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“You arenota monster,” she whispered. Barely able to reach his lips, even on her tiptoes, she pulled him down to meet her mouth. His tongue parted her lips and slipped inside her mouth. She moaned, pressing her body against his. Her hands traveled up underneath his shirt, and she trailed her fingers down his stomach, toying with the waist of his trousers.
He groaned but broke the kiss by saying, “I need to show you the rest of the tunnels.”
Adeline nodded, tucking a stray hair behind her ear. She reached for his arm, and her hand rested in the crook of his elbow. They walked toward the tunnel on the left, and he held the lantern up.
“This leads out to a large ravine. The entrance is blocked off by a silver-coated iron grate. However, you would have to scale the side of a cliff from the other side to get in. The grate is set back by several feet, and vines cover the mouth of the cave should anyone look up and wonder if there was something in there.”
“And this one?” Adeline pointed to the tunnel on the right.
“This one, I used to use when I lived down here. It’s easier for me in human form to get in and out without the possibility of falling to my death.” Rolf swung the lantern down that tunnel, memories returning from when he was a newly turned werewolf. They walked down the tunnel to the right, their footfalls echoing in the small puddles. He held out his hand for her and she took it.
Adeline squeezed his hand, concerned as she asked, “You used to live down here?”
“Yes, when I was still trying to understand what had happened to me.” Rolf cleared his throat.
It was months later that he realized the wolf he had killed hadn’t been any ordinary wolf, and the moments where he blacked out were because of something far more sinister. He had been bitten that night by a werewolf and chased down because of the blood on his clothing. It hit him like a slap to the face. “I was the bait that night.”
Adeline stiffened at his side, but she remained quiet as they reached the end of the tunnel.
“They dressed me up like raw meat for the other werewolf,” he said. “It was all a part of their plan. Separate us, kill me, make it look like an accident.”
“I think they had even more nefarious plans, Rolf,” Adeline whispered, looking up at him with revenge burning in her eyes.
ChapterFifteen
Adeline stared at Rolf as he put the pieces together of what she told him. She gripped his arm, trying to ground him as he worked out what her coven had done. They had enacted a decades-long plan of revenge to get back at her for trying to leave, for wanting to mate and settle down, and finally be happy.
He was her punishment.
“Why would they want me to be a werewolf? It doesn’t make sense.” Rolf ran a hand through his hair, worrying his lip between his teeth.
“Because I wanted to leave, Rolf. When you were Colin, I was ready to turn you into a vampire as soon as you asked. I considered myself already paired for the rest of your human life, even if you never wanted to be turned. We would have been mates in the eyes of the vampires. And I wanted out. But my coven never wanted me to mate. I was - am - their most prized possession. An assassin.” She struggled with what she called herself. The property of an elite vampire coven, Adeline certainly hadn’t been the best assassin in quite some time. Losing her lover took a greater toll on her abilities as a killer than her coven had thought. The leader, Juliette, had become even more ruthless than Adeline had ever been. But only toward other vampires. Juliette was the monster to fear, not the werewolf.
“So they wanted to turn me into a werewolf, effectively punishing you since you wanted to leave.”
“Yes and then they sent me here to kill you,” she mumbled.
Rolf took a step backward, and she dropped her hand from his arm. “As punishment.”
Adeline nodded. “As punishment for me thinking I could leave and live a life without them. That I could be happy. That I didn’t want to be their killing machine anymore.”
“So what do we do?” Rolf asked, stepping closer to her. She could feel the heat radiating off his body and wanted to curl up in his arms back in the cabin. His hand slipped behind her neck, and she tilted her head to his. She needed to figure out how to get both of them out of this situation so they could finally spend an eternity together.
“Adeline.” Rolf reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her into him. “What do you need me to do?”
Adeline closed her eyes and leaned into his chest, breathing him in. “We’ll have to kill them. Kill the entire coven.”
Rolf let out a deep laugh, just like the one he had in the cabin that had melted her heart. “Right. The two of us up against an entire coven of vampires.”
The way he said those words, it was as if she could finally see clearly. The full moon was only two days away, and her coven was likely already searching for her since she was a flight risk. Her maker was smart, she wouldn’t want Adeline to have any more time to put things together. She looked around at the tunnels surrounding them. Each entrance was coated in silver, and only Rolf could touch them in his human form unscathed. Vampires couldn’t touch silver without their skin burning, but if they timed it right…
Adeline’s mind whirred with the threads of a plan that she started weaving together. “Rolf, hear me out.”
* * *
The night was clear and crisp, and the fresh snow was a blinding white in the light of the full moon as it crested the mountain peaks. A keening howl from Rolf’s wolf reverberated through the silver door on the floor. Chills spread across her skin, and she knew the night would be agonizing as she waited for the precise moment for him to turn back. And for her coven to find her.
She stared at the jars of blood on the small table. Some of it was hers, but most of it was his. It took some convincing for Rolf to follow her plan, but in the end, they spent the last moments of their free time working out the details. The storm had finally abated after five days of heavy snow. There was at least six feet of snow surrounding the cabin. Rolf had gone out during the day to shovel most of the snow off the roof to show that someone lived here and stomped around a bit as proof of life. He cleared off his snowshed and found a container of tar tucked into the stacks of freshly cut wood. Adeline had smiled wide and plastered him with kisses when he showed her upon waking. That evening, Rolf and Adeline lay their trap.
