Guess I really do care about him,Cora thought as she gripped her seat tight enough to dent the metal. If she thought flying commercial was bad, nothing could have prepared her for flying in a Cessna 172. She felt everything in the tiny four-seater. Every bit of turbulence, every little burp and growl the engine made. She hadn’t been this nervous since she was eighteen, terrified that she and Jinx wouldn’t get into film school.
Cora clenched her eyes shut as they passed over a mountain range that really shouldn’t be so close to them.
“Not a fan of flying, little vamp?” Derrick asked over the headset, and she had to stop herself from cussing him out. The quippy Casanova had been poking her buttons ever since they first reached the airfield in Fall River Mills and she had seen the plane that turned her whiter than an emaciated movie vampire.
“It could be worse,” he offered. “We could have taken the Gulfstream G650. Those have a much higher crash rate.”
Don’t do it, she told herself.Do. Not. Do. It.If she and Saiden were going to have a chance, she couldn’t start their relationship off bymurdering his cousin.
The plane hit a patch of turbulence that dropped her stomach off the highest part of a rollercoaster, and Derrick let out a gleeful whoop of joy.
On the other hand, Saiden might understand. Anybody who spent five minutes with this jackass would understand.
“Derrick,” Tressa’s calming voice came over the headset. “You do realize that if you traumatize his mate, Saiden will turn your head into a birdhouse and hang it outside his room.”
“Yeah, yeah, big scary Saiden,” Derrick grumbled, but there must have been some real concern in there because he kept his trap shut after that.
“It’ll be okay,” Tressa said, reaching over to pat Cora’s arm.
Truthfully, Tressa didn’t even need to be there. They’d quickly concocted a plan to save Saiden before heading to the airfield, and it all rested on Cora’s shoulders. Both because of her human skill and her newly acquired Lilith’s Gift, something the other vamps were seriously jealous of once they’d figured it out.
She didn’t think she would survive the flight with Derrick alone, though, so Tressa volunteered to be a buffer. Cora really did miss the calming influence she used to get from the perky vampire, even if she had declared it was never to be used on her again. She’d been a bit peeved when she realized Tressa had been soothing her anxiety, but was starting to debate whether she should ask for another hit or not. Nothing waiting for her in Sacramento could even come close to the terror coursing through her veins as they bobbled their way south.
Pain.
Suffering.
Torture.
That’s what always waited for her at the end of a flight.
Not this time, she reminded herself, steeling her nerves. She wasn’t sick Cora anymore. She was badass vamp Cora, and no plane ride was keeping her from saving Saiden.
Still, it was probably a good thing that there was nothing left inside her to throw up.
The sun hadn’t quite crested the horizon when they arrived at the tiny airfield just outside Sacramento, so there was still a faint hint of darkness to the city. Not that it meant anything to Cora. Not anymore. Her vampire sight cut through the shadows like a flashlight, revealing everything the night normally hid from mortals.
Which wasn’t a particularly comforting benefit when Derrick landed the plane, and she had to watch the ground rush up to meet them in ultra high-def.
A town car waited for them at the edge of the landing strip, and Cora spent the entire trip to the warehouse trying to calm her thundering heart. She’d survived the hard part. Now all she needed to do was save Saiden from a psycho barbie doll with fangs.
Was it weird that she would prefer taking on an unhinged vampire over getting back in that bucket of bolts excuse for an airplane?
Derrick didn’t have Saiden’s death wish driving skills, but he still had a vampire’s reaction time that let him push the car to dangerous speeds. It was only a few minutes before he slid to a stop, two blocks east of the warehouse.
Tressa turned around from the front seat and reached back to cupCora’s face with her soft hands. “You can do this. You’re one of us now, Cora. Do you hear me? You’re family. You are stronger than you realize.”
Cora gulped. She really wished they were coming with her, but Bianca would smell them in a second. She was on her own, and that would have to be enough. She’d nearly died once and had no intentions of doing that again. Nor would she watch Saiden die to save her. He might be the enforcer you saw coming, but Cora would be the assassin who snuck through the back door and stabbed you in the kidney. Metaphorically, anyway. In reality, she had the stealth of a hippo, but luckily stealth wasn’t needed for her plan.
Tressa pressed a small blade into the palm of Cora’s hand. “Go bring our boy home, okay?”
Derrick twisted in his seat to grin at her. “And tell him he owes me a new pair of pants while you’re at it.”
With those words of encouragement, Cora slid out of the car and started toward the brown building with the Hydra Warehouse sign. Glancing down at her watch, she knew Saiden had to be in the city already, if not closing in on the industrial district.
She took off at a jog toward the door on the side of the building. Her plan only worked if she could beat Saiden to Bianca.
Please,she begged anyone who would listen as she quickly ate up the distance with her vamp speed.
