A minute went by and nothing happened.
Cora glanced over at Saiden who now sported a rather deep frown. He was lucky vampires didn’t need to worry about Botox with how prominent those ridges became when he was stressed.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nobody’s opening up,” Saiden observed warily, a tight edge to his tone.
“Maybe they’re on a break or going to the bathroom.”
He shook his head. “No. Anytime Baylin isn’t monitoring, he turns the tablet over to one of our human security teams. Even if they were otherwise occupied, they would have it nearby to check any motion notifications. Something’s wrong.”
“Oh, come on, Saiden,” Cora scoffed. “I get that being a vampire means you take security seriously, but humans do have to use the restroom sometimes. Plus, it’s the middle of the night. They probablydidn’t expect anyone back.”
The muscles in his back bunched, and the longer they waited, the more his concern started to bleed over into her. Cora swept her eyes over the ground outside the window, but there was nothing to see save for an ominous pitch black nothing. The only light around was the faint red blinking just below the camera.
Another minute passed, and that light too went out.
“Shit,” Saiden cursed, pushing open the car door. He stalked over to an electric panel beside the gate and pulled it open. He jabbed at a few buttons until a mechanical whirring cut through the hauntingly silent night. Slowly, the gate started to slide open.
“If you had a code why not use it from the start?” she asked when he returned.
“It’s an emergency override,” he replied, easing the car forward down the drive. “If you open the gate using that code, then it won’t shut again. It’s a manual fail safe in case something goes horribly wrong. The doors open, and the system locks them so our human employees can’t be trapped inside.”
A tremor ran through Cora’s body. She placed a hand on Saiden’s arm and looked up at him. “We’re not in any danger here, are we?”
His expression gave nothing away, no hint of the severity of the situation beyond that touch of concern carving deep frown lines. “Nothing immediate,” he replied. “I would know if that were the case. There might be a valid reason for everything, but I wouldn’t be good at my job if I didn’t take every potential threat seriously.”
“Okay,” she said, sinking back into the seat, her heart beating faster than a hummingbird’s. She should have asked more questions about his threat awareness ability. Like whether or not it included people around him.
Saiden pulled the car up to the main building and cut the engine.The entire place was dark, not a single flicker of light in sight. Maybe it was all just a power outage?
Yeah, right, like she hadn’t seen enough horror movies to recognize the wide-open front door for what it really was.
“Saiden, what’s going on,” she asked, trying to hide the wobble of fear in her voice. She was a horror film director, damnit. She ate fear for breakfast.
His eyes darted from the home to the grounds just beyond. “I’m not sure,” he replied.
She wondered just how much more he could see with his vamp vision. Whatever he saw, he clearly didn’t like because he handed her the keys.
“Listen to me, Cora. I want you to lock the doors and keep the engine running. If you hear anything other than me telling you it’s safe, I want you to get out of here. Drive into town, and hide somewhere near a lot of people. I’ll come find you when everything is clear.”
She blinked at him. “How will you know where I am?”
“I can smell you a mile away, Cora. I’ll find you. I said you were safe with me, and I meant it.” He paused for a second as if debating, then leaned in and pressed his lips to hers. The kiss was fast and intense and over before Cora even knew what happened.
Then Saiden was gone, vanished into the night.
She stared out into the dark around her, wondering if she should be worried that she might never see him again.
Cora raised a finger to her swollen lips, still able to feel him there, and allowed his last words to run through her mind.
I said you were safe with me.
Only she wasn’t with him now.
It was that thought that was still rolling through her brain a minute later when the car door was yanked open, and something clubbed herover the head.
Shit, she thought as an inky blackness rolled over her vision.
