Page 7 of Marked By Moonlight
I can’t just leave and forget about them.
Kael can if he wants to, but I can’t.
Kael notices the shift in me. “Tell me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking that I will drop you off wherever you want to go, but I’m not going to live as a human. I’m not giving up on my family. I’m going to find the Moonlight pack. The Moonlight wolves and Wintermoon wolves were what caused the curse. My best guess is that someone from both packs is the way to break the curse.”
He looks at me in shock, wide-eyed.
“I’m going to find them, and I’m going to break the curse.”
Chapter 3
Lumi
“Finally, a motel. Stop here. We need to sleep tonight,” Kael says. We’ve been driving all night and all day after not being able to find a hotel the night before.
A yawn overtakes my entire body as I blink through my dry eyes, trying desperately to moisturize them. I don’t want to stop. I need to find the Moonlight wolves as soon as possible. It’s the only way to save my father and the rest of our pack.
That is, if they aren’t already dead,that brutal voice in my head says.
They’re not dead. I would feel something if they were, wouldn’t I?
Still, Kael is probably right, so I pull off the highway and up to the single-story lodge just off the road.
“Wait here; I’ll see if they have any rooms.” Kael jumps out before I respond.
Tapping my finger against the leather of the steering wheel, I watch him run inside. The lodge has maybe a dozen rooms and is the only building we’ve seen in hours. If there aren’t any rooms available, I don’t know how much longer we will have to drive until we find another place to stay.
Kael jogs back to the Jeep. “One room left.”
“Thank gods.”
We grab our bags and head into the lobby. The second I step into the lodge, my nose is assaulted by stale cigarette smoke and a damp, musky scent.
“Maybe the car would be a better place to sleep,” I mumble to Kael.
He shakes his head. “I know this place isn’t great.” He walks two doors down the hallway and then stops in front of a moldy door. After three failed swipes of the room key, the door finally unlocks, and Kael opens the door. He holds the door open with his duffle bag over his shoulder. “But this place has a bed and bathroom. It’s better than sleeping in the car.”
I step inside and see the single bed in the corner, a damp spot on the floor, and a stench coming from the bathroom that smells like something died in there. It’s obvious this place has barely been cleaned, if it has ever been cleaned at all.
With a raised brow, I say, “I’m not sure I agree.”
Kael sighs. “We really can’t get any luck, can we?”
“We are the cause of a curse that stretched across all the wolf shifter packs. We are the definition of bad luck.”
He smiles as I drop my bags on the floor and then fall onto the bed. One of the springs in the bed snaps, and the bed lurches.
I jump up as Kael laughs at me. The sound is rich and hearty, the likes of which I haven’t heard since before my father ordered us to leave.
I hit him playfully on the shoulder, but the sound of his laughter warms my heart. “Don’t laugh at me.”
“Maybe we can put the mattress on the floor. Then, if it breaks, we won’t have far to fall.”
“Do you think we’ll both fit on it?”
Kael’s pupils dilate in an intense and piercing blackness, and I think for a second I see the flicker of lust I saw when we were kissing in the woods.
