He had to do something. He refused to watch her die without a fight.
Coiling every muscle in his body, he slid one foot back to rest against the stair, preparing to pounce.
“Oh, you’ll care,” he purred. “You know, I think I’m going to kill you the same way I did your children. Do you want to hear about it? How I shattered their legs and tore their arms from their shoulders. How I poured gas over their twitching bodies and set them ablaze. How I watched their skin slowly blister and peel while they screamed for help. They died begging for you, thinking you might come and save them, but you never did.”
His words, despite being completely fabricated, had the intended effect. The vamp curled her fist in anger pulling those sharp claws away from Cora’s delicate throat long enough for him to make his move.
The marble step cracked like a starter pistol as Saiden pushed off the step, flew through the air, and tackled Cora out of the vamp’sgrasp. Letting his senses guide him toward the best possible outcome, he twisted his body midair and wrapped himself around her. He braced for impact as the force of his launch propelled them into the surrounding forest.
They crashed into a poor oak tree a dozen yards from the edge of the driveway, sending a fracture line up through its center. Saiden didn’t even feel the pain of the broken ribs or his freshly dislocated shoulder, the entirety of his focus on the bleeding human in his arms.
Her heartbeat was so weak he needed his vampire hearing to even know it was there. Seconds. His mate would be dead in seconds if he didn’t prevent it.
“Guess you have a choice to make,” the blonde called, and Saiden whipped his head up to see her standing next to the Aston Martin with its keys spinning around one manicured finger. “What’ll it be? Save the girl or get revenge. We both know that I win either way.”
Then she blew him a kiss and hopped in the car.
He barely registered the door slamming and the vehicle speeding off down the road because none of that mattered. Cora was dying. Not in a year, not in a couple years. Now.
He had the ability to change her fate, but if he did she might never forgive him. Not that he could blame her. Forcing his existence on someone who didn’t choose it wasn’t the same as signing them up for a yoga class. Her entire world would change in ways that she already stated she didn’t want.
Maybe he really was the monster Cora thought he was because at that moment Saiden simply didn’t care. She could hate him for a thousand years so long as she did it with breath in her lungs.
Sealing his lips to hers, he let his vampiric Essence flow out of him.
Saiden hadn’t been conscious when Marquin turned him, and he had never been around for a new siring before. They were so rarethat many vamps never witnessed one. Still, every vampire innately knew what to do. From the time they were turned, they could feel the Essence inside them, itching to be released and shared with another.
He just didn’t realize it would be so beautiful.
Keeping his eyes open and his lips on hers, he held his breath while the faint purple glow emerged from his skin, surrounding them in a cloud of pure energy. Stunned, he watched as the last hints of Essence floated out of him and started to pour into Cora, draping her in a cocoon of pulsing violet light.
His perfect, beautiful mate.
Then she took one last shuddering breath and died in Saiden’s arms.
Chapter thirty-eight
Cora
Cora dreamt of a circus.
The dream state was obvious straight away, and not just because Cora would never go to a circus—she found the animal cruelty outweighed any potential joy—but because the place she found herself in was not a normal circus. The lights shined a little too bright, and the depths of the shadows were a little too prominent. Something moved in those dark places, and though it skulked just out of sight, there was no denying that she could sense its presence.
Whatever it was slipped away, and Cora found herself lost to the flashing lights and the infectious sounds of laughter and frivolity.
Large plumes of purple cotton candy floated through the air, yet nobody else seemed to notice them. She bumped into one, and it exploded into sugar crystals that rained down over the long black dress that clung tightly to her body.
The outfit was all wrong for a fun night out at a circus. Midnight crushed velvet with flared sleeves and a low-cut bodice. She looked like a less boobilicious Elvira.
Take it off,she thought.
She wanted to. She wanted to rip it from her body, preferring to go naked over this gown that was all wrong for her. The fit was too tight, too uncomfortable. She shouldn’t be wearing it, but when she reached behind her back there was no zipper.
Frantically, she clawed at the stretchy material, but it wouldn’t budge. It was as if the dress was now a part of her, fused to her skin. Something she could never take off.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
The words echoed through her brain as she stumbled through the crowd, trying to find the exit. She dashed from one end to the other, the circus seeming to close in on her while also expanding in all directions.
