Free The 13th: Frozen Destiny by Ela Lond

Frozen Destiny
     
    The trees rushed by in a green blur, broken by flashes of sunlight that reflected against the car's side window. Kate averted her gaze from the scenery outside and yawned. Fifteen minutes ago when she, her boyfriend, and two of her closest friends had stopped at the gas station, she had taken a pill for motion sickness since, according to the map, a large number of winding turns were coming up.
    A hand curled around her shoulder and half-turned her before an arm wrapped around her waist and drew her backward until her back rested against a firm chest.
    She looked over her shoulder at Ethan who, with a twinkle in his ice-blue eyes, gazed down at her. “Are you volunteering to be my pillow?” She tried not to stare at him, but as always, it was so hard to take her eyes off his beautiful face. Sometimes she wondered if she would love him the way she did even if he weren’t as pretty as he was.
    “Yes.” He wrapped his arm more tightly around her and pulled her into his lap.
    “You are so courteous; feeding me and pretending to be my pillow, what's next?" She really appreciated his habit of always having a snack for her in his pocket. It was his way of showing affection. Since the time she had refused a bar of chocolate, jokingly accusing him of trying to fatten her up, nowadays his pocket contained mostly dried fruit and nuts. Sometimes she wondered what she had done that was so good that the entity had given him to her.
    “Making out, if you are up to it?” His breath caressed the outline of her ear and stirred the black strands of hair that escaped from her braid.
    She licked her lower lip and her eyes glided over Mandy's blond curls, visible over the back of driver’s seat, to her childhood friend Tyler, who was staring at them with narrowed eyes over the edge of passenger seat.
    “Get a room,” he said.
    “Or we could slip into our energy form,” Ethan proposed in a whisper.
    “Our powers are for reaping souls and for hunting Soul Eaters, not for sneaking around.” She looked up at him and tugged on the blond curl that fell across his brow, even though she wanted a few of his kisses right now. But she always wanted them and, luckily for her, he was very generous with them.
    “Don't look at me like that.”
    “How am I looking at you?”
    “Like you want us to get a room.”
    “Eww.” Tyler grimaced. “You two, stop flirting already.”
    “You'll have time for that later,” Mandy said, her gaze on the road and her hands on the wheel. She had replaced Ethan in the driver’s seat at their last stop. Tyler would probably love to get his turn to drive, but Ethan didn’t entrust his precious car to anybody but his sister, Mandy.
    “No, they won't,” Tyler objected. “We went on this road trip for some friendly bonding, not so they could get their groove on. They can do that at home.”
    “You could get your groove on, too,” Mandy said in a low, slightly timid voice, and Kate noticed, as the blonde glanced at Tyler, the redness that spilled across her cheeks. Tyler blushed too.
    “They are so cute,” Kate whispered as she snuggled deeper into Ethan's embrace. Mandy usually reminded her of a cute puppy, despite her tall and athletic build, and she was a perfect match with Tyler, who was their school basketball star.
    “Yes, but not as cute as you,” Ethan said to her in a low voice.
    She felt heat crawling into her cheeks. She fixed her gaze forward, since if she had looked at him, she wouldn't have been able resist kissing him.
    He chuckled and twirled a strand of her hair around his finger.
    She cleared her throat. “I thought we came on this trip because Tyler wants to play ghost buster.” Since Tyler had learned about her being a Soul Reaper, he had, as a good friend, tried to learn everything about ghosts and ghost-related events. That included searching for local haunted sites and then insisting that they visit them. As a Soul Reaper she didn't have to search out ghosts,