Page 47

“Glad you agree.” I look away from him, although he steps into my line of sight anyway, dragging the suitcase through the slush toward the car. He has a graceful way of moving, slow and considered, and I hate how much I like it. I hate how much I like the way he’ll sweep his hair back one-handed when it falls into his eyes, and how his mouth feels against my skin, and how he sometimes lapses into this polite, old-fashioned way of speaking. I hate that every time he fucks me, he taps into something that almost-but-not-quite feels like being a Hunter, like what I wanted as a child.

My chest tightens, and I pretend to check my phone, even though there’s no response from Adrian and nothing for me to look at. I think about Abi and Chloe, though, and their Hunter boyfriends. It’s always nagged at me a little, how they ended up Hunters. They weren’t part of my world, at all. Abi didn’t even know about it. Chloe, I dragged in unwittingly, something I’ve always regretted.

Now look at them. Human lovers to two very different monsters. And me⁠—

Watching my own monster scraping snow off the top of his ancient sedan. Snow that arrived out of nowhere, and only fell here, and threw me and him together for a few hours longer.

Goosebumps prickle over my skin.

“Could use some help,” he calls out good-naturedly.

I sigh, peel myself off the wall, go over to him. I only do it, I tell myself, because we need to get the fuck out of here before those bodies are discovered.

“Think it’ll be treacherous?” I ask him. “The road?”

“It’ll be fine in the daylight.” He hands me the scraper. “Here, you do this. I’m going to get the engine warmed up.”

“The easier part, you mean?”

He smiles at that, just a sunlight flash of a grin, and I hate myself for the little flutters it kicks up in my stomach.

Still, I scrape, the snow falling off in big powdery clumps. The car’s engine rumbles reassuringly, steam and exhaust billowing out into the air. Everything’s quiet.

My phone buzzes again.

Adrian

Still can’t believe it snowed up there. We didn’t get anything.

I know he’s trying to keep cover to some extent, keep up the appearance that we’re just old college friends meeting for an autumn weekend in Clifwell. But the text leaves me uneasy, too. I don’t like thinking about this snowstorm, or the possibility that a freak weather pattern might not have been behind it.

I glance over at Victor, who’s knocking the snow off with the arm of his jacket. He squints at me, gives me another dazzling smile.

A few more hours, and then I’ll be free of him.

I just hope it’s that easy.

The drive down the mountain is uneventful. Boring, really. It takes longer than it probably should, given that the roads are not, in fact, particularly clear, and several times Victor has to creep slowly along big, icy patches that appear out of nowhere. He doesn’t seem bothered, though. I certainly couldn’t have managed it, but I gather he’s spent basically his entire long-ass life up here in the mountain. I guess he’s used to it.

We don’t talk much, and I have to fight the urge to fill up the extremely awkward silence that floods the car. Flipping on the radio helps a little; I manage to get a classic rock station, although its lacy with static. Victor lets the music play unremarked upon, his eyes fixed on the glossy, icy roads ahead. And I think maybe I can lose myself in it, the music, but it just keeps reminding me of last night.

You like that idea, don’t you? Me killing someone out there?

I squeeze my thighs together, compressing them against the flare of heat in my clit. The last thing I want is Victor sensing my arousal. I know he can. He’s proved that over and over the last two days, how he always seems to touch me exactly how I need to be touched.

“What are you going to do when we get there?” I finally ask. The music might cover the silence, but it can’t quiet my thoughts, and those are apparently going to be a fucking problem, too. “Turn around and drive back to your gas station?”

“Most likely,” Victor says smoothly, although I swear, just for a moment, that I see his fingers tighten slightly around the steering wheel. “Are you going to want your car back?”

The question brings me up short. Right. My car. It was a piece of shit that I bought for $2,000 of my sister’s money after she decided she was sick of Chicago and announced she was headed to L.A.

“What are you going to do with it?” I ask. “Drive it off a cliff like you talked about?”

He chuckles softly, a sound that at once feels ominous but also vaguely warming in my belly. God, I’m an idiot.

“Not unless you have plans to tell the police it’s stolen,” he says. “I thought you’d have your friend drive you back up here and pick it up after your, ah, your event.”

I can’t help but snort a little at that “Event,” I say. “Like we’re going to a party.”