The harsh biting words were a low blow, and Saiden knew she had intended it as such. The only way to get through to him.
It happened before the rest of the cadre even met her, but everyone knew the story. She had become a cautionary tale of sorts. Raven was nearly thirty when she’d been turned into a vampire and forever trapped at that age, but her mate was only twenty-three when she finally met him a century later. They decided to wait a bit before turning him since he didn’t want to spend an eternity with a baby face. After all, what was a few years compared to the millennia they had waiting for them?
Six weeks later, Raven’s mate was mugged and stabbed in the back alleys of London on his way home from the market. He bled out on the dirty cobblestone road, all because the men wanted to steal the watch on his wrist that didn’t even work.
Raven was a ghost when Saiden met her a decade later. A shell of a vampire that wanted to die so badly she picked a fight with a rogue in the hopes that someone else might end things for her.
Saiden saved her before the rogue could finish her off, then he spent years helping her find her way back to some semblance of a meaningful existence.
Now she would have to do the same for him.
“I don’t think I’ll survive if I lose her, Raven.”
“I know it feels that way now, but should it come to that, I am certain you will survive,” his cousin replied, holding out a hand to help him up. “You’ll just wish you hadn’t.”
It took Saiden’s cousins almost an hour to calm him down enough to formulate some type of plan. In the end, it was harsh words from Raven that had his agony fading and his will to fight rising.
“Are you acting like the kind of vampire who would even be worthy of a mate like her?”
It was all he needed to remember exactly who he was—one of the most feared rogue hunters in all of North America. And the reason he was so feared, the reason he knew other vampires whispered about him in hushed tones, was because of his tenacity. When he was on a hunt, it didn’t end until either he or the rogue was dead. And after three hundred years, he remained undefeated.
Saiden would not let this break him. He couldn’t. The moment he accepted the situation was the moment that she was already gone. He would fight for her right up until her very last breath if that was what it took.
The first step, they’d all decided, was finding out exactly why Cora was so prepared to die. Was it that she really hated vampires that much? Or was there something else driving her decision?
If he could just convince her to turn, then he could spend the rest of his very long life trying to make her realize how perfect they could be together. He just needed that time.
“Do you really think this will work?” Saiden asked Raven and Tressa as he went over the itinerary in his hand. He trusted his cousins completely and fully understood that he knew less about women then he did about synchronized swimming, but still…
“It’s perfect,” Tressa gushed. “We took care of all the reservations and even found a pilot who can meet you at the airfield in half an hour. Trust me, women love grand gestures like this. Stick to the plan, keep everything secret until the last minute so she can be surprised, and I promise she’ll be melting into your arms before dinner.”
“I thought I was supposed to be myself? Isn’t that what you said before, Raven?”
His cousin ran a comb through his hair, swooping the long strands artfully off to the side of his face. “Of course you should be yourself. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be yourself while indulging in a romantic evening out.”
“Okay,” he agreed reluctantly, tugging on the stiff button-down shirt they’d stolen from Derrick’s closet. He glanced at himself in the mirror and tried not to cringe.
A light blue collared shirt, black tailored pants, and shiny loafers that were at least two sizes too small. He looked posh and refined. Exactly how one might envision those misunderstood vampires in romance novels. And he wanted nothing more than to rip it all off and throw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.
But love requires sacrifice—or so the girls had told him—and hewould dress to the nines every day if it meant Cora would be by his very uncomfortable side.
Saiden put the mantra on repeat in his brain as he strode down the hall toward the guest bedroom where he’d left her, the tight shoes pinching his toes the entire way. He just hoped Cora wasn’t too upset. She opened up to him about her disease, and he’d immediately made some lame excuse about a security check to race from the room.
Staying hadn’t been an option, though. Not when her words had crushed him like a boulder, burying him under an avalanche of emotion that he couldn’t possibly process in front of her. She wouldn’t understand why he was so upset, why her words made him feel like someone had sucked all the air from the room.
He would just have to make it up to her. It was what the entire evening was about. Helping her to see him in a different light. Turning a corner and putting all that pesky kidnapping stuff behind them.
A fresh start… so long as she would allow it.
He took one last glance at the list the girls had made him promise to follow to the letter.
It had to work.
It will work, he told himself. After all, any woman would be crazy to say no to all of this.
Chapter thirty
Cora
