Like a demon in the sky.
Saiden let the song fade from his focus while he revised his next steps. He’d been aiming for the element of surprise, but that plan went out the window along with his patience. If Bianca wanted to get this over with, fine by him.
Saiden checked the small failsafe that was secured to his chest, then zipped up the leather jacket. All pretense of stealth was abandoned when he strolled over to the nearest skylight and shattered it with one well-placed kick. As the glass rained down into the open warehouse below, Saiden tossed in a flash grenade along with it, allowing the falling shards to mask the incoming explosion.
Crouching on the roof, hands clamped tight to the side of his head, he braced himself for the deafening sound.
As soon as the ringing in his ears faded enough for his heightened senses to return, Saiden dropped into the warehouse. Landing on the concrete floor, the broken bits of glass fanned out around him. His eyes swept the darkened space but registered no movement. The place was completely vacant save for an office door at the back, rows ofempty shelves, and a dust-covered conveyor belt. Nowhere for him to hide, but nowhere for Bianca to hide either.
He maintained his position, assessing any tactical advantage to making a move. She was here somewhere. In his current position, she would have to reveal herself to attack.
“Come out, come out, and play,” he whispered, hoping to appeal to her unhinged side that saw all this as a fun little game.
He closed his eyes, directing his energy to searching the silence for any hint of her location.
It was so tiny, that little sound, and he wondered if she even knew one of her nails had scratched against metal.
He let out a low chuckle. “Really, Bianca? This is so cliché that I’m almost embarrassed for you.” Then he looked up, straight into the eyes of the blonde vamp hanging from the ceiling like the bat she’d just accused him of being.
Bianca hissed at him like something out of a Bram Stoker novel and dropped to the floor, her yellow sundress floating around her like a curtain of sunflowers as she fell. She landed gracefully on black slippers with only a slight bend of the knees to absorb the impact. He watched her plump her curls and smooth her dress since she obviously believed that appearances mattered in a fight to the death.
“You know, Saiden, despite the pain in my ears I’m still glad to see you made it,” she cooed. Her voice held no sway for him and she knew it, but it was like she couldn’t turn it off. Like years of enthralling everyone around her had warped her sense of reality until all she saw were puppets just waiting for their strings to be pulled.
“Yeah, I got your invitation. Really classy, by the way, compelling a bunch of humans. But I guess if that’s the only way you could beat me…” He let his words linger for a second then added, “No wonder you couldn’t protect your children.”
He saw the moment his verbal arrow hit its mark. Bianca bared her teeth, and a low growl slipped out.
“I’m sorry,” he mocked. “Is that a sensitive subject? How I murdered your progeny? How others like me have done the same for over a century?” He watched Bianca’s face grow more and more red. Her actions might be unpredictable, but her emotions could be played like a fiddle. “You’re a disease, Bianca. A virus. And you keep spreading corruption to innocent people.”
Her eyes narrowed on him. “I’m a disease? Try again, Saiden. You and your bullshit Coalition have murdered their own kind for centuries. You have carte blanche to kill anyone who disagrees with you, but I’m the problem here?”
He hated the way she reduced his job to little more than butchery, but unlike her he could keep his emotions in check. He let his eyes appear to wander over the desolate space, as if she wasn’t even worth his attention. “I keep our kind safe. Secret,” he remarked casually. “You would have us killing humans in the streets like animals. Practically begging them to seek out and destroy us all.”
Bianca let out a melodic laugh that was equal parts adorable child and insane hellspawn. “Is that what you believe I want? Oh, Saiden. You really don’t even know how to think for yourself, do you? You’re just the Coalition’s rabid dog. Do you even know why I started growing my family?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care. You murdered your sire and lost your marbles. It’s not my job to help you find them.”
Bianca prowled around the edge of the glass shards as if they formed some kind of invisible barrier, when in reality she probably didn’t want to ruin her cute little shoes. “Witty, witty, Saiden,” she purred. “I wonder what clever retort you will have after I rip out the throat of your freshly turned mate?”
And now he was done entertaining this bitch.
“You’ll never get the chance,” Saiden threatened, unzipping his jacket to reveal his ace in the hole. His guarantee that no threat Bianca made would ever come to pass. The off-white brick of putty strapped to his chest looked like nothing of consequence, but it was more than enough to accomplish his goal. If he couldn’t kill Bianca in a fair fight, then he would take her out with a cheap low blow. Any means necessary to keep Cora safe.
Bianca assessed the slab of C-4 for a second then laughed. “Come now, Saiden. We’re vampires, not humans. I’m insulted here. We don’t fight with guns or bombs.”
Saiden let out a mirthless laugh. “And that’s why you’ll lose. Why you’ll die here, Bianca. You think we’re still living in the 1800’s where you could get away with killing as you pleased. Things don’t work that way anymore, and sooner or later you’ll expose us all. You’re a liability, and I can’t let you leave this warehouse.”
“Is that so?” she mused, picking at a bit of dirt under her dagger-sharp nail. “I don’t know, Saiden. Things didn’t work out so well for you last time we were in a standoff, or have you already forgotten?”
A growl rumbled through Saiden’s chest at the reminder. “You don’t have Cora as leverage this time.”
Bianca grinned. An evil, sadistic grin that made his blood run cold.
“Don’t I?”
Chapter forty-six
Cora
