The Luna Cure

FORTY-FIVE

SUPER big shoutout to _Aliciotta , thank you for all of your help! She gave me proper translations for the many sentences I google translated.

"Why must you always try and surprise me?"

He looked over at me and wiggled his thick brows. "Surprises are fun."

I leaned my head against the window, repressing a groan. "I am not having fun."

"You're not having fun yet. We still have plenty of driving to do."

I blinked, glancing at the clock. It had only just turned to 6 A.M., and we had left at 5:40. It was so early. How did he have the energy to just drive?

"How much more driving?" I inquired. It was Christmas, so the roads would busy up soon, but right now they were almost deserted, allowing Dante to drive almost dangerously fast.

"Two hours, maybe longer." I immediately groaned, slumping back against the seat. "Hey, we left your family celebrations. And you're going to like where were going."

"Two hours in what direction?" I wracked my brain for what little I remembered about the area around Gilette. There wasn't much, but to the west, there were a few larger cities. "That's gotta be, like, Marseille." Goddess, what was even in Marseille? I only remembered that it was around.

"Surprise, babe. You're going to have to wait and see."

Ugh. Of course.

He turned those eyes to me, glancing at my empty hands. "You can sleep, if you want."

I had considered that option upon first getting into the car. It would relieve the anticipation and hurry this up, but at the same time, Dante would probably be horribly bored. I mean, I had made him get up at five in the morning so we could escape my family celebration, so it wasn't exactly fair that I slept and he continued to work when I was the cause for this.

"I'm not all that tired." Big fat lie. I hadn't been wanting to sleep last night—actually, this morning—but when I was assured that we would not have to be with everyone, and I laid down on Dante—which was another thing that needed to stop soon—I was out. And, all too quickly, I was back up, rushing to get clothes on, and writing a quick, messy note. I don't even think they'll be able to read my handwriting, it was so bad. Dante actually held back a snicker when he saw it, to which I gave him a swift push to his arm.

"Did you and your family vacation a lot?" He asked me, as we drove on a beautiful, snow-dusted mountain. The air was cold enough to keep the snow, but it had been enough time since it snowed that the roads were cleared and basically dry.

"Not really." I replied back, trying to think back to remember enough. "I've never been out of the county, but we went to Paris. And the beach in Nice. I don't know." I shrugged. My eyes darted over to him, and his large frame. This Prince probably goes to a new country every month. "Is there anywhere you haven't been?" I asked. It was more of a curious question than a way to turn it around on him, but it functioned as both.

He nodded. "There's plenty of places I haven't been. There's not many packs in the Middle East, or in Iceland, and Central America has a majority of its packs in the mountains, so those are hard to get to."

It took me a moment to process his words, and when I did, my head cocked to the side. Did he only ever travel to do princely things?

Instead of asking the question I wanted to, I settled upon, "So you've never been to those places?"

He let out a breath. "I mean, no packs means no major conflicts, generally. If I was needed I'd go, but so far I haven't been."

I blinked, a small frown settling upon my face. This was Dante Valentino-Lancaster, Prince of Werewolves. He lived in a palace. A beautiful, marble and gold-trimmed fortress with a million rooms, inhabited by six people. He had every ability to go anywhere he wanted, do anything he wished, but he didn't. He was so overwhelmingly occupied with all of his duties that the only time he ever went anywhere was to the middle of a Georgian forest to deal with looney alphas who should just be killed, and then he goes back to his magnificent palace when things returned to normal. He slept maybe five hours a night, found time for enough exercise to look like that, dealt with rowdy younger brothers and drunk best friends, and then worked until it was time to start all over again.