“Did you really threaten her with a bomb for me?”
Well that was the last thing he expected her to ask.
Saiden glanced down at the C-4 still strapped to his chest. “For you? I’d threaten her with a nuke if I had one.”
Shaking her head admonishingly, Cora made a tsk tsk noise. “That’snot very vampiric of you.”
“Yeah, yeah, so she told me.”
Cora glanced around at the warehouse, then her eyes slid back to his, a mischievous glint sparkling in their depths. “Kinda seems like a shame to waste it at this point.”
“Why Cora, you little firebug.” He stepped forward, testing her limits. When she didn’t move away, he risked it all to run a hand gently over her messy hair. Cora leaned into his touch, and he almost lost it with that subtle but tender movement. He felt like he was the one who had a knife in his heart, and she’d pulled it free.
“Just saying,” she murmured as she stepped closer to him, less than a few inches away now. “I always wanted to have the budget to put a big explosion scene in a movie.”
“And I would deny you nothing,” he said, closing the distance and sweeping her up into his arms. He waited to see if she would push him away.
She didn’t. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his neck. “You would deny me nothing, huh?” she asked coyly. “Does that mean I can still get that third question? Because your family told me the truth and there’s one thing I’d like to know about this whole mate situation.”
Saiden tensed, and his heart started beating faster than Cora’s had on their first drive together. “Ask me anything.”
She licked her lips nervously, and it took all his willpower not to lean forward and trace his own tongue along the same spot. When she met his gaze, the uncertainty in her eyes nearly destroyed him. “Do you actually want it?” she asked quietly. “Do you wantme?Or is it just because fate chose you for me?”
He knew what Bianca must have felt before she died because Cora’s words sank into him like the sharpest of daggers, his heart shredding itself beat by thundering beat against the blade he could almost feelin his chest. The fact that she even thought for one second that she mattered so little to him ate at his insides and tore his soul into confetti.
“Fuck fate,” he growled, gripping her tighter. “I would choose you even if the stars tried to rip us apart. I love you, Cora. I love you for the incredible, beautiful person that you are, and it has nothing to do with Lilith or anyone else. I don’t think mates are chosen for us. I think the universe saw how deeply I was going to fall in love with you and decided to give me the mating bond as a kick in the pants. You are it for me, Cora. Until death comes to claim me again, I am yours.”
He waited for her to say something, but for possibly the first time ever, she had no words. Not that he needed words, because when she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, the kiss gave him everything he had never allowed himself to dream about.
She kissed him with the kind of intensity that only came on the heels of avoiding death. She kissed him with the kind of passion that only came from finding the person who owned every part of your soul. And she kissed him with the kind of love he had only ever dreamt of—the kind he could carry with him into the next life.
He let it all sink into him as his tongue found a perfect synchronicity with hers. Pulling her to his chest tightly, he didn’t know where he ended and she began. They were together, and that was all that mattered. For as long as he had.
It was the faint click-beep followed by a ticking that forced them to end the kiss sooner than he would have liked. Hell, a hundred years could pass, and he still wouldn’t want to stop kissing her.
But that would have to wait since they both glanced down and saw the timer on the bomb counting down from thirty.
“There goes my cinematic ending,” Cora said with a playful smack on his arm.
“Don’t worry, we have plenty more at home,” he assured her,unhooking the C-4 and setting it on the floor next to Bianca’s body.
He scooped Cora up and dashed out of the warehouse, pushing his vampiric speed to the limit.
They’d just gotten out the door and across the parking lot when the warehouse went up in flames. Arms wrapped around each other, they watched the building burn. It wasn’t the revenge he wanted, but he would take it. He had Cora by his side, and that was all he cared about.
He turned to her, the glow of the burning building dancing across her porcelain face. “Now that we’re safe are you going to tell me how you pulled that off in there?”
Cora grinned a little mischievously. “I just pretended to be under her influence. When Jinx lost her hearing in a childhood accident, she struggled with feeling different from everyone else, so I learned how to read lips alongside her. It’s never completely accurately, but it allowed me to understand enough to respond to Bianca’s commands. Combined with the special ear plugs I got from Baylin that blocked her ability, I figured I could fake it long enough to get within stabbing distance.”
Saiden nodded, and his hand drifted down to the blood stain on Cora’s abdomen. He blinked at the smear of red over an otherwise smooth patch of skin visible through the tear in her dress. There wasn’t even a trace of evidence that a dagger had been sticking out of her moments before.
“How?” he murmured.
“My Gift,” Cora replied. “I don’t feel pain anymore, and I heal faster than even Eliana or Marquin.” She swallowed roughly and stared up at him with so much love in her eyes that it almost hurt Saiden to know he wouldn’t get to spend a hundred lifetimes with her looking at him just like that.
“I’ll never be sick or injured again, Saiden,” she whispered. “It might be called Lilith’s Gift, but it was you who gave me that.”
With no other thought in his head beyond claiminghis mate, Saiden crushed his lips against hers, wanting to savor every last second they had together. Cora pulled back before he had the chance to fully enjoy her taste, though.
