I looked to Molly, and with my eyes pleaded for her to come to her senses, for her to be the woman she used to be, but her demeanor was frigid and her gaze disconnected. She didn’t care one bit.
“Until Melanie returns, you will stay here and be my pet. Only when she walks through my front door and rightfully surrenders will I consider letting you go. You will do what I say and when I say to do so, and if at any point you so much as look at me in a way that I find offensive, I will bleed you dry and hang you from the ceiling.”
I was going to die tonight. I knew it.
“Hold her down,” he instructed. Molly and Veronica charged toward me, each grabbing me by the arm and forcing me to lie flat on the floor.
“No! No! What are you doing?!” I screamed.
The Master crouched over me, one leg on each side of my body, while the girls had my wrists pinned to the floor. He pressed his long thumbnail into the skin of my forearm and then dragged it downward, tearing me open. The pain was so intense and so stinging I involuntarily thrashed around on the floor like I was possessed. “No!” I yelled. My blood rushed across the surface of my skin and dripped onto the chapel floor. The wet, cold sensation of his tongue drug along my open wound as he moaned with delight. He slurped and swallowed and purred, all while Molly and Veronica cackled. This was funny to them. This was a childish game to them.
I screamed, perhaps louder than I had ever screamed before. It exhausted me, and right before I passed out, the last thing I could remember seeing was a display of candles brightly burning next to the statue of an angel weeping.
Chapter Thirty-Three
DAGGETT
Max was out of the room for fifteen minutes. After we found the body and realized Cora had been taken, he grabbed his cell phone and charged out of there like a man possessed. I thought he took off to clear his head or break something, but instead, he returned with his cell in his hand and a pillowcase full of items. He unrolled the material onto the living room coffee table and breathlessly said, “We can use these to kill them.”
Heh, so he rushed right past panic mode and into fight mode. What an alpha.
I walked closer to the coffee table and took a peek at what he presented. It looked like he dug through the kitchen drawers and grabbed as many knives or pointy objects that he could find. It was a bit sad to look at, if I was being real.
“You want me to have a knife fight with a vampire?” Priscilla asked.
“You rather go in without a knife?” Max countered.
“They’re fast. I’d never even hit one.”
“They would have to stop moving to kill you.” Max picked up a butcher knife and set the handle in the palm of Priscilla’s hand. “That’s when you go for the kill.”
“So, I wait for them to attack me and hope I don’t miss their heart. What could possibly go wrong?”
“Believe me, it’s gonna hurt like a son of a bitch. I was able to get a signal and call Brinly, and she let me in on all of the old myths about vampires that Aga told her. I wanted to know what their weaknesses were and got the typical holy water, crosses, garlic, you name it. Then it dawned on me—silver.”
“That hurts us,” Dana said.
“Because silver is considered a lunar metal.”
It suddenly registered for me. “And the vampires came from us,” I said, finishing his sentence.
Max casually pointed at me and said, “Exactly.”
“Please explain better. I’m confused,” Melanie commented.
“Silver is connected to the moon and the moon rules over us in every possible way. Since you, Veronica, and Molly became vampires from a werewolf bite, it’s only logical that the moon would have some bit of influence over you as well. Our strengths might be different, but our weaknesses are probably fairly similar. This Master guy, however, we don’t know his origin or what he’s capable of.”
Max folded his arms and added, “So the silver may not work on the big dog of the group, but it could definitely take down the other two.”
“Do we know this for sure, though?” Melanie asked.
“Only one way to find out.”
I knew exactly what that meant, and as Melanie’s eyes grew in size, I realized she figured it out as well. Quietly, she asked, “Do I have to get stabbed?”
“No,” Max replied. “Holding it in your hand should tell us enough.”
Before Melanie knelt to pick up one of the knives, Priscilla asked, “Are we sure this is even real silver? This hotel isn’t exactly The Plaza.”
Max groaned. “It’s silver.”
“You’re giving me a look like it’s a stupid question.”
Melanie retrieved the butcher knife from Priscilla, first taking it by the handle and then cautiously looking over the shiny blade. With her other hand, she very carefully pinched the blade between her index finger and thumb. At first, there was no significant reaction on her part, but the longer she held it in her grasp, the more contorted her face grew. Suddenly, Melanie took a sharp breath inward through her teeth and dropped the knife to the floor.
“So?” I asked.
“It felt like putting my hand on a burner,” she replied.
“Then it’s true. We found a weakness.”
“I don’t get it,” she began with a furrowed brow. “I thought silver hurt you when you’re a werewolf. So why does it hurt me when I’m like this?”
With a shrug, Max said, “Maybe because you’re in your supernatural form at all times, and we can turn ours on and off.”
“Figures,” she said, disappointed. I guess us going in and out of our forms had some perks. Finally.
“Why haven’t we been experimenting on her this entire time?” Priscilla asked.
Melanie looked at her and scoffed. “I’m not a test tube, okay?”
“You know what I mean. You and Wilson Phillips there are almost identical, and if we know what sets you off, then we know what sets them off.”
Priscilla was correct, but at the end of the day, Melanie was a person and we couldn’t treat her like anything but that. Especially since she was caged up and tested on for God only knows how long. Us poking and prodding at her would probably stir up unnecessary trauma.
Surprisingly, Melanie changed her tune. “You know what…you’re probably right.”
Priscilla raised an eyebrow. “Say that again?”
“You’re probably right,” Melanie repeated. “If this is gonna help us have a fair shot of getting Cora back safely, then I should volunteer.”
Ignoring the rest of her statement, Priscilla said, “Can I get you to repeat that first part again, only this time in writing?”
Melanie groaned loudly. “Nobody thinks you’re funny, Priscilla.”
“Cora thinks I’m hilarious, actually.”
“Cora also thinks wearing socks with sandals is okay.”
Dana cleared her throat and interjected. “Can we maybe not joke about Cora until we know she’s okay?”
“She’s gonna be fine, because I’m turning myself over,” Melanie said.
“Not this again,” Dana said sternly.
“There’s no other option. We can take as many silver objects as we want, but all we’re gonna do is get our asses kicked. Until a day ago, half of you didn’t know or care about me. But you do care about Cora. It’s a fair trade.”
“Stop,” Dana said pitifully. She sounded genuinely hurt by Melanie’s rant. It was fairly obvious to everyone else, but it never occurred to me that she might have a crush on her. Poor Dana, though. Melanie was straight, as far as I knew.
“You got a better plan?” Melanie asked. “Come up with one, and we’ll go with it.”
The two stared each other down for almost a whole ten seconds without saying a word. The only thing that developed was a layer of tears over Dana’s eyes. She was hurt, and before she burst into tears in front of us all, she stormed off. As she got to the top of the stairs, Melanie groaned and called, “Dana!” Dana didn’t respond, and ran into a ro
om and slammed the door shut.
Dana was overly sensitive, but she still hated it when people saw her cry. She talked about how embarrassing it was because her face flushed and her nose ran. Poor kid was too emotional for her own good.
Melanie took a few steps out of the living room and headed after Dana up the stairs, but Max stopped her. “Don’t worry about her,” he said. “She’ll be fine. We gotta stay focused.” Melanie immediately stopped in her tracks and then returned to our circle. I think she really wanted to talk to Dana but knew Cora’s life was currently the bigger problem.
It was strange. I’d swear Melanie actually returned her feelings. While it may have seemed out of left field, it would at least be an improvement over the last person she was into, who was the actual swine of the earth, Travis. I did not miss that buffoon one bit. Normally, it’s not the best idea to wish death on someone, but that parasite had it coming. Him, and Kat. I’d never see them as anything but literal scum for what they did to Kerry.
Max picked up the conversation as if Dana’s outburst never interrupted them. “You’re not turning yourself over to this guy, Melanie. At least not permanently.”
“Is that a plan I smell?” I asked.
“One thrown together in twenty seconds with a 50/50 shot of working, yeah.”
“You should be an admiral,” Priscilla joked.
Max groaned and did his best to continue, despite his irritants with Priscilla. “We’re only going to let him think he’s got you,” he said to Melanie.
“What?” Melanie asked. “How in the hell do we trick him into thinking he’s got me?” I was glad she said it because that’s exactly what I was wondering. He either had her or he didn’t. There wasn’t much wiggle room.
“We do the trade, we get Cora someplace safe…and then we fight.”
It looked like someone had let the air out of Melanie’s tires, because her entire body dropped and her face grew grim. “We’ll all die,” she said.
Max shook his head. “No. We won’t.” He was defiant and confident. I didn’t know about the rest of them, but I believed him. If he said we would fight and win, I felt like we would. “We’re werewolves,” Max said as his eyes flickered over to me. “We created them and we can end them.”
A hush took over our circle. No one wanted to argue against him.
“Priscilla, you’re gonna be in charge of the silver,” Max said.
Her eyes widened. “Why the human?”
“Because you’re human. Over half of us here are better off going against them outside of our regular form, which leaves Melanie who can’t touch anything in front of us without getting hurt. Moral of the story is, the rest of us can fight in ways that you can’t.”
“Ever heard of gloves?” She ignored almost his entire speech and focused on that minor detail instead.
Max let out a heavy breath. “You’ll need this silver to have a shot of surviving.”
Priscilla leaned in close to me and whispered, “Doesn’t inspire much hope, does he?”
“He’s right,” I whispered back to her. “You’re an easy target because you’re human, but they’re not gonna want to mess with silver.”
“Melanie just held it in her hand and was fine.”
“She said it was like being burned. Imagine that inside your chest, your head, your stomach.”
Priscilla thought on it and then nodded. “Okay, I get it.”
“Now, Melanie, you said he showed you this place, right?” Max asked.
Melanie folded her arms and answered, “Only in my mind. Mostly how to get there and what the exterior looks like.”
“Is there any hidden way we can get onto the property?”
She shrugged. “It’s mostly gated off with everything in the backyard. There’s hedge mazes and some kind of cemetery, but I don’t think it leads off the property. You gotta come through the front.”
Max was disappointed, but not deterred. “Then we’ll go through the entrance.”
I felt for the guy. If this went wrong, his girlfriend could die. Or, the family she trusted him with could die and that could tear a hole in their relationship for life. Meanwhile, I was free to leave if I wanted, and no one would track me down. No one had a reason to want to see me dead. I had nothing to lose while he had everything to lose.
For once in my life, I wasn’t jealous of the good-looking tall guy.
Max drew close to Melanie, put his hand on her upper back, and whispered, “I need you to do something. Take a walk with me.” The two then disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Priscilla and me alone in the living room. Dana was still upstairs, either crying or sulking. Knowing her, probably all of that with a little dash of eavesdropping as well.
“What do you think they’re talking about?” Priscilla asked as she arched her neck back and tried to see what they were doing. They were just standing by the kitchen counter talking quietly.
“Probably something to do with her vampirism,” I guessed.
“A vampire and a werewolf in the kitchen…I feel like there’s a bad joke somewhere in there. Where’s Cora when you need her?”
Priscilla looked sad, and before I could comment on it, she knelt in front of the coffee table and began lining each butcher knife and large fork across the surface as if she were doing inventory. “I don’t know how Max thinks I’m gonna carry all of this,” she said. “Women have more hiding places than men, but putting a pointy knife there doesn’t sound like the best idea.”
I sat down on the floor next to her and placed my hand on top of hers, stopping her from shuffling around the weapons. She needed to hear this. “You don’t have to do this, you know. Max is on high alert and wants as many people as he can to tag along, but I won’t let him do that if you’re feeling unsure.”
“As precious as it is that you’re looking out for me, it’s fine.” She almost didn’t sound sarcastic when she called me precious. “I want to be here.”
It was admirable, and I smiled. “I guess you have a lot of history dealing with things of this nature, with Rookridge and all that.”
“I have a history, but not a good history. It was a lot of screaming and cursing and hoping I didn’t die. This is the first time where I’ll have to get my hands dirty.”
“You’re cool with that?”
“I’m working on it,” she admitted.
She bit down on her fat bottom lip and the lipstick momentarily collected at the tips of her teeth before she brushed her tongue across them. Priscilla had such a pretty, full set of lips. I could only imagine how good they’d feel against mine.
I cleared my throat. “Since we might die and all, I was wondering…” She looked up at me, her large, blue eyes inquisitive. “When we were talking in the hallway, did we…I mean, were we about to…? Or am I off?”
“Don’t ruin it by asking.”
I pulled my lips into my mouth and bit down. “Right,” I said, regretfully.
“But yeah, we almost did.”
I smiled. “Seriously?”
Priscilla let out a loud scoff. “And there you go trying to ruin it.”
“My happiness is ruining it?”
“No, that face you’re making, like you won tickets to Disneyworld. This isn’t supposed to be a big deal, okay? We’re just…we almost hooked up. It’s not that deep.”
“What if I want it to be deep?”
That sounded perverted.
Must. Stay. Focused.
Her shoulders slumped as she sighed. “Daggett.”
I inched closer to her. “You’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met.”
“You need to get out more.”
“Be serious,” I pleaded.
“I am.”
“I know you like me. You’re just too afraid to admit it because I’m not what you envisioned for yourself. It’s okay, you’re not what I saw for myself, either.”
Priscilla clicked her tongue and tossed her head back slightly. “Thanks, Romeo.”
I shr
ugged. “You’re better.”
The speed in which she whipped her head toward me was almost supernatural. Her bottom lip dropped and hung there for a moment, and then she sort of giggled to herself.
I crawled off of the floor and said, “I’m into you, Priscilla, but if you want us to take it to the next level, then you’re gonna have to be the one to make a move.”
Her face fell, her red lips parted, and her eyes widened like she’d seen a ghost. She expected me to keep throwing myself at her and hoping for something to happen, and when I put my foot down, it knocked her for a loop.
I turned away from her, knowing she was still reacting to what I said, and then I smiled. Who was the alpha now?
Chapter Thirty-Four
MELANIE
I wasn’t even scared when I went upstairs to a quiet place. I was just ready to get the show on the road.
I found a dark, empty room that no one had checked into, sat down in a rocking chair near the bed, closed my eyes, and waited for The Master to let me in. Just as Max and I had discussed. It didn’t take long for him to appear, as I was certain he was already waiting for me. He knew we’d be looking for Cora.
Our minds linked up, and it took me to a sandy beach in the middle of a sunny day. I was barefoot and in cut-off shorts, standing on the shore near a hill of sand and rocks. Master hadn’t felt the warm rays of sun in hundreds of years, and if I didn’t hate his fucking guts so much, I might find his headspace being here almost sad.
I waited for his appearance, and it came in from the water. He didn’t swim in, he walked across the waves like a Christ-like figure. Master’s black attire and long, raven hair were dry and unaffected by the water, but his skin is what I noticed first. It was no longer white with zigzags of purple veins; it was slightly tan. It was what he wanted, after all. To walk in the sun and bathe in its warmth. It’s what he’d get when he had me back at his castle. When he killed me.
“I was beginning to think you wouldn’t show,” he whispered as he glided across the ripple of water and landed in front of me. Of course he’d choose a stupid, dramatic entrance for our meeting.
Lunar Rebirth (Lunar Rampage Trilogy Book 3) Page 23
