“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,”
