“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.
“You know I would,” I responded bitterly.
“Like before?” He was condescending, but he had reason to be.
“This time is different,” I told him.
“Why would I trust a promise from a woman who has already betrayed me by escaping and killing one of my own?”
“They thought they were doing the right thing by trying to save my life, but now—”
“But now they’re having regrets because someone worthy was taken in your place. Someone better. Someone more important.”
He was trying to hurt me. I wouldn’t let him.
“Poor dear Melanie,” he continued. “Always surrounding yourself with individuals who don’t appreciate your worth, and who treat you like scraps.”
“Like you treated me any better.”
“I guided you when you didn’t know what you were. I gave you strength when you had none.”
“Guided me by trying to turn me into a killer.”
His fangs pressed into his bottom lip, and he smirked. “Is a cat a murderer when she brings her kittens a fresh bird to feast upon? I kept you alive. It’s in our nature to survive.”
“And now you want to kill me. Some protector you turned out to be.”
“Your death is part of the greater good. Your story will be told for ages and ages. You’ll be immortalized for all eternity.”
“Do me a favor and don’t ever speak my name after this. I don’t want my existence attached to yours.”
“But it will be. We’ll be connected in a way no two people ever have before. It’s a beautiful thing, Melanie. You shouldn’t be ashamed of it.”
I stepped closer to him, my fists balled up. Because this was a fictional world where he couldn’t hurt me, my fears took a backseat to my anger. I wanted to fight him. “You’re getting what you want. I’m coming on my own terms. You win. You don’t need my cousin.”
“No, I don’t, but it doesn’t mean I can’t have my fun with her.”
My stomach dropped. It took everything in me not to visualize all the ways he had been torturing or would continue to torture her. “Don’t you dare hurt her,” I trembled.
“How I bide my time until your appearance is no concern of yours. Perhaps she’ll think a bit more carefully about her choices next time. Granted, there being a next time is completely in your hands.”
I wanted to hit him, scratch him, tear out his heart, but I remained calm. “We’ll do the trade for real this time. Tomorrow.”
“No. I will not give you and your werewolf associates time to plot ways to destroy me. You show up tonight or the girl dies, and I will not let her fade quietly.”
He didn’t give me a chance to reply, as he vanished right in front of my eyes.
I was ripped back to reality and into the dark, vacant room of the hotel. The wind outside the window howled and the snow tapped against the glass. It was a stark contrast to where The Master had taken me in his mind. I stood up and approached the windowpane, and pressed my fingers against the frosty glass. I never thought I’d die in the winter. It somehow seemed sadder this way.
“Did you make contact?”
I turned to my right, and a tall shadow of a man appeared in the doorway. Max walked into the bedroom and his shoes thudded across the wooden floor like he weighed a ton. I looked up at him and nodded. “I did. He wants me tonight, or he’ll kill her.” He didn’t need to know Master had already hurt her. It would put him into a frenzy.
Max let out one long, exhausted sigh and sat down on the edge of the bed. “I shouldn’t be surprised.”
I sat down next to him. “Don’t worry, we’ll get her back.”
“I know we will, because there’s no other way this is ending.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a pair of black snow gloves and then handed them to me. “Here,” he said.
I didn’t take them. “I don’t have a body temperature. I won’t need gloves.”
“It’s not for the cold, it’s so you can hold this.” Out of his other pocket, he retrieved a small, silver pocket knife. “I found it on the dead guy. If only he knew what he had.”
“I don’t get it.”
“When we make the trade and this asshole thinks he has you, you whip this out and you shove it in his throat. I’ll take it from there.”
“Max, no... We don’t even know if silver works on him.”
“It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”
“No, because he’ll kill you.”
“It might not do jackshit to him, but it’s still a knife in his throat. It’ll give you a few seconds to wrestle yourself away. By then, I’ll take care of him.”
He was trying so hard to come up with a plan that kept both Cora and me alive, but it was pointless. Master would kill each and every one of us, and that’s without Molly and Veronica’s help. If I handed myself over, everything would be fine for him.
I lowered my head and shook it. “I’m not worth it, Max. Let me save Cora my way.”
“No,” he replied sternly. His tone surprised me. “They don’t get to win. They don’t get to walk
