Chapter 9
Chapter nine
Saiden
Saiden would have rather she regained a bit more composure first, but he was officially done waiting.
Every time she started breathing easier, he stupidly said something to ramp her back up.
He just wasn’t any good at being calming and never would be.
Her current state of depressed acceptance was about the best he could hope for at that point.
Saiden watched her for any evidence that his compulsion had taken root. As soon as he saw her eyes go cloudy, he would know he had her under his control and could compel her to forget everything.
It really did break his heart a little. There had been so much pain in her eyes when she begged him to let her keep the film.
He didn’t quite understand it. Why did she care so much about a single horror movie?
He’d read the script, or more specifically his text-to-speech app had read it to him while he sped down I-5.
He wasn’t much of a movie buff but could tell it was decent.
She had talent as a writer, so why couldn’t she just come up with something else?
Make a different movie. Why was this one so important?
Whatever the reason, there was nothing he could do about it. Protocol was protocol, and no traces could be left behind. Tapping his foot impatiently, he waited for the fog to roll across her eyes.
And waited.
And waited.
They both blinked a few times.
Well, this was getting embarrassing.
Cora cleared her throat. “While I do enjoy staring deeply into your eyes, which are quite gorgeous b-t-dubs, is something supposed to be happening?”
Saiden dropped his hands and stepped back, staring at her in awe. He knew she was still somewhat upset, and compulsion was not his strongest gift, but still… He hadn’t been able to latch onto her mind at all. Not even a hint of a connection.
“Fuck,” he grumbled and shook himself like a wet dog.
He was just tired, that was all. And perhaps part of his subconscious felt guilty about killing Cora’s dreams. He couldn’t deny that she was incredibly attractive, and he hadn’t been with a woman in far too long.
Under different circumstances he might have even asked her out despite her human status.
That was probably why he was struggling so much.
He slapped himself a couple times to dislodge his own hang-ups and reached for her again, settling his hands on her shoulders.
She’s just another mortal, he told himself. She might be cute, but they’re a dime a dozen with lifespans like mayflies. Do your job and move on.
He leaned in even closer this time, practically touching her nose with his own. Ensnaring her gaze once more, he whispered, “Forget.”
A second of silence passed, and he held his breath in anticipation.
“Why do you keep saying ‘forget’?” Cora asked, her eyes as clear as a placid spring lake.
Son of a bitch, he cursed internally.
Frowning, he dropped his hands. “It’s a framing word. Once I capture your psyche with my own, I am able to form the compulsion around all the things I need you to forget. If I used a different framing word, it would go in a different direction.”
Cora tapped her finger to her chin, seemingly intrigued by his statement. “So, if you said ‘laugh’ then you could start listing all the things I would laugh at from then on?”
“Something like that,” he deflected and began stalking around the room. His mind sifted through all the things he knew about compulsion. There was usually only one reason a vampire couldn’t compel a human, but that was simply impossible. He would have known if that was the case.
Just to be certain, he took another deep inhale of her scent. Delicious, no doubt, but not quite the perfect complement to his own. Too much of that medicinal stink. And he had felt nothing when he touched her skin.
He had touched her skin, hadn’t he? He was pretty sure he had to have grazed it at some point with all the times he grabbed her. She did have that bulky sweater on, though…
A scuffling noise pulled his attention back to the present, and he whirled around to see Cora edging slowly toward the back door. He couldn’t help but smile at her attempt to escape. He had to give the girl props. She had moxie.
“You can’t outrun me, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he insisted, crossing the space between them in the blink of an eye.
She lifted her chin defiantly. “I wasn’t trying to. I just… wanted some fresh air.”
He almost laughed at her pathetic attempt to deceive him, but she did have a point.
The factory was damp and musty, and he suspected its original purpose had been the manufacturing of petrochemicals based on the lingering odor.
Perhaps some fresh air would help him figure out a plan.
The sun should be close to fully set by now, so it wouldn’t tax him much, if at all, to be outside.
“Fine,” he said, stepping aside and gesturing to the door. “After you. Just don’t bother running. We both know you’ll never get anywhere, and it’s a tad insulting at this point.”
They emerged from the building, and the soft glow of sunset settled over them. He took in a deep inhale, gagged, then debated heading back into the factory. He forgot how badly Los Angeles stank when you could smell all the layers of filth beneath the fresh ocean breeze the humans raved about.
Striding over to Cora’s Mazda, he settled onto the vehicle’s partially dented hood.
Cora crossed her arms and glared at him. “You’re going to scratch the paint. Go lean on your own car.”
He raised an eyebrow at her then flicked his eyes over to the pristine McLaren GTS.
“Fine,” she conceded with an exaggerated huff, sliding up next to him on the hood of her beat up Mazda. “What now? You can’t compel me?”
“Seems like,” he grumbled, racking his brain for possible options.
“If you’re having performance issues we can always try again later,” she offered pleasantly. “Or never. Never is good for me.”
He shot her a scathing look that might have wilted a lesser woman. “There are no issues with my performance.”
She rolled her eyes, and he almost volunteered to prove right then and there just how good his ‘performance’ could be. But he was getting sidetracked. She had that effect on him, and it was becoming increasingly aggravating.
Beside him, Cora jolted upright. “You aren’t going to kill me now, are you? I know how these things work. You can’t leave any witnesses, can you?”
Before he could say a word to assuage her fears, Cora leapt from the hood of the car and took off down the dirt road that led back toward the main street.
The fact that she held her auditions in such a secluded place really made him question her self-preservation instincts.
Although, she was pumping her little legs faster than he would have thought her capable of, so maybe she had some semblance of a will to survive.
He took a deep breath despite the unpleasant odor and counted to ten to calm his swirling thoughts.
Then he stood, dashed over to where she had made it perhaps two hundred feet away, and snatched her up.
Slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of rice, he marched back to the parking lot.
Her little fists pounding against his ass felt a bit like a massage, and he had to suppress a chuckle that she was even trying to fight him.
She didn’t have moxie, he decided. She had reckless determination.
Cora didn’t cease her kicking and screaming until he deposited her roughly onto the hood of the Miata. He winced a bit at the new dent he’d just added, but given the state of her car he doubted it harmed the value that much.
“Stop,” he growled as she scrambled to get down. “What did I say about running?” When she just glared back at him, he added, “I don’t kill humans. I told you I wasn’t going to harm you, and I meant it. Now would you just give me a second to think?”
Cora scooted away from him but thankfully didn’t attempt another pointless escape. “Sorry, but I can’t exactly be all chill about this when you said earlier that you’re some kind of enforcer,” she pointed out. “You told me your job is to hunt down and kill people.”
“Vampires,” he bit out, annoyed. “I hunt down and kill rogue vampires. I’m not a monster, Cora.”
She scoffed. “You’re joking, right? They literally make monster movies about you people.”
“You people?” he repeated, glaring at her. “For someone who was so excited to meet a real vampire minutes ago you turned racist pretty fast.”
“What?” Cora sputtered. “I’m not racist, you rude jerk. Besides, vampire isn’t even a race, it’s a species.” She gave him a derisive little huff then slumped onto the hood, all the fight draining from her body. “So what are you going to do if you can’t compel me?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out and your prattling isn’t super helpful, so can I get a little quiet please?” Even though he was initially enchanted by it, her lilting songbird voice tended to take on a screechy tone when she was scared or upset.
To his immense relief, she listened to him for once and kept quiet.
For about thirty seconds.
Her ring and pinky fingers drummed rapidly on the car’s hood, and the sound grated against his last nerve like nails on a chalkboard.
“Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” she snapped defensively.
His head swiveled to look at her. “Well, I mind. So could you stop that?”
“No.”
“No?”
Cora tilted her head. “I'm sorry, was there confusion the first time? I thought I was clear when I said no.”
“And why in Lilith’s name not?” Anger overtook him, and his words came out harsher than he intended.
She flinched away, and he forced his breathing to slow. He couldn’t do anything about his resting murder face, but he could at least control his posture and tone.
“I don’t always have control over my muscles,” she muttered. Her cheeks reddened in embarrassment, and a sense of uneasiness dropped into his stomach.
As if on cue, the evening breeze wafted that medicinal smell to him once more, reminding him of her unknown illness. He hadn’t encountered many sick humans before, but maybe…
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked, far more bluntly than he should have.
She straightened up, her body going rigid as she tucked her hands behind herself. “None of your business.”
He glowered at her. He couldn’t tell if she was being antagonistic on principle, or if she genuinely didn’t want to talk about it. Either way, he didn’t care about her personal preferences at that point. “I was just trying to help the situation, so would you please tell me what’s wrong with you?”
The scathing look she gave him might have been worrisome if he wasn’t an immortal vampire. “Nothing is wrong with me, you asshole!” she shouted. “And if I happen to have a medical condition, then it’s none of your goddamned business!”
Clenching his fists, he slid off the car and let out a frustrated roar. Why did females have to be so problematic? He swore she was acting like a petulant child just to annoy him.
Maybe you need to simmer down, he told himself. See things from her point of view. What was it Tressa always said? Teddy bears have more friends than grizzly bears? Okay, he could try that approach.
“I apologize,” he said, reducing his voice to a more subdued tone. “I phrased my words poorly. Of course there is nothing wrong with you, and it is your right to keep your medical situation private. I should not have intruded.”
The wary look Cora gave him spoke volumes about his lack of achieving teddy bear status, but it was an improvement at least. She now looked at him as something more like a Koala with a butter knife. Not entirely dangerous but not exactly adorably innocent either.
He could work with that.
“The only reason I asked,” he continued, “is that perhaps your condition is something that is impacting my abilities. You don’t need to divulge more than you feel comfortable with, but can you tell me if I might be on the right track?”
Cora picked at a stray thread on the hem of her oversized sweater. “I guess it’s possible,” she mumbled. “The nerve cells in my brain…” she trailed off, and he decided pushing her for more details was a bad idea.
He sat back down beside her and patted her thigh in his best attempt at being reassuring. “This is great news.”
She looked up at him aghast, and he quickly clarified. “Not that you’re sick, but that it might just be a matter of my compulsion skills being too weak for your… unique situation.”
“How is that a good thing?” she asked, edging away from him again.
“Because all I need to do is take you to someone more skilled than I. Marquin has the strongest compulsion I’ve ever encountered. He can take care of this.”
Cora sighed. “And there’s no way I can convince you to just let me go? Let me keep my script?”
Saiden knew it was a bad idea before the words came out, but he couldn’t help himself. A compliant passenger would be much easier to handle than someone who was constantly trying to escape.
“You can always ask Marquin,” he suggested. “He is the leader of my cadre, so he ultimately makes the decisions. You are welcome to plead your case to him.”
The light that sparked in her eyes made him feel like tiny needles were stabbing at his insides.
Even though nothing he said was a lie, he was still a bastard for giving her hope.
In the nearly three hundred years he’d known Marquin, the vampire had never once budged on protocol when it came to secrecy from humans.
Saiden didn’t relish the idea of sleeping with one eye open, though, so he’d let her hold onto the dream for a little longer.
“That’s great,” Cora gushed, jumping up. “Let’s go see Marquin. I know he’ll see reason. Does he live nearby?”
Saiden puffed out an annoyed breath, cursing Derrick once again for his unreliability.
“Not exactly.”