All the blood in my body rushed to my face and my heart was racing so fast I could hear it in my ear like it was a drum. “What did he do to you?!” I was almost yelling, I was so panicked.
She shook her head again. “It’s not like that. He just… after our double date last night, things took a turn for the worst.”
“What happened?” I was trying to stay calm, but I was ready to tear Travis a new one already and I hadn’t even heard the story.
Melanie took a deep breath inward. “Let’s just say he was expecting our night to end a certain way, and when it didn’t his reaction was…not what any girl dreams about.”
“He didn’t force himself on you, did he?”
“No. He pretty much said that the whole reason he took me out was because he thought it’d be easy to get into my pants and that I was being an unnecessary tease. He kicked me to the curb.”
My blood was absolutely boiling at this news. Who the hell did Travis think he was? And I had actually tried to convince myself I had misjudged him!
“I’m going to go talk to him right now,” I raged and got off the bed.
Melanie grabbed me by the arm and very calmly said, “Forget about it. We’ve got one more day here and then I never have to see him again. It’s nothing I’m not used to.”
I was slapped hard with that last sentence. “What do you mean it’s nothing you’re not used to?”
She put her arms out wide to present herself. “Look at me, Cora. I’ve never been seen as anything more than a potential fling. Guys lack patience when it comes to me. I’ve learned to accept it.”
“Hold the phone,” I said, outraged. “Another guy’s stupidity is not on you, all right? You shouldn’t have to get used to it because a guy is too ignorant to see you as more than a slab of meat. You just brush it off and say fuck them.”
Melanie wiped away a tear and chuckled. “You must be pissed if you’re cursing.”
“Hey, I swear, goddammit.”
This made Melanie laugh.
“You can’t settle for these jerks like Travis,” I told her softly. “There’s someone out there that will treat you the way you deserve to be treated, but you’re never going to find him if you’re wasting your time with assholes.”
“But I did find him,” she countered. “And I married him. I’m not even thirty years old and I’m a divorcee already. What are the odds that I’m going to get lucky in love twice?”
“You act like you’re an old lady or something, Melanie. I’m in my mid-twenties and I still feel like I’m sixteen on a good day, so you can’t go around acting like you’re an old maid when you’re just a couple years older than me,” I said with a hardy laugh and nudged my elbow into her arm. “You never know when something great might sneak up on you. Look how long it took for me to find someone I actually like.”
“I don’t think I’m going to get my Max,” she sorrowfully responded.
“Why would you say that? You don’t know what’s in the future at all, Melanie.”
“Because forming complex relationships is almost impossible for me. Max looks at you like he respects you. He actually seems to like you. I’ve never had that. Even my own damn husband thought I was a joke.”
“That is not true. I was at the wedding, remember? I saw the way you guys looked at each other. Just because the marriage ended doesn’t mean he thought low of you. You can’t erase history because it had a bad ending.”
She pulled the bed comforter into her lap and snuggled it. “I don’t even really need a guy. If I just had someone who really loved me and liked me, I could deal with being single.”
“Oh, come on, everyone loves you, Melanie. It’s been that way since we were kids.”
“Grandma’s always favored you.”
I practically spit. “Oh, please.” Was she kidding right now? Melanie floated on dove wings in my grandma’s eyes.
“I’m serious. She babies me and buys me things because she thinks I can’t earn them on my own. She looks at you like you’re her friend or someone she can rely on. I’m just something to feel bad for. Why else do you think she called both of us to help her pack? She knew it’d give me something to do, but she knew you’d get the job done.”
I couldn’t believe what she was saying. Did she really feel this way? Had she always felt this way? I was suddenly gobsmacked, unable to speak.
“Face it, Cora, I’m the granddaughter that’s fun to shop for, but you’re the granddaughter that’s fun to show off.”
“Melanie, don’t say that. That’s not how Grandma feels.”
She shrugged, looking uninterested in arguing with me, not because she thought she was wrong, but because she didn’t care enough. God, had this always been a thing for her? As far back as I could remember, Melanie was the golden child of the family, yet this entire time she thought different. It made me wonder how far off my perception really was. Was she right? Had I been wrong all along?
“You’re just upset,” I told her and placed my hand on her knee. “Tomorrow, we’re going to find out that we get to go home, and then we can have a fresh start. You can put Travis behind you, along with every other dirtbag that wasn’t good enough for you, and then—”
“I still love him,” Melanie blurted out. “My ex. It’s pathetic, isn’t it? He fell out of love with me and found someone new while we were married and yet, I’m still hung up on him.” She brought a tissue up to her nose and wiped. “I used to think that when you got married, your search for happiness and completion were done, but that was never the case for me. There was always an emptiness inside of me, and I feel like I bottomed out after he left. When we had dinner the other night, I saw the way you and Max acted around each other. You guys haven’t known each other for even half the amount of time that I knew him, and yet you look happier than we ever were. How does that make sense?”
I took her hands into mine and clutched. “That just means that he wasn’t the one. Your guy is still out there.”
Her red, watery eyes focused on mine. “Is Max the one?”
I wasn’t prepared for her to shift the conversation onto me, and I definitely didn’t know how to answer that question.
Max had made me feel things that no other man before him had. When I was with him I had butterflies in my stomach, goosebumps on my skin, and this sensation like anything could or would happen when we were together.
Was it love? Was I in love? Had I fallen for him so suddenly that I didn’t even know how to label it?
But did he love me back?
Our relationship hadn’t exactly been a straightforward one, and I often found myself wondering where I stood with him. Did he feel the same way about me? I had to know.
It couldn’t wait until morning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
After a long talk with Melanie that included tears, snacks, and a couple reruns of Full House, I left her asleep body tucked in her bed and made my way to Max’s bedroom with determination.
I don’t think he was expecting me so late at night, but he got over his surprise and let me into his room no questions asked.
But before I got into us, there was something I needed to get off my chest.
“Do me a favor, will ya?” I began.
“How big is the favor?”
“My sentence was rhetorical,” I said. “If you see Travis around, kick him as hard in the dick as you can, okay?”
“I can do that, but I might put an extra punch into it if you tell me why.”
“You’re kidding, but I’m not. The creep dumped my cousin because she wouldn’t sleep with him.”
His brow raised. “No shit?”
“Yes. So, whenever you see him next, tell him to keep his distance from her or I’ll cut his pecker off.”
Max snickered, but then quickly straightened out his face. I could tell he knew I was completely serious, but my wording made him chuckle. “Don’t worry, Travis won’t be going anywhere near Melanie again. You have my word.”
&
nbsp; “Good. Thanks.” I plunked myself down on one of the sofas in his room, threw my head back, and let out a long breath. “I’m exhausted.”
He sat down on the arm of my chair. “All that anger tiring you out?”
“No, all those stairs tired me out. This place is too big for me to be going from room to room,” I said, out of breath.
“You can crash here if you want,” he offered.
I raised one eyebrow at him and asked, “You’re not afraid?” He had made such an ordeal about the last time I had attempted to stay in his room, I didn’t expect him to make such an offer once more.
“You sleeping here? No.”
“Is that what we are now, slumber party pals?”
A sour expression washed over his face and he promptly got off the arm of my chair and walked toward the bed, back turned to me.
“I’m being serious. What are we?” I asked. “We’re together now, but we’ve not really talked about what’s going to happen in the future.”
“What’s so wrong with taking it a day at a time?”
“If we had that luxury, that’d be fine, but we don’t. No matter the outcome, good or bad, I’m leaving this place in some fashion. What does that mean for us? Do we just go back to pretending we don’t know each other?”
“I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” he admitted as he sunk down onto the bed, hands firmly pressed into the mattress as he lowered his head.
“Then what are you thinking?”
“That I don’t want you to go, but that I don’t want you to stay, either.”
“What does that mean?”
“That no matter what I feel I know that I can still hurt you, and odds are I will. Maybe not the next turn or the turn after that, but maybe the eighty-third, when neither of us is expecting it. The chains in the wall grow weak and the human part of me is drawn to you, but the animalistic part doesn’t know why and seeks you out and ends up hurting you. I don’t think you quite understand what that would do to me.”
I rushed toward him and knelt down in front of him at the bed. “Then you stay here and try to figure this all out and I’ll support you.”
“Do you have any idea what kind of life you’d be signing up for?” He groaned and rose from the bed and began pacing across the room. “You’re this bubbly, happy little annoying thing that has so much going for her. Why would I willingly take part in destroying that? And before you argue, yes it will. You’ve never seen me under the control of the moon, you don’t know what you’re in for.”
“No one ever knows what they’re in for when they start a relationship.”
“But you have warning and you should be running for the hills.”
“Yet, I’m not. Call me crazy or stupid or whatever, but maybe I just happen to think you’re worth the trouble.”
“As flattering as that may sound, I promise you no person is worth this.”
“So, what do you expect me to do? Forget about you? I can’t. I’m long past that.”
“Why not? Why couldn’t you?”
“Because… I just can’t,” I stammered as I got to my feet.
“You just need to leave and never look back. When they let you go tomorrow, and I have every confidence that they will, you need to pack up your things and forget any of us ever existed. This is a dark, messed up world that we’re involved in, and it’s not too late for you to get out and have a decent life. Find a life with a man that’s not… a monster.”
I shook my head furiously. “A monster chooses to do awful things, and that’s not you at all. You found the one place that can stop you from doing something you’ll regret. You’re a victim just like everyone else here and I don’t believe you should be isolated from the rest of the world for something inflicted on you.”
“I won’t be isolated, I’ll have everyone here.”
“But not me. Am I that disposable to you?”
He shot me a rageful glare like I had lost my mind. “You know that’s not true,” he snapped. “I’m trying to do the right thing here, and you’re vilifying me for it.”
“I’m not vilifying you. If anything, I’m trying to stop you from doing it to yourself. You think that you’re some kind of horrible burden on me, but I wouldn’t be here if I thought that were true. You push and you push and you push, and you try to get me to run away, but I’m not.”
“Why? Give me a reason that trumps mine.”
I flailed my hands around in the air in frustration. “Because I care about you,” I began, my voice desperate for him to understand. “Because I have feelings for you. Because I might be in love with you.”
It just came out, almost like a burp; this deep involuntary feeling that needed to get out and did so abruptly and without my permission. I didn’t know who was more shocked to hear it, him or me.
He was silent, his bottom lip hanging there like a broken tree branch. He didn’t know what to say. I could see it all over his face.
Did he not reciprocate the feelings? Had I just made a fool of myself?
The silence was deafening.
Suddenly, he was settled. Every bit of tension or conflict was erased from his face as he put both hands to the scruff growing on his cheeks. “Yeah, well…” he stammered. “Maybe you should work on fixing that.”
It was such a dismissive comment about my feelings that I felt the impact of his words punch me right in the center of my chest. My eyes suddenly stung. Shoot, I was going to cry like a little girl.
“Did you really just say that to me?” I asked as my eyes burned.
It was the first time I had seen him dodge making eye contact with me. His hands were on his hips, pieces of his hair dangling to the side of his face as he shifted away from me, making it hard to see just what expression was on his face, but I could tell he was uncomfortable.
“So, were you just humoring me this whole time? Taking me out on dates and showing me off to your buddies until the day arrived I stood trial and then you’d drop me like you do all the other women you’ve gone out with, like Molly?”
His head snapped in my direction like I had yanked his neck using an invisible cord. The comparison pissed him off. Good.
“If I could turn off my feelings I never would have come out here to begin with,” I told him harshly. The bitchiness in my voice helped cancel out the weepiness. It was easier to replace my sorrow with anger so I wouldn’t cry in front of him. I didn’t need to embarrass myself further.
He charged passed me and headed for the door, and I didn’t bother to follow him with my eyes. I remained as I was, staring at the empty space where he had once stood, doing my best not to let the throbbing ache in my chest get the best of me.
His hand was on the doorknob, seconds away from leaving, when he said, “It’s time you go out there and find the guy you wish I was. There’s no point in you dying for a fake Prince Charming.”
I still wasn’t looking at him, but I could feel him secretly looking for my reaction from the corner of his eye. When I didn’t turn to face him, he twisted the doorknob and walked out the door.
It was the first time I had told a man I loved them.
And he just walked away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I didn’t leave my bedroom for hours that afternoon. The adult portion of my brain convinced myself it was due to my nerves about the trial, but I knew better. Simply put; I was heartbroken, and the thought of crawling out of bed and dealing with everyone in the compound just wasn’t appealing at all. I wanted to be alone. I wanted the silence to mend the ache in my heart that had not been cured by sleep.
I watched the clock tick away straight into the evening hours, too nervous to eat, too preoccupied with wondering when they were going to call me down for the trial. I still wasn’t completely sure what this trail would entail. Was I to take the title of trial seriously, or was it merely a ceremony where Aga revealed our fates?
No matter how I presented it to myself in my head, it was still so terrifying.
&
nbsp; What if Melanie or I had done something they deemed too unforgivable? What if the fight I caused by talking on the phone without supervision altered everything? Aga, and certainly Brinly, didn’t strike me as the type of people who would actually go through with executing a person, but what if they did?
Suddenly, my nervousness felt like it was reaching toward a panic attack.
I looked to the window and saw the early signs of a fading sun. I knew there was only a brief window of time before the full moon was out in all its terrifying glory.
How the hell did I get at a compound full of werewolves on the night of a full moon?
“Knock, knock,” I heard as the door creaked open. Melanie poked her head in and smiled. She looked awfully chipper for a girl with an unknown fate, and I had to wonder if she was drunk.
“They said they’re ready for us downstairs,” she said as she climbed onto the foot of the bed and then sprawled across it like a black panther getting comfortable on a tree branch.
“Who’s all down there?”
“The usual group,” she responded. “Daggett, his sidekick, and everyone else who can’t control their shifting won’t be there, though. I guess they all go off and turn together so no one gets hurt.”
“You nervous?” I asked her.
Very slowly she shrugged. “For some reason, no. I’d been nervous all week, but now I just feel like…like it’s going to be over.”
“That’s probably a good sign.”
“My intuition isn’t the best,” she confessed. “What’s your gut telling you?”
“That we’ll be okay.”
“You telling the truth or just telling me what I want to hear?”
“These are good people, Melanie. They’re not going to execute us,” I assured her. Deep down, I knew this had to be true, but there was still the lingering doubt inside of me that needed to hear this assurance just as much as Melanie.
“I hope you’re right,” Melanie said quietly, and then trailed her fingertips along the seams of my bed comforter. Something other than the trial seemed to be on her mind. Her shoulders slumped and she exhaled. “How do you live with the knowing?” she asked, looking more sincere than I had ever seen her look. “You knew about werewolves for a year and never told anyone. How were you able to do that?”
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