Lunar Rebirth (Lunar Rampage Trilogy Book 3)

by Samantha Cross

  I suddenly remembered the reaction Master had to silver, and grabbed my necklace from around my neck and pressed the moon against Molly’s cheek. Her skin boiled and smoked as she yelped, and her grip on me loosened. I used that moment to reach for a nearby branch, snap it free from the hedge, and jam it into the side of her neck. A loud gasp erupted from her throat as she spun backward and away from me and the pain.

  I didn’t stand around and wait for her to recover. As she fought to remove the branch from deep inside of her skin, I ran. I ran so fast that the cold air around me felt like blocks of ice punching me in the face. I didn’t know which direction to go, and the idea that I was putting myself deeper into the maze crossed my mind, but I didn’t have time to map out where I should and shouldn’t go. Away from Molly was the only right direction. If I got lost, maybe she would too.

  I turned right, then left, then left again, then right. Every pathway looked identical, and I had to wonder if I was going in a circle.

  I stopped and pressed my back flat against one hedge and waited. I waited for the sound of Molly yelling for me, or even her footsteps. At first, I heard nothing.

  But then…

  Click…click…click.

  I wished I had a weapon of sorts. I’d never be able to fight someone like Molly off, but at least I’d have a dash of hope with a knife or a blunt object. God, why did Priscilla and Daggett have to run off like that? I could kill them. They’re lucky I was about to die, because I’d kill them if I lived.

  Hands suddenly tightly wrapped around my waist and pulled me back. I flailed around as they lifted me off my feet, but the hold on me was too powerful and I could do nothing. This was it, I thought. I’m going to die.

  They brought my back against their flat chest and held me there. I wasn’t in danger. In fact, this felt very familiar. I turned around quickly and was suddenly inches from Max’s beautiful blue eyes. They danced across my face, like he was both checking to see if I was all right and to see if I was real. I felt the same way. The relief that swelled inside of me was so intense and overwhelming, I thought I would cry. He was here, and I was safe again. Before I could say a word, he pressed his fingers to my lips and shushed me. The cautious, speculative expression on his face let me know he could sense Molly was nearby. We weren’t out of the woods—or hedge—yet.

  Max put his hands on my hips and shifted me so I was no longer facing him. A moment later, Molly strolled toward me. Her steps were sluggish and her hand was still raised to the side of her neck. For whatever reason, the branch did some damage to her, and she was oozing blood. Maybe all things related to wood was a weak spot for vampires. I had seen enough classic horror movies throughout my life to know a simple stake usually finished the job. But that was a movie, and this was life, even if it was hard to tell the difference these days.

  I stepped backward and felt an emptiness behind me. I quickly glanced over my shoulder and saw Max was gone.

  Where was he? Why would he disappear when Molly was right in front of me?

  “I hope you enjoyed your little Sarah Connor moment back there,” Molly began. It impressed me that she even knew who Sarah Connor was. “Because that was the last thing you’ll ever do,” she finished.

  “You don’t have to kill me.”

  “Of course I don’t have to. I want to.”

  “You’re afraid of damnation and what your actions mean, but it’s not too late. We can help you the way we’re helping Melanie. There’s still time to change.”

  “You act like I have anything to change for. You took away from me the only person I had left. I might as well embrace what I am, right? That you can help me with.” She lunged forward, her hands in a predatory slashing motion, and her teeth bare and ready for my neck. Molly didn’t make it more than a foot toward me before werewolf Max knocked her down and took a bite out of her collarbone area. I don’t think I had ever heard a scream more guttural and enraged. She shoved him off quickly, and in the blink of an eye, disappeared. All that was left of her was a pool of blood and a long trail of it that ran through the snow and down the pathway straight in front of us. Molly was long gone.

  Max crouched in the snow and remained very still. The long hairs of his fur slowly shortened, his limbs elongated, and his human skin peeked through. His werewolf flesh and hair fell off of his body in chunks like he was ripping off rubber prosthetics. I had seen bits and pieces of someone turning into a werewolf, but never someone shifting back. It was quicker, quieter, and oddly fascinating to watch.

  It only took a minute for a nude, human Max to be standing where his animalistic form once was, surrounded by hair and blood, and seemingly being comfortable about the whole thing. I guess he’d have to be by now.

  I rushed toward him and threw my arms around his body and kissed him passionately. Max’s hands roamed all over my body and up to my face, pulling our mouths apart so he could look me in the eye. We pressed together our noses as he held my face between his hands. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I have no idea how to answer that,” I told him with a small, nervous laugh. “I didn’t die, so that’s gotta count for something, right?”

  “You’re not leaving my side ever again. I’ll sew our legs together if I have to.”

  “You’re so romantic,” I teased.

  Max grew very serious. “Cora. What did he do to you?”

  I swallowed. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s just get rid of him, okay? Where’s Melanie?”

  “With Dana. Where’s Daggett and Priscilla?”

  “I have no clue. We lost each other. This night is falling apart.”

  “Yeah? What was your first clue?”

  The moon glistened against his bare chest. “Oh, God, you’re naked.”

  “You always were perceptive.”

  “No, I mean…” I groaned. “Aren’t you freezing?”

  “I shed my skin multiple times in the last fifteen minutes. I’m actually burning up.”

  “Under normal circumstances, I’d make a joke out of you standing here in the buff telling me you’re burning up, but I won’t.”

  “You just did.”

  “Yeah, but it wasn’t very funny.”

  “None of your jokes are.”

  I pouted. “I almost died, you—” Max slammed his lips to mine, kissing me hard. We both knew we had people to get back to and dangers we had to face, but we were so happy to see each other and be in one another’s arms again that we couldn’t stop.

  When we pulled apart, my lips were swollen and warm. The cold was suddenly not a problem.

  “Let’s find the group,” Max said. “And my fucking pants.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  CORA

  Max didn’t end up finding his clothes, but we did go back to the shed Pricilla and I had stumbled onto and swiped a blanket that he then wrapped around his hips. It relieved me that he didn’t have his stuff swinging in the cold wind anymore, and it would no longer jeopardize our shot of having children in the future. I was also relieved to know that we were close to where I last saw Priscilla and Daggett. They couldn’t have gotten too far, so we’d be reunited soon.

  “You sure Melanie is all right?” I asked as my hands tangled together.

  “You know I can’t know that for sure,” Max replied seriously, keeping close to me. “She’s not alone, which is…helpful, but…”

  “But?”

  “We have to be on the lookout for Veronica and a werewolf. I saw them come in here a while back. They could be anywhere.”

  “We already ran into her.”

  His eyes raised. “Is she dead?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. She was chasing us, and it’s how we got separated.”

  “Great…”

  I was worried about them, but I tried to keep up a brave front. I felt like we would have heard something if they were dead. Or Max would have smelled their blood.

  “So, you never saw the werewolf?” he asked.

  “For about f
ive seconds, before it took off.”

  Max groaned. He was concerned, but trying not to show it. Just like me. “We got rid of the other werewolves, at least.”

  “Other?” I halted, and the memory of them charging out into the front lawn suddenly flooded into my brain. I pressed against my temples. “That’s right. A lot of what happened back there is a little…foggy.”

  Max lovingly coddled my face. “How are you feeling now? You need to rest?”

  “Rest? With my cousin out there? Let’s keep going.”

  “When this is over, I’m gonna force you into bed.”

  “Is that a promise?” I knew he meant putting me to bed so he could take care of me, but I couldn’t deny the chance to be pervy about it.

  A smirk crept out of the corner of his mouth. It was adorable.

  We turned a corner and ran face-first into Priscilla and Daggett. The four of us collectively screamed, but it was Priscilla who raised a fist and almost socked me in the mouth. The fear of getting a black eye obliterated my relief to see them.

  “Hey!” I yelled.

  “Don’t ever do that again!” Priscilla yelled back.

  “What, walk?” Max griped.

  “Don’t get cocky,” she snapped. Funny thing to say to a guy in nothing but a blanket.

  Max sized a bloodied Priscilla up and down. “What the hell happened to you?”

  Priscilla scoffed. “Cora tried to knife herself, an asshole turned into a bat, you’re half-naked…and you’re weirded out over some blood?”

  “It was a simple question.”

  “Veronica emptied her stomach acids all over Priscilla’s face,” Daggett replied.

  “It was gnarly,” I added. “You should have been there, Max.”

  “Yeah, I guess I’ll just have to live with that regret.”

  “Oh, ha, ha, Priscilla got puked on,” Priscilla said spitefully. “Let’s rent a plane and scroll the words across the clouds. Why don’t you all eat my ass?”

  “Not with that shit all over you,” Max said. I laughed. “And wait, what does she mean by you almost knifed yourself?” Max stared at me with one eyebrow cocked.

  “That vampire freak tried to hypnotize her into killing herself,” Priscilla answered.

  Max took a deep breath like he was counting to ten. “I’m gonna enjoy killing this fucker.”

  “We have to get out of here first to do that,” I said.

  “We just follow the wall,” Daggett chimed in. “Follow me, and I’ll get us out of here.”

  I nodded. “I trust him. He’s the only reason I didn’t slit my throat back there. He maneuvered our way out of the hypnosis, the clever boy.”

  Max slapped a hand down on Daggett’s shoulder. “Fuck, Daggett, thank you. Seriously.”

  Daggett bit down on his lower lip. “Just doing my part.”

  Priscilla bounced up and down, shivering. “Can we please go before I piss my pants?”

  I suddenly had to pee too.

  We made our way through the rest of the hedge maze, following Daggett. He seemed to know what he was doing.

  I quietly said, “So, what happened to Veronica?”

  “She’s dead,” Daggett answered. So, he killed her. It was strange to feel relieved that someone was dead, but it cut into how much danger we were potentially in. Without her, all we had to worry about was Master and Molly.

  “You get the werewolf?” Max asked.

  Shoot, the werewolf, too.

  With his hand trailing the wall, Daggett looked over at him. “I thought maybe you got it.”

  “It came in here after you guys.”

  “But it left me. I thought maybe it went back to the lawn to kill you.”

  My heart raced. “Oh, God, what if it’s after Melanie? What if it’s got her right now?”

  I expected Max to say something reassuring, like I wasn’t thinking straight and everything would be okay, but he looked away and kept walking. He probably didn’t want to say any of that to me just in case he was wrong. My stomach twisted. Another minute of this unsure, scary walk and I may have lost my mind, but thankfully we got out of there fairly quick.

  And Melanie slowly came into my line of view.

  Dana was seated on a stone bench, hunched over and out of breath as Melanie had both of her hands on her shoulders, keeping her sitting upright. They were in quiet conversation when she saw me, and immediately she stood.

  “Melanie!” I called. I abandoned all fear and ran to her. She met me halfway, opening her arms and letting me crash into her chest. I snuggled my face against her collar and tightened my hands around her midsection, locking my fingers together behind her back. We swayed.

  “They fixed you,” Melanie said, her voice dripping with relief.

  I unlatched my hands from around her and took a step back. “I thought for sure you were gonna be dead when I got here.”

  With a crooked smile, she said, “Too late for that.”

  I lightly punched her shoulder. “Don’t joke. You guys okay?”

  Melanie glanced over at Dana, who was getting to her feet but looked winded. “Molly knocked Dana on her ass, so she’s recovering.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Dana said. It’s like she knew I was about to ask.

  Melanie looked over the group as they approached from behind me. “Please tell me you killed that bitch Molly.”

  “Afraid not,” Max replied, stepping forward. “She got away, but she’s bleeding pretty good. Meaning she’ll either be out of this fight for a minute, or we have a trail to track.”

  “I thought you woofers couldn’t track vampires,” Priscilla said.

  Max glanced at her, irritated. “She’s bleeding all over the place. We still have eyes, you know.”

  “Oh.”

  “Speaking of tracking,” Daggett began. “Where’s The Master?”

  Melanie took a deep, inward breath. I wanted so badly for her to reveal that she and Dana had beaten the shit out of him and that he was dead and buried on the property. Instead, I got, “Inside. Waiting.”

  “Waiting? I asked.

  “It’s totally weird,” Dana said. “It’s been just the two of us out here for the last fifteen minutes. He could have killed me and taken Melanie any time he wanted, yet…”

  “He waits,” Melanie finished.

  “You don’t sound surprised,” I replied.

  “The only thing Master loves more than killing is a good fight.”

  “That, or he thinks the rest of us were taken out and he’s just waiting for Molly and Veronica to get word back to him,” Max added.

  Priscilla scoffed. “That’s not gonna happen now.”

  “So, what do we do?” Daggett asked. “We can’t simply walk right in and fight him. He’s gotta have some form of a trap set up for us. We don’t know what he’s capable of.”

  “Why can’t we just go home? Leave that fucker to his hellhole while we vacation on the other side of the world. I nominate someplace tropical.”

  “You leave him behind, you’re only giving him preparation time to kill us,” Max informed Priscilla, silencing her. “He could recruit more vampires, werewolves, better weapons. Then, we’re all fucked. And he will find us. There’s no question about that. He has all the time in the world.”

  “And we don’t,” I said.

  “We end this now.”

  Softly, Melanie said, “You don’t have to do this for me.”

  “This is for all of us,” Max responded. “Once he’s out of the picture, we can all rest easy.”

  Daggett sighed. “If we can even kill him.”

  “We saw what silver did to him. He’s not some supreme being that’s unkillable, he’s just super fucking old and evolved. Every bit of strength that he has, Melanie does as well, and everything he is comes from us. We got this. Okay? We got this.”

  Daggett let out another deep breath, closed his eyes, and lightly shook his head. “I’m glad you’re feeling confident.”

  “We’ve b
een through hell. Every single one of us. We didn’t make it this far to get taken out by this sack of nothing. So, get your shit together, because we’re doing this whether we want to or not. We’ve got one shot at ending it all tonight, and we can’t fuck that up.”

  I reached over and took Max’s hand into mine, slowly curling my fingers around his. His eyes softened in reaction. “We can do this. Together,” I told him. It sounded very Hallmark movie channel, but it was the truth. The only way we could defeat Master is if we came together as one.

  Gone were the days of one of us not making it out alive. I was done with that. We either all come out of there in one piece, or we don’t come out at all.

  I turned and looked at the two-door entrance to his castle. It looked empty and uninviting, as a breeze of thin snow swirled around it like a tornado and then flew past it.

  He was inside. Waiting.

  And we were ready.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  CORA

  Max yanked open the front doors of the castle, and inside everything was blanketed in darkness. I knew they killed the electricity to make it hard for us to find them, and because of that, the interior temperature dropped a good ten degrees, allowing us to see our breaths in front of us. I shivered as I rubbed my hands against the sides of my arms, gradually moving with the group as we searched for The Master.

  A faint light glowed from the hallway on our left. Flickering candlelight cascaded across the hallway wall, and on the opposite side where it was trickling from, was an open door leading to the chapel. It was the only room with even a splash of light. It’s where Master and his women fed from me.

  The Master was in there.

  When we entered the chapel, we found him seated at the altar with his wings facing away from us. Candles surrounded him, some on the floor, others hanging from the ceiling or placed in the windows. He sat there casually, as if in wait, and even when our footsteps echoed through the air, he never turned to look at us. He knew we were there, and it didn’t seem to phase him at all. Which, of course, terrified me.