I sat down on one of the oversized sofas in my hotel room and shut my eyes. My hands shook and my skin moistened with sweat, but there was no other choice. I had to contact him, to let him into my mind.
Within seconds, I was standing in the center of an empty street. The surrounding air was engulfed in swirling black clouds and the only light was a dim street lamp beside me. If I was going to allow him into my head, I had to create a setting that was fictional or from another time, so he wouldn’t know where we were. I chose the street I grew up on.
“I knew you’d come back to me,” his voice echoed around me. Hearing him again chilled me to the bone. “They always return.”
I couldn’t see him, so I had to speak into the void. “I’m here to make a deal.”
He snickered like a hyena. “Negotiations? After murdering one of my girls?”
I swallowed the heaviness in my throat. He had no sentimental feelings for Tiffany, but if it created an excuse for him to hurt me, he would gladly take it.
“You’ll like this offer,” I said. “I’m willing to turn myself over to you. Tonight. You get everything you want.”
Master was silent and then purred, “And?” He knew there was a catch.
“In exchange for a promise that you leave my friends alone, especially Cora. That means telling Molly she can’t lay a hand on her, even when I’m gone. No threats, no stalking, nothing. Just let Cora live her life out in peace.”
Once again, he was silent.
“Does that sound like a fair trade?” I asked.
I couldn’t see him, but somehow I could feel him smiling. “It does,” he replied. “Now, come home to me.”
I slipped into a pair of boots and zipped up my coat, ready to make the long walk through the snow and to Master’s mansion. He showed me the location, and with my speed, I could be there in twenty minutes. Maybe sooner.
But first I had to say goodbye to Cora.
She was downstairs by the fireplace sipping cocoa. Thankfully, she was alone.
“I thought that was you,” she said to me as I crept down the stairs. “I figured you went to sleep.”
“I tried, but it didn’t take,” I replied as I left the staircase and met up with her on the couch. “I had a lot of thinking to do.” I scanned the room, suspicious that Cora was out here by herself. It seemed too convenient that I would have this final moment with her alone. “Where is everybody?”
“I think Max is trying to get a hold of Brinly to make arrangements for us to go back there. The desk clerk lurking around eavesdropping has him paranoid. It’d be a super strange phone call to listen in on.”
I sat down next to her. “Cora, I need to say this and get this over with quickly. I’m leaving.”
She almost began to laugh until she saw I was being serious. “And where exactly are you leaving to?” Cora knew the answer already, but she was forcing me to say it out loud.
“We came to an agreement. You and Max won’t have to spend the rest of your lives looking over your shoulder.”
“Hell no. No!”
“I’m not here for a shouting match, I’m here to say goodbye.”
“I won’t let you do this.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
Cora’s mouth extended wide to yell for Max, but before she could get the words out, I grabbed her by the face and locked her in my gaze. “You’ll say nothing,” I instructed. Cora’s body relaxed and the tension in her face faded, leaving her in an almost catatonic state. “Know that I love you and that this is the right decision for all of us. You’ll sit here and not tell anyone where I am until I’m gone.” I stood up from my seat and looked back at her. She was completely zombie-like. I brushed my fingers along the apples of her cheeks and whispered, “One of the perks of losing me before is you’ll know how to deal with it better this time. I’m sorry.”
And then I walked out of that hotel.
I trudged through the snow outside and toward the forest, my face stinging from the cold air hitting my tears. I tried to keep it together and not focus on what would happen to me or how it would make Cora feel when she came to. It was all too much.
This was the right thing to do, and I had to remind myself of that. It’s just that I agonized over the idea that I’d be dying alone. My first death was something I hadn’t prepared for, but at least I was in Cora’s lap, feeling the warmth of her hands on my face as I slipped away. This death, however, would be the furthest thing from that. It would be violent, it would be lonely, and it would hurt Cora all over again.
I had to hold it together.
Suddenly, I heard the snow crunching behind me. I stopped in my tracks, knowing damn well someone was standing behind me. Someone fast enough to catch up to a vampire.
“Don’t do it,” a trembling voice called out. I turned around and saw Dana standing there in the snow, no coat or boots on, just shivering away. She had been following me.
“Dana, why are you out here?” I asked.
“I heard what you said to Cora.”
I groaned. I wanted to disappear without a trace. “That wasn’t meant for you.”
“I know.” Dana rubbed her hands against each elbow to keep warm. “But if you think you can make me forget, you’re wrong.”
“I will if you try to stop me.”
Her expression never changed. “Giving yourself over won’t change anything. The danger won’t go away.”
“We made a deal. If I surrender and give myself to him, he’ll leave you all alone.”
“And you actually believed him?”
“What reason would he have to come after you without me? It’s me he wants.”
Dana shook her head as her bottom lip fell. “So that’s it?” she asked with a shrug. “You just surrender and die?”
“I’m already dead.”
“You’re no more dead than I am a monster.”
I knew she believed it, and it pissed me off. She wouldn’t make it easy for me to walk away. “Dana, you can hide in plain sight and no one will ever know what you are. You look like everyone else. My skin, my touch…I’ll always be an outsider. I have no place here. No future.”
“You do.” Dana stepped toward me, and her shoes kicked the snow into my footprints. “With me.”
My hands were shaking, and it wasn’t until that moment that I realized it.
Dana forced a smile as she pushed her way through the snow. “You don’t need to give up or lose your life to keep anyone safe. We could run away.”
“We?”
“We’re both losers,” she said with a laugh. If I hadn’t been so scared, I would have smiled too, because I knew she meant it lovingly. “We have no real attachments anymore. We could pack up our things and go right now. They could chase us until I’m old and gray, and we’d be so far away from Cora they’d never hurt her again.”
I dropped my head and breathed inward. I wanted so much to say yes, but it was unrealistic and naïve.
“No,” I said.
Her eyes glistened. “Why not?”
“It’s not just Cora I’m trying to protect,” I admitted. “I’d be trading Cora for you, and I can’t do that. Not to you. You deserve better than that.”
“But it’s what I want.”
“No.”
“Please, Melanie. Don’t go. Don’t let them hurt you.” She sounded so goddamn sad and it was breaking my heart. Marching to my death was never something she was meant to know about. She was supposed to be oblivious and forget all about me.
“This is what I want. Okay?”
Dana’s gaze landed on my hands at my side. “Then why are you shaking?”
I had hoped she wouldn’t notice, and I lifted my right hand and placed it into the palm of my left. I squeezed to calm the shaking. It didn’t work.
“Maybe your voice can lie to me, but your body can’t,” she said. “People who are sure of what they’re doing don’t quake when they’re doing it. You’re scared.”
“Of cour
se I’m scared.”
“Then what does that tell you?”
“Being terrified of something doesn’t mean it’s wrong.” She was close to me, so I brushed a strand of her brown hair out of her eyes. The winter breeze kept tossing it all over her face. “Having someone care whether I live or die means so much more than you know. I’ll hold it with me when I go.”
Tears poured down her cheeks. “Melanie,” she quivered.
I couldn’t handle seeing her sad face anymore and turned to leave, but I only moved one step before her fingers wrapped around my upper arm and whipped my body toward her. Our chests bumped, and with my face inches from hers, she took the opportunity to impulsively press her lips to mine.
My flesh was like ice and hers was like fire, and when they collided, it melted away every wall I had built up. I felt the warmth not only take over my skin but bubble through my entire body. It felt… good. More than good. It completely shook me. She wasn’t even through with kissing me and I wanted her to do it again.
Her lips slowly peeled off of mine, and when her eyes flickered up at me, all I saw was a loving gaze. I wanted to kiss her again, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t right. I got as close as I could to her and she let her guard down, expecting another embrace, only I locked her into my hypnosis. “Go back to the cabin,” I said. “Grab a blanket, sit by the fireplace, and let yourself fall asleep. Dream of nothing but beauty and peace. Be happy.”
When I let go of her, Dana had the same vacant expression on her face that Cora did. She was in an absolute fog as she slowly turned around and walked back to the cabin through the snow. I stood there for a moment watching her get further and further away from me. As I turned to leave, I felt a tear roll down my cheek.
I didn’t want to say goodbye, but I had to. I had to.
Twenty feet from where I left Dana, I eventually broke down. I wept for everything I was leaving behind and for the future I would never have. It was the first time in my life I felt like I had something to lose. Life could be so cruel.
Just as I was ready to continue my journey, I felt the ground slightly quake beneath me, followed by fast animalistic steps running toward me. Something heavy, hairy and hot bashed into my lower back, and it sent me soaring through the air until I collided with a nearby tree. I was knocked for a loop, but I knew I’d been attacked.
My vision doubled, but I was certain I saw a pair of female legs standing in front of me. The woman said, “You really thought you were about to leave, didn’t you?” Beside her stood a werewolf.
It took a second, but my vision fixed itself. I was surprised when I realized the woman standing in front of me was Cora.
“Cora?” I asked, confused.
She shook her head, agitated at my escape attempt, and then knocked me over the head with a large piece of wood. Right before I passed out, I heard her say, “I’m getting better at this knocking people out thing.”
Chapter Thirty-One
MELANIE
“For an immortal being, you sure are easy as fuck to knock out,” Priscilla quipped.
My senses slowly returned to me, and the first thing I felt was the rough material of something restraining my wrists. I was also seated upright in a kitchen chair. “What’s going on…” I mumbled.
“You tried to leave, so I sent Max after you,” Cora said.
“But I made you not say anything…”
“Until you were gone. Looks like it wore off the second you left the hotel.”
“A cute little loophole to your hypnosis,” Daggett observed. “I guess you have to be much more literal in what you tell someone to do.”
I finally peeled open my eyes, and I subtly jumped when I realized all five of them were hovering over me and staring. I then tried to wiggle my arms free, but they were tied down to the chair. “Is this necessary?” I asked.
“You tell us,” Max responded. He was wearing a white undershirt and jeans, which was probably a spare outfit from the one he destroyed coming after me last minute. Random thought, but it looked good on him.
“I can’t believe you would brainwash your own cousin,” Cora snapped.
“I did it to protect you,” I grumbled.
“You did it knowing that it would tear me up inside. How could you?”
“This isn’t about your feelings.”
“No, it’s about yours. Right? Screw the rest of us. Right? If you really don’t care about our feelings or your safety, then at least think about what would happen after you turned yourself over.”
“He was going to spare you. I said that already.”
“What, for five minutes? Until he became so powerful that he's slaughtering dozens of people at a time? We don’t know what his long-term plan is. Letting yourself die for an uncertain future is…well, it’s stupid.”
“He can’t kill everyone on the planet.”
“No, he can just wipe out as many as he wants until he’s left to rule the place. That sounds like a good plan.”
I don’t think I’d ever seen Cora this pissed before. I honestly thought I was doing her a favor by letting her live and getting me out of the way.
I was continually surprised at how much she seemed to genuinely give a shit about me. I hadn’t done anything to earn that level of loyalty.
“What happened to us sticking together through it all?” Cora asked.
“What good is sticking together if that’s what gets us all killed?”
“Nobody is dying,” she snapped.
Cora was getting herself worked up, so much so that Max had to pull her back and calm her down. “Take a breather,” he told her. His hands were on each side of her body, holding her in place and forcing her to relax.
Cora exhaled slowly and whispered, “My heart won’t stop racing. We almost lost her.”
Through the high-pitched voice and the seething face, I knew she still loved me. To experience unconditional love like that was an unexplainable feeling.
Max lowered his hands from Cora and said, “Go downstairs and find something to cut her out of the ropes.”
It didn’t even dawn on me we weren’t downstairs. I had been too preoccupied to notice I was seated next to a bed in someone’s hotel room. It was most likely Cora’s.
“You really think we can trust her?” Cora asked.
“We’re gonna have to.”
Cora exhaled once more and then left the room. I knew Max had sent her away so she could cool off for a minute.
“You almost gave that woman a heart attack,” Max said to me. I felt like I was being scorned by a parent.
“I was trying to do the opposite.”
“I know exactly what you were trying to do, and shit, I’m not gonna fault you for it. But if you come up with some crazy scheme like this, the least you could do was run it by me first.”
“And have you stop me?”
“I’m not Cora. If you want to kill yourself, I won’t stop you, but I would try to talk some sense into you.”
“Which is why I left the way I did.”
“Makes you think you weren’t too sold on the idea, doesn’t it?”
He had me there. It took all of my strength to find the courage to turn myself over. I was scared shitless, and had Max been there to talk me out of it, I would have caved and stayed behind. And then our situation would be stalled.
I knew I was gonna have to wait till they went to sleep and attempt to leave once more. Cora would most likely keep a watchful eye on me all night, but at some point, she would have to rest. Then, I’d make my escape.
I glanced over to the corner of the room and suddenly saw Dana. Her arms were crossed over her chest but with one hand raised over her mouth in thought. Above her curled fingers, her blue eyes glimmered with sadness. She was watching me, but she wasn’t saying a word. She looked…heartbroken. Was that my doing? It was one thing to hurt and disappoint your family, who is used to it and will forgive you no matter what, but to hurt Dana?
What were we even? When she kisse
d me on the lips, I never once thought I’d feel anything, much less feel everything. The whole experience had me shaken. It was like a part of me I never knew existed opened up, and knowing that euphoric feeling was so close yet I couldn’t reach out and embrace it made me miserable. For the first time, I was discovering something that would make me feel complete, and it was happening the night I was to die.
I wanted her to say something, or to even look me in the eye, but she remained so guarded and silent. I had to know what she was thinking. I had to make our relationship right before I left.
Maybe I could delay turning myself over or…no, that was a foolish idea. I couldn’t put myself first. If anything, I had to—
Blood.
There was a sudden aroma of blood rushing through my nostrils, so strong it nearly knocked me on my ass. It was as if it crawled up the stairs and entered the bedroom like a mist. “Something’s happened,” I blurted out. They all looked to me, confused. “Smell it!”
Dana was the first to take a whiff. “There’s blood downstairs,” she said.
“Shit!” Max yelled and bolted out of the room and down the stairs. Daggett and Priscilla immediately went running after him, and right before Dana got to the door, I stopped her.
“Untie me,” I pleaded.
She stared at me cautiously. “So you can run away?”
“That’s my family downstairs.”
I could tell she wanted to think it over, but the uncertainty of what was happening beneath our floor felt too important for her to sit and simmer on it. She let out a small groan and then knelt behind my chair, attempting to untie me. Because she didn’t have a knife, it was taking too long and my legs bounced up and down anxiously, praying that the blood we could smell was the desk clerk accidentally cutting himself on a broken vase.
After a minute, Dana set me free, and I got to my feet in less than a second. She lifelessly stood in front of me, her face void of emotion, as I said, “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” she said. “Just go.”
The pain in her voice was almost contagious, because my heart stung as I listened to her.
Lunar Rebirth (Lunar Rampage Trilogy Book 3) Page 21
