She was sick of being in this car. Sick of the heavy silence that filled it. Surely, if Lars and Finn were friends, they’d have stuff to talk about? But they both just sat in silence; Lars watching the road with a hand draped over the steering wheel and the other holding the top of the window frame, Finn staring out his window like the toothy mountains on the horizon were the most interesting thing he’d seen all day.

This was their third rental car. They’d swapped out again in El Paso, where Lars had asked Cora if she felt closer to home now that she could almost spit across the border. She’d shown him the middle finger. Then they’d continued on their last leg of the journey, heading down the I-10 towards Terlingua, Texas.

The drive seemed to irritate Finn too. He kept shifting in his seat, glancing across at Lars and then the road as if wondering just how far they still had to go.

Night had fallen when Lars pulled into the parking lot beneath a huge stone block of a building in Marfa, Texas. Three rows of identical double-pane windows stared down at them, some lit up, some dark.

“This it?” Lars asked suspiciously, ducking his head to peer through the windshield.

“Co-ords are right.” Finn stared around them, eyes narrowed to slits, as if expecting someone to jump them from the shadows. “Don’t see anyone.”

“Well, you were supposed to be here, like, five days ago. What if they gave up waiting?”

“Then we’re pretty fucked, aren’t we?”

“Maybe someone at Reception knows. Did you get a name at least?”

“No. Swan just told me someone would be here to collect…” Finn’s voice trailed away, and he glanced at Cora in the rearview mirror.

“The package?” she supplied.

It had been a long, uncomfortable drive. She’d slept some, but kept fading in and out of consciousness when Finn and Lars spoke to each other. She’d caught snippets of conversations—mostly Lars recounting other bad ‘gigs’ they’d had that could never compare with the shitstorm Milo had rained down on them when accepting this contract.

After that, sleep had been harder to find.

She was tired, hungry, crabby. And worse, she could feel disappointment coming off both men in waves.

Because they’d been planning to offload her already. That she’d be someone else’s problem by now.

Her vision warbled with sudden tears, but she blinked them back hard. She opened the back door, ignoring Finn’s, “Hey!”, and started down the road at a quick walk.

She had no idea where she was, or where she was going, but anywhere was better than sitting in that car with a pair of men that obviously had better things to do than babysit Cora Swan.

“Hey!”

Boots thudded down the road behind her. Without looking back, she broke into a run. Luckily, her boots had less than an inch of heel on them.

Her pursuer sped up. So she did too. Soon she was running full tilt, her chest growing hot and stuffy how she tugged in air to replenish her spent lungs.

A manhole cover tripped her up two blocks later. Its strategic position between two pools of light cast down from the streetlamps meant she didn’t see it until she was too close to avoid it.

She scraped over the group, knees and palms burning against the concrete sidewalk.

Boots thumped to a halt behind her. Milo panted as he stalked up to her, and then wrenched her to her feet by the back of her parka.

“The…fuck?” he said through labored breaths.

“Leave…me…alone!” She yanked herself free, hauled in a huge breath, and started down the road again.

“Cora!”

“Just leave me here,” she called over her shoulder. “Go back. Go home. Go to wherever you came from. I release you of your fucking contract.”

“You can’t do that,” Finn said, catching up to her. He grabbed her arm, spinning her around to face him. “I have to make sure you’re safe.”

“Safe?” A gust of wind blew her hair into her face, but she swiped it away with an angry hand. “So you’re just going to follow me around the rest of my life? Because I’ll never be safe, Finn. Never!”

Her eyes ached how she wanted to cry, but she held back everything except her anger. She didn’t want this granite block of a man to see any weakness in her; if she was strong and determined, he would have no choice but to leave her alone.

And then she could disappear. Maybe start a new life somehow. Get a job, get an apartment. Become anyone but Cora Swan. Forget that Eleodora had ever even existed.

Would that ever be possible?

The sympathy in Finn’s eyes told her it couldn’t. And she hated him for feeling pity for her.

A tear made it past her defenses, cooling instantly as it flashed down her cheek.

“Come back,” he said quietly, stepping closer as if scared she would spook. “It’s been a long day.”

“Lucky for you, it’s over,” she said. “So go home, Finn. Leave me. I can take it from here.” She sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “Go.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Just go,” she whispered, but her voice was shaking too much for her to put enough emphasis on the words.

Finn came closer. She backed up, her shoulders hitting a brick wall. He’d backed her into a corner of the building butting against the sidewalk. Leaving her escape route. Trapping her.

“Please,” she whispered, biting back a sob. “You’ve done enough.”

“It’ll never be enough.”

At least, that’s what she thought he said. Which made no sense. But his eyes had darkened to the midnight blue of deep twilight, and the shadows falling on his face made his nose seem sharper, his jaw harder.

He wasn’t a man anymore, but some kind of humanoid beast.

She gripped the pendant around her neck, but he surged forward before she could utter even a syllable of a prayer to Santa Muerte.

Where she expected pain—a punch, a kick, being driven into the wall—there was only a flicker of surprise.

Finn smoothed her hair away from her cheeks and tipped her face up. “I don’t know if I can leave you.”

“I’ll be fine,” she managed, voice thick with the threat of more tears. “Please, just—”

“I don’t know if I could ever leave you.”

Ice pumped through her veins instead of blood. Her fingertips prickled as Finn bent down, his breath warming her lips. “What…what do you—”

“I can’t stop thinking about how you taste,” Finn murmured. “About how fucking good it feels to be inside you.”

She trembled at his words, putting a hand up to stop him as he crowded her against the cool bricks. “You don’t even know me.”

“But I want to,” Finn said. “I want to know what makes you happy. What makes you sad. What makes you pissed off enough to throw something.” He slid his hand between her thighs, cupping her hard with a meaty palm. “I want to know how long I can lick you before you come.”

Heat surged onto her cheeks. She let out a quiet moan, bucking her hips forward so the base of Finn’s wrist ground into her clit. “But…you’ll never be safe around me.”

“I don’t crave safety.” Finn’s teeth found her earlobe, toyed with it. “I crave you. I’m addicted to you. I don’t care if—”

“Jesus, you two both take track in high school or something,” came Lars’s hoarse voice.

Finn jerked away from her. Cold air washed her body, no longer shielded by Finn’s. She blinked, the world coming into focus as if she’d just been struck sober. Lars jogged to a halt, hands on his hips, and watched them with a frown for a few seconds as he tried to catch his breath. “Fuck, I’m sorry,” he panted. “Am I interrupting something?” Finn shoved him aside and headed back for the SUV.

Lars gave her a suspicious glare. “What the fuck’s going on?”

Cora ran shaking hands over her head, putting her hair into a ponytail as she walked around Lars, following Finn. “Nothing. I was being an idiot.”

“Nothing new there,” came a disgruntled response. “Jesus, I haven’t had this much exercise in years. I could eat half a cow.”

Lars came up beside her, and then slid an arm around her shoulder. She stiffened, almost coming to a halt before the man urged her forward again.

“Listen, bunny—”

“Stop calling me that.”

“—You gotta stop making him run after you.”

She pulled away from Lars with a spluttered, “What?”

Lars shrugged, walking on ahead without her. “It’s just cruel.”

“I…I never…” But Lars was almost out of earshot. She hurried up to him. “I can take care of myself. I don’t need you or anyone else to look after me. I told him that—”

Lars lifted a hand, and clicked his fingers at her. Her jaw clamped shut out of sheer astonishment.

“Good girl,” Lars said, giving her an unreadable look over his shoulder. Then he turned, walking backwards as he gave her a slow, wide smile. “We wouldn’t have minded adopting a stray,” he said. “But only if she knew how to behave. Sorry, bunny.” Lars shrugged. “Looks like Texas is your new home.”

“I’ll book under King. You get rid of the car,” Lars said as Cora came up to them a few minutes later. She’d fallen back after Lars’s snarky comment, trying her best to blink away embarrassed, confused tears.

Finn got into the driver’s seat as Lars headed for the block of a building they’d parked in front of. A hotel?

When Lars happened to see her as he pulled open the hotel’s door, his eyebrows twitched as if surprised that she was still following him.

“Great,” he said, brow crinkling. “Thought you’d be with Milo.” Then Lars turned his attention to the empty lot behind her. Scanning everything in sight.

The hair on Cora’s arms stood up.

She’d thought it might have just been standard protocol or something, them switching cars the whole time. Since neither of them seemed willing to explain, she hadn’t asked either.

“Is someone following us?” she asked, spinning around to hunt through the darkness.

“Can’t be too careful.”

When she faced Lars again, he was holding the door open for her. She swallowed her surprise and murmured, “Thanks,” as she passed him into the lobby.

Cora hung back as Lars checked them into the hotel. She heard mention of room ‘305’ before Lars swung away from the desk and headed for the elevator.

She considered waiting for the next one, but then he beckoned her with a slim hand, one eyebrow arching. “Any time today, bunny.”

Lars stood in the middle of the elevator, so she turned in a tight circle, facing the doors as she waited for them to close. Licked her lips, gripped herself in a fierce hug.

We’d adopt another stray…

We?

She was too tired to handle this shit.

“Why are we getting a room?”

“We gotta sleep,” came Lars’s voice. “Fuck knows when you’re being collected.”

Had he moved closer?

The doors stayed open forever. Cora drew tighter into herself, trying to push away the feel of Lars with her mind.

He was an asshole. A misogynistic pig. It was obvious he thought she was the worst thing to happen since the invention of the h-bomb.

Her heart thundered in her chest. It beat so hard that she could feel her pulse thrumming in her neck. She could hear Lars breathing. Not because he was doing it loudly, but because her senses had gone into overdrive ever since Finn had grabbed her so rudely out there in the street. Since he’d told her he was addicted to her.

The air moved when Lars stepped forward. As it swirled around her, she caught the scent of him. Something fresh, like turned soil, but with a hint of sweetness. The bruised petals of a flower. Her skin broke out in goosebumps.

She saw movement from the corner of her eyes. Lars’s hands, one to either side of her. Was he going to grab her? Turn her around?

Cora swallowed hard, her body starting to tremble. He drew his hands up, an inch of air between them and her arms, but she could still feel their progress. It was as if he was stroking her aura. In front of her, the light for the first floor glowed bright green. She could hear nothing except his breathing and the thump-thump-thump of her heart.

A finger caressed the curve of her ear. She shuddered violently, pressing her eyes closed.

“What makes you so fucking special?” Lars murmured.

She wanted so desperately to turn her head, but she was frozen in place. “What?”

“I can’t figure you out,” he said, sounding frustrated. The word sent a flurry of warm air over her ear. His mouth was right against her earlobe. The skin there tingled as if he was already touching his lips to her.

For a moment, it felt like she turned to him. The feeling was so intense that she swayed. Tingles spread in a warm wave through her body. He stood so close that she could feel his heat. His breath caressed the side of her neck, as if he was inhaling her scent. Was he going to kiss her? Touch her? Unbutton her jeans and slide a hand between her legs.

Why in the hell did she want him to?

The elevator chimed. It was like an electric shock coursed through her.

Behind her, Lars laughed quietly and cold air slid between them as he stepped back. The elevator doors opened to a long hallway. Straight ahead, the numbers 305 glared at them like a reprimand.

Lars slid around her, somehow managing not to touch her, and headed for the room. The frantic beat of her heart propelled her forward, but her legs moved slowly, like in a dream. A now familiar ache sat in her belly. It made her feel alive, frantic, irritated. She wanted that feeling gone, and the spectacular ending that came with it.

Lars opened the hotel door and stepped inside. Cora ground to a stop, staring after him with syrup-thick anticipation clinging to her. He paused, as if sensing she wasn’t following, and glanced at her over his shoulder.

“Come inside, bunny.” His lips slowly lifted into a smile. “I don’t bite.”