Collide and Seek: Act 4-5 (Bitter Ashes Book 2) by Sara C. Roethle Page B

my forgiveness.”
    “I was not begging!” she shouted as the cab came to a halt and I opened the door to step out into the cold.
    I laughed as I walked across the asphalt toward the hotel, leaving Sophie to pay the cab fare. Torturing calm, cool, and collected Sophie with my empathic abilities was far more rewarding than snubbing her.
    Alaric and James, who had been waiting outside the hotel lobby for us, came striding forward to meet me. The warmth I'd collected in the cab was quickly fading, and the expanses of surrounding darkness made me nervous. Anyone could be out there watching us, and we wouldn't even know. I looked at the hotel longingly as the men reached me.
    “Ms. Moneybags has us staying at the most expensive hotel in the country,” Alaric explained jovially. He was still just dressed in his navy flannel and black jeans, but he didn't seem fazed by the cold.
    “I wouldn't let Diana hear you calling her that,” James chided.
    Sophie reached us, then breezed on by without a word, like a tall, dark, angry cloud.
    Alaric watched his sister's back as he whispered. “You must tell me what you did to make her so angry.”
    I shook my head as I wrapped my arms tightly around myself. “You wouldn't be able to pull it off. Now can we please go inside before I freeze to death?”
    Before I could protest, Alaric scooped me up into his arms and started carrying me toward the hotel like a bride on her wedding day. With my height, no one had ever really carried me that way, now it was beginning to become a theme, first with James in the woods, and now with Alaric.
    The building rose up in front of us as we neared, seeming to be around ten stories high, done in a crisp white that matched the surrounding patches of snow on the ground.
    James shook his head and walked ahead of us after Sophie.
    Alaric smiled down at me. “We have our own room,” he said with a waggle of his eyebrows.
    I narrowed my eyes at him as he continued walking, carrying me effortlessly in his arms. “Why?” I asked suspiciously.
    He shrugged, then hoisted me up to get a better grip under my arms. “If I didn't know any better, I'd say Diana is trying to play matchmaker, but I think she has much more nefarious plans in mind.”
    “Well then shouldn't we be doing our best to not go along with them?” I argued as we neared the hotel lobby.
    “Why would I argue with plans that benefit me?” he said happily as the automatic glass doors slid open in front of us.
    Some of the tension seeped out of my body once the doors slid shut behind us. The bellhop waiting inside gave us a strange look, probably partially due to Alaric carrying me, and partially to us having no luggage. The young man shrugged his narrow shoulders and sighed, then led us to a row of elevators. James and Sophie had already gone up, leaving us to ride up with the bellhop alone.
    “Put me down,” I whispered, feeling uncomfortable in the confines of the elevator.
    Alaric pouted. “But I don't want to.”
    I glared at him until he sighed and let me to my feet. I distanced myself, thinking that it was a really bad idea for us to share a room. Not only was Diana up to something, but I didn't fully trust myself. It had been impulsive to fall into bed with Alaric the first time, and I didn't want to be that stupid again. Yet, there was the nagging thought at the back of my mind of our lives being at risk. Normally it was wise to err on the side of caution, but was it really wise to make good life-choices when my life might not last much longer? Shouldn't I just enjoy being alive while I could?
    Alaric could act like we weren't in danger all he liked, but I knew better. If Sophie was scared, it meant we were up a very smelly creek with no paddles, and plenty of holes in our boat. I'd seen first hand how Estus dealt with those who opposed him. If he found us and sent more of the Vaettir to capture us, we would all suffer very ugly ends.
    The elevator came to a stop and the doors slid