Sweat cooled on her forehead as Cora lay on the bed, panting softly as the fantasy faded away far too quickly. Rolling over, she took another deep inhale of his pillow and groaned.
She really needed to leave first thing in the morning because resisting Saiden was about to get a lot harder.
Chapter twenty-five
Saiden
Saiden didn’t even bother knocking on Baylin’s door when he reached his brother’s suite in the west wing of the compound. He just barged in, shouting, “Baylin, you in here? I’ve got a bone to pick you.”
With the bedroom through an archway at the back, the expansive front room of Baylin’s suite was wall-to-wall computers, monitors, and a stack of blinking boxes that Baylin referred to as servers.
Screechy death metal music blasted from massive speakers, making Saiden cringe. He never understood why Baylin listened to that garbage, let alone so loudly. With vampiric hearing he could play it at the lowest setting and still catch every word. Not that Baylin’s harsh music had words. At least none Saiden could understand.
Sweeping his eyes over the room, they landed on his brother sitting at the security monitors, enthusiastically bobbing his head to the music between sips off a Red Bull.
“How dare you,” Saiden growled.
Baylin swiveled in his chair, ran a hand through his wavy russet hair, and kicked his feet up on the desk as Saiden approached.
“How dare I what? Is this because I told Raven that you were home?I figured you’d want her to know. Also, welcome back. Nice to see you too, bro.”
Saiden glared at his brother, ignoring the sarcastic greeting. “You know that’s not what I’m pissed about. You spied on my conversation with Tressa out front, then immediately tattled to Raven that I was keeping the mate thing from Cora. You could have let me speak to her first. Explain my reasoning before she fully engaged murder mode. You know how she gets about mates.”
Baylin shuddered and tapped a button on his keyboard, silencing the pulse-pounding screams that were setting Saiden’s teeth on edge.
“Yeah, I know,” he replied. “But given you don’t have a ton of time before Cora starts asking about leaving, I figured you’d want the cousins to get right to work on Operation Vamps Aren’t Jerks.”
Saiden groaned and yanked a blood bag from the oversized silver cooler at the back of the room. “Choose another name, will you? I’m not referring to anything involving my mate as Operation VAJ.”
Baylin smirked. “I thought it was funny.”
“Yes, hilarious,” Saiden replied dryly. “And I thought I asked you to stop spying on me all the time. You really need to get a life, Bay.”
“Nah,” Baylin dismissed. “I’m good. I know how to find companionship when I want it, but otherwise I’m happy with my computers. Much less of a hassle than females.”
“You’re not wrong,” Saiden muttered, jamming his fangs into the blood bag and sucking down the entire thing in three deep pulls. He tossed it in the trash and leaned back against the wall, far too antsy to sit down. “Since I know you’ve been watching everything, what do you think about Cora?”
“I like her,” Baylin replied. “She’s got sass. Way out of your league, though. Lilith was really shooting for the moon with this one.”
“Tell me about it. This mating bond is screaming for me to go backto her, but I know she’ll just kick me out if I try.”
“Really? I thought you two…” Baylin waggled his eyebrows suggestively and made a few thrusts with his pelvis.
Saiden scowled at his brother’s lewd gesture. “Not exactly. She freaked out when I kissed her, so I don’t see anything else happening anytime soon.”
“Why’d you put her in your room then?”
“Because it’s the only place where I’m certain that you can’t watch her.” Saiden glared down at his snoopy little brother. He knew Baylin was a good guy and would never violate Cora’s privacy, but he couldn’t risk it. If Baylin so much as caught a glimpse of her getting undressed, he wouldn’t be able to control his actions.
“Come on, you know I’d never do that,” Baylin protested. “I might be digging through her entire life and monitoring everything she does and says online, but even I have my limits.”
“I know,” Saiden replied, trying to actively unclench his jaw. “It’s just the protective urges. I’ve never felt anything like this.”
“Yeah, Marquin warned me that you might be a little touchy. Well, more so than usual.”
Saiden rolled his eyes. “Have you encountered anything useful yet?”
Baylin pulled up a file on his computer and scanned through it. “Nothing earth shattering. A few parking tickets. Decent grades in school. I’m still digging.”
