly carried on the wind. It was perfect music for dancing.

  I took his hand into mine and said, “Dance with me.”

  His eyebrows pulled together. “Cora, please. Now’s not the time for dancing.”

  “Actually, it’s the perfect time. With everybody coming after us and the future seeming so uncertain, we…we might not ever be able to do this again.”

  I could almost see his heart breaking through his eyes.

  “Come on,” I said, and pulled his hands away from my shoulders and placed them at my waist. The heat of his hands soothed my aching back muscles. I wrapped myself around him and rested my head against his chest so I could listen to my favorite sound in the world; his heart. “We never dance,” I said. “With everything we’ve been through, we’ve never even had a proper dance.”

  “If I had my way, we would have that first summer together.”

  “At the dating auction?”

  He nodded.

  I tilted my head back and looked at him. “Why didn’t you ask me to dance then?”

  “I guess I was afraid.”

  I chuckled. “Afraid? Of little
ol’ me?”

  “More afraid I’d find out what I was feeling was one-sided. I couldn’t be caught looking like an idiot.”

  Back then, I was so caught up in my own blossoming feelings for him that it never occurred to me that he was feeling the same uncertainties. It almost felt like we were talking about two completely different people than the ones we were at this moment. I kissed him softly on the lips and said, “You never have to worry about that.”

  Max’s eyelids dropped over his eyes, and for a moment, he stared at me. It was like something was on the tip of his tongue that he couldn’t quite get out, but when I smiled and asked what was on his mind, he lightheartedly shook his head and replied, “Nothing.”

  Max could be a mystery sometimes, but I knew when he was thinking about something important. Something was on his mind.

  But it had been a stressful night and I didn’t want to push it. I wanted to enjoy this. I laid my head back down against his chest, and the two of us swayed together in the winter night.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  CORA

  I headed down the hallway to find Melanie but instead stumbled onto Daggett and Priscilla. Priscilla was leaned flat against the wall, her hair disheveled, with barely two inches dividing her body from his. Daggett had his hand placed against the wall above her like he was trapping her in an effort to get closer.

  As soon as they heard me, they spread like roaches.

  “Hey, yo, I almost didn’t see you standing there,” Daggett said with a nervous laugh as he scratched behind his ear.

  Were they…? Were they about to kiss?

  Priscilla rolled her eyes and told him, “Hit the showers.”

  He tilted his head at her. “Like…for real?”

  Again, she rolled her eyes. “Not literally. I meant scram so us girls can talk.”

  “Got it.” Daggett scampered away so fast he tripped on the rug beneath him, quickly fixed it with the bottom of his shoe, and then continued down the hall till he got to his room.

  Once I knew he was gone, I let out a laugh. “Were you guys about to…?”

  “Stop.”

  “You’re crazy if you think I’m gonna let this one go.”

  “He was going in for a kiss, all right? There, now you know. You happy?”

  “Ecstatic,” I replied, laughing.

  “Just because he was going for it doesn’t mean I was going to let him succeed.”

  “You didn’t seem to be putting up much of a fight.”

  She exhaled slowly. “Look, we’re all probably going to die and we’re in a cabin out in the middle of nowhere. I’m weak.”

  “Or you like him.”

  “Daggett is not the kind of guy I see myself ending up with, okay?”

  “Isn’t that how all romance novels begin, though? Two opposites with seemingly nothing in common get stranded out in a snowy cabin with nothing to keep themselves alive except for the heat of their bodies.”

  I could feel a snarky comeback brewing inside of her, but then her face fell and she groaned. “Shit. I’m a cliché.”

  I laughed loudly at her realization.

  Priscilla checked down the hallway to see if anyone was nearby, then lowered her voice. “I mean…he’s not the worst, right?”

  “The types you usually date are the worst, Priscilla. Daggett’s one of the good ones.”

  “Oh Christ, if my mother finds out I’m messing around with someone halfway decent, I’ll never hear the end of it. She’s gonna expect me to, like, marry him or something.”

  “Yeah, because that would clearly be the worst thing in the world,” I joked.

  She had nothing to say and simply folded her arms and shook her head. “What are you doing sneaking around here anyway?”

  “How can I be sneaking around by walking directly down the hallway? My room is on the other end,” I said with a laugh. “I was looking for Melanie.”

  “Pretty sure I saw her mist her way into her room.”

  “Please, no Dracula jokes.”

  “I gotta get them out while I can. We might not see each other again.” It was quiet, but there was a small stutter in that last sentence. She sounded like she was actually gonna miss me.

  “This isn’t goodbye. It’s a see you later.”

  “Well, it better be. Who am I going to verbally abuse if you’re not around?”

  “Aren’t you prepping Daggett to be my replacement?”

  “Would you shut up about him?” Priscilla said and then kicked me in the shin. She had the vaguest smile on her face. “Come have a drink with me when you guys are done talking.”

  “Won’t you be in Daggett’s room?”

  She groaned. “I’m warning you, Cora Rash.”

  I involuntarily laughed. “How did it take you this long to call me that?”

  “Impending doom sharpens my wit, what can I say?”

  “Maybe I should hold a blowtorch to your face the next time conversations get dull.”

  “Ugh, hold it to my face regardless. Put me out of my misery.”

  I scoffed. “Don’t say that too loud. Molly might take you up on that.”

  “Please, whatever you do, don’t give her the satisfaction of killing me. Throw me in front of a bus if you have to.”

  I chuckled. I was going to miss this. I was going to miss her.

  Priscilla walked away, and despite knowing she was only downstairs pouring herself a drink, I felt like we weren’t going to see each other again.

  I knocked on Melanie’s door, and immediately she called for me to come in. She stood by the window, cautiously pulling back the curtains and peeking through the glass. She was on guard.

  “Sense anything?” I asked.

  “Not yet. It’s crazy that we’re sitting here like this.”

  “It’s only until the rest of the group leave. Max doesn’t want to abandon them. Just in case.”

  “Do you really think that’s a good idea? Making your friends leave like that?”

  I threw out my arms and shrugged. “To be honest, I don’t know. I do know they’re more likely to die if they stay.”

  Melanie shut her eyes and nodded. “Fair enough.”

  I sat down on the edge of the bed as she remained by the window. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better. The blood really helped give me back a bit of strength. Your cuts are barely bothering me now.”

  I glanced down at my bandages and frowned. I’m not sure how, but the wounds had nearly slipped my mind. “I’m glad at least one problem is solved,” I said. “That was really courageous of Dana to do that for you.”

  Melanie’s voice went soft. “I know. She’s actually been helping me a lot. We may have only spoken a few times, but they’re good chats. She understands.”

  “Better than me, no doubt.”

  “She gets it differently, is all.”

  “So, she likes you.”

  Melanie shrugged. “I guess so.”

  I was implying that Dana’s admiration was a bit more than platonic, but Melanie didn’t get it. I loved my cousin, but she could be dense like that.

  “Where is everyone now? Have they left yet?” Her hands clutched onto the curtains, while her eyes stared into the darkness outside the window.

  “We’re waiting for the taxi. They should be gone within the hour.”

  Melanie nodded and then said, “When it does show up, I want you and Max to go with them.”

  This floored me. “You’re kidding.”

  “No.” She closed the curtains and faced me. “I can’t let you two throw your life away to protect me. I’m dead, you’re not.”

  “Protecting someone I love isn’t my idea of throwing my life away. It’s what I want to do. You really think I’d be able to have a normal life knowing you were somewhere out there in danger?”

  “Or I could give him what he wants. You and Max will be safe, and my fate won’t be up in the air. You can live your life.”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t act
like you dying would somehow make any of our lives easier or better. I already know what it’s like to lose you. Remember? I felt that torturous pain and deep regret, and I’m not doing it again.”

  “I’m not trying to hurt you,” she said innocently.

  “I know you’re not. Which makes it worse.”

  “You have to admit that I might not be wrong.”

  “No, you are completely wrong. You sacrificing your life and giving a momentous amount of power to this…Master guy? It’s the worst imaginable ending to this story.”

  “Us all dying is the worst ending imaginable.”

  I took a deep breath inward. “It’s too late, Melanie. I’m in this. Max said…Molly is after me, all right? She has a vendetta against me for what I did to her brother, and she wants me dead. You might be the shiny prize they’re all looking for, but I’m the bonus. Even if you hand yourself over, she’ll still be after me. Your way will only make sure we both end up dead.”

  The expression on her face and the way her shoulders slumped let me know my words had deflated her. There was no argument left to be made on her end.

  I climbed off the bed and headed toward her. “You and I are both wanted women, but at least we’ll have each other. We can do this. Together.”

  There was belief and determination behind my words, none of which I even had to put on because I had to believe in them. It was how I was going to fight to stay alive and to keep her alive. But Melanie? She looked like every ounce of drive and hope had been drained from her crystal blue eyes. She stared at me like I was already a dead woman walking.

  “You’ll see,” I told her. “Everything’s gonna be alright. We’ll make it.”

  Chapter Thirty

  MELANIE

  Max and Cora’s plan wasn’t long term. I knew that, they knew that, but none of us wanted to say it out loud. Master wasn’t a mere man with an axe to grind, he was a powerful nightmare with endless time on his side. Even if we somehow eluded him for decades, Cora and Max would eventually age and tire out, and then he’d find me.

  It was inevitable.

  I had to come up with an alternative plan that didn’t get us all killed.