“I’m not saying I'm okay with the fact that you hid things from me and turned me against my will, but…” She reached up and tucked a stray bit of hair behind his ear. “I understand why you did it. Why you couldn’t let me go if I was your mate.”
The smile dropped from his face, and he searched her eyes for any reservation. “You know how I feel, but areyouokay with that? With being my mate?”
It wouldn’t matter in the long run—the sand in his hourglass was almost up—but he hoped he might get to experience at least a brief moment of complete and utter happiness.
She bit her lip, absently chewing at the soft pink flesh. “It’s a lot to process since we just met a few days ago, but yeah, I think I want it. You slipped inside my heart when I wasn’t looking, and now I don’t want you to leave. When they told me I might never see you again… I love you, Saiden. I didn’t expect to fall so hard, but I did. Eternity is a long time to ask of someone, but I don’t know anyone else I would choose to have by my side.”
It was everything he wanted to hear, yet at the same time her words crushed him, denying him the joy he thought he would feel. Anguish twisted his stomach into knots as he rubbed his thumb over her abused lower lip. “Oh, Cora. I think this might be easier if you hated me. As much as I want forever with you, I don’t exactly have much time left.”
She nodded slowly, her expression betraying nothing of her thoughts about his statement. “That’s right,” she replied softly. “Your family told me about the Coalition.”
He would have thought she might be a bit more upset for him, but he really had no right to ask for her tears. Instead, he forced a tiny grineven though there was nothing remotely amusing about the situation. Better to laugh than cry. “At least you won’t have to worry about being stuck with me forever.”
Cupping the back of his neck, Cora pulled him lower and pressed her forehead to his.
“About that…”
Chapter forty-eight
Cora
Six Months Later
Cora’s cheeks hurt from smiling so much as she watched the credits roll in the darkened theater. It was a good thing she and Saiden were seated in the back row. If anybody noticed her grinning like a madwoman at the end of an impressively bloody vampire movie, they might have thought something was wrong with her.
Except nothing was wrong with her. Not anymore.
After the fight with Bianca, she spent the entire day with Saiden. They drove back to the compound together and discussed anything and everything they could think of. Cora had a plan on how to deal with the Coalition, and Saiden had an idea for how she could still make movies.
But just in case things didn’t pan out, they spent the entire night and well into the morning locked in his bedroom, testing out just how much her new vampiric body could endure. Turns out there were a lot of new possibilities now that she was less breakable. Possibilities thatstill made her blush as she thought about them.
She still hadn’t fully forgiven him, though. That would come eventually but not quite yet. There were still moments when she got lost in the sadness that her old life was gone. When that happened, Saiden would just hold her while she cried, understanding that some things simply took time to accept.
Time they finally had after she’d successfully convinced the Coalition that her being turned against her will was all just a huge misunderstanding. See, what happened was that Saiden brought her to the compound to introduce his mate to his cadre, and when she lay bleeding and dying after the attack, she had asked him to turn her. Yes, it was sooner than they planned, but ultimately it was their end game all along. Whoever sent that anonymous tip must have been trying to stir up trouble. Probably that rogue vampire, Bianca, who’d been after them. Not to worry though, she wouldn’t be giving anybody trouble ever again.
As much as they looked like they wanted to argue, the Coalition had no basis to condemn Saiden because only he and Cora knew for certain what was said that night. Since Saiden had also taken care of a rogue that had eluded them for years, they had no choice but to let it go. So the three Praetorians—cranky, ancient vampires with zero sense of humor—left the compound twenty minutes after they arrived, and Cora hoped she would never have to see them again.
Once that was resolved, she and Saiden locked themselves back in his room for another two days, celebrating the fact they finally had time to see what life together might bring.
She hadn’t even minded letting him take credit for her kill.
As the lights in the theater rose, Cora pulled the brim of her hat down a bit further since nobody was supposed to know she was there. Not that she would have missed it for the world.
Saiden’s plan had been genius. She would tell Jinx that she made up with her father, and that he helped her get accepted into a non-invasive experimental program for Huntington’s patients. Saiden was trying to convince her to actually speak with her dad, but Cora wasn’t quite ready to take that step just yet. Maybe someday.
The lie served her purposes, though. Jinx never noticed the subtle changes to Cora’s appearance over the fuzzy video connection they used to communicate.
And with Saiden chipping in more money than she would have dreamed of, they’d even been able to hire a decent actor to play the villain, as well as drastically infuse the FX budget.
They finished the movie with Cora directing things from the compound, and six months later she was sitting in a small theater off Hollywood and Vine, watching her best friend make her way onto the stage for the Q & A. It was everything Cora ever dreamed of, but she wasn’t bothered in the slightest that Jinx got to be the face of the movie. Her pseudo sister more than deserved a chance in the spotlight.
Jinx hadn’t even blinked an eye when Cora asked to be credited with an alias since they were both used to eccentric Hollywood types. Carmilla De Beaufort was the director mentioned in Fangoria’s rave review, and Cora was perfectly content with that.
The only thing Marquin refused to budge on was the reason Saiden had come to see her in the first place. There were a few things he allowed her to keep, like vampires being able to spend small amounts of time in the sun, but there was one small plot point that was a little too accurate.
Cora had nearly died a second time from laughing when Saiden told her what it was. Of all the things she’d written, she never thought her half-assed, last-minute addition would cause so much trouble. Garlic was just so overrated, and she’d wanted to try something new.
“Why oregano?” came a voice from the front row, and Cora felt Saiden shake with suppressed laughter beside her.
