Lastly, he pulled out one final surprise that he nestled into the elastic webbing across his chest then yanked on his leather jacket.
Saiden eased the lid of the trunk shut and took in the dingywarehouse district around him. The golden light of the new day cast the city in a sepia tone that didn’t feel right for what he was about to do. Revenge was something best saved for the dark of night when the shadows ruled and you could hide all your dirty deeds.
But he didn’t exactly have the luxury of time to wait for nightfall. If by some miracle he survived, then he needed to be back at the compound when the Coalition arrived in just over twenty-four hours. They would tag him as a rogue if he didn’t show up, and his family would be punished for harboring him. Nobody else was going to suffer because of him.
Nobody except Bianca.
He would just have to take the unhinged vampire out in the light of early morning. And fast, before any commuters started filling the streets and ended up as collateral damage.
Saiden approached on foot from the west, slipping past the rows of boxy brown warehouses that filled the streets in this part of town. He paused occasionally, ducking behind semi-trucks or vans to focus his hearing. Mixed amongst wrapped pallets, trucks, and shipping equipment, multiple sets of booted feet moved with the smooth care and gentle step of someone sneaking through the dark on the hunt for hidden prey.
Well, those wearing the boots thought they were stealthy. Against Saiden’s hearing they may as well have been running around in honking clown shoes. These had to be freshly made rogues or possibly human thralls under Bianca’s spell.
He took a deep inhale to scent the wind for further intel. Buried under Bianca’s sickeningly sweet smell that made him want to gag, he confirmed three humans among the standard odors of the warehouse district. Oil and manufacturing chemicals mostly. A faint whiff of something fruity and familiar danced by on the breeze, but it was gonebefore he could identify it.
Bianca was considerably younger than Saiden, but a century or two made little difference after a certain point. If he made the slightest sound, she would hear him coming. His only option was to silently neutralize the human thralls before they could raise an alarm. A minor challenge for someone like Saiden. He wasn’t the West Coast enforcer because he had the stealth of a hippo. No one saw or heardhimcoming.
Saiden forced himself to hold still while he analyzed the movements of the thralls. One was headed closer to his position, so he blurred forward and dropped into a baseball slide beneath a parked semi-trailer. Emerging on the other side, his extended foot slammed into the back of the human’s ankle. Saiden caught the falling man and rolled to muffle the impact while he snaked an arm around their throat.
Thirty seconds later they were unconscious, hands zip-tied and mouth gagged with their own sock, and Saiden tucked them deep into the shadows under the semi.
Leaping straight up, his feet gently alighted on the roof of the trailer. Three quick skipping jumps took him from semi, to forklift, to stack of wooden pallets, then finally dropping down atop his next target. Saiden winced at the soft cracking of bone as he unintentionally snapped the human’s clavicle, but it wasn’t anything six weeks of rest and PT couldn’t fix. Though Saiden quickly clamped a hand over the thrall’s mouth when they fell, his knockout shot to the temple didn’t land before a muffled cry of pain escaped out into the once silent morning.
Shit! Sloppy, Saiden. Sloppy as hell.
He trussed up the second thrall while he cursed his lack of control.I’m better than this, he thought, gently lowering the man into a nearby dumpster.
A dozen tingling daggers of ice suddenly plunged into his lower back.
In a flash, Saiden leapt up, kicking off the lip of the dumpster to flip backward through the air. His hands snapped out as he tumbled end over end, snatching a Mossberg pump action shotgun from the hands of the shocked human who had the weapon poised to fire.
Gripping the barrel with one hand, Saiden slammed the butt of the gun into the base of the man’s skull and grabbed their collar with his free hand, quickly easing them to the ground.
The three pawns were off the board which meant Saiden could hunt the queen bitch next.
If he was smart, he wouldn’t even confront Bianca. He’d take her out from a distance before she even had a chance to run. But this wasn’t a cold, calculated execution. This was personal. Bianca stole his mate’s mortal life and sentenced him to death. He was going to look her in the eyes when he killed her, and if that meant he burned too, then so be it.
Climbing atop a two-trailer semi, Saiden leapt from the massive truck onto the roof of the Hydra Warehouse. With all the agility of a ninja-trained jungle cat, he landed in a soundless crouch.
Holding his position, he switched his focus and allowed the noises inside the warehouse to filter up from below.
Well, shit.
Bianca wasn’t even trying to be quiet. In fact, she was singing.
Saiden felt the enchantment in her song reaching for him, whispering sweet promises, but he slapped the side of his face, and the siren call slid right off him. He knew then just how easily she could have gotten to Donna. Bianca’s voice was so powerful that most vampires aside from the oldest would fall at her feet, slaves to her bidding.
It didn’t forgive anything Donna had done, though. The bitternesshe’d heard in the older woman was all her own. Bianca just took advantage of it.
He let his ears focus on the words of the gentle lullaby she was currently crooning. The lyrics sent a chill down his spine.
He clearly hadn’t been as stealthy as he had hoped. Bianca knew he was there.
Twinkle, twinkle, little bat,
How I wonder where you’re at.
Up above the roof so high,
