Chapter 35
Chapter thirty-five
Saiden
The last vestiges of day surrendered to night’s tranquil embrace while Saiden lay next to Cora in the small grassy meadow.
He’d been worried at first that things might be awkward after, but she’d let him curl her body into his side and leisurely stroke her arms as they shifted into idle post-coital chatter.
At one point he felt her shiver, and he dashed up to retrieve their clothes from above the waterfall before she even realized he was gone. Her underwear was beyond saving, so he only handed over her leggings and shirt, hoping she didn’t notice that he pocketed the wet scraps of fabric.
Once dressed, he lay back down, waiting with strained breath to see what she would do. A blissful sigh eased out of him when she molded her body to his once more, this time wrapping her arm up and over his chest to snuggle.
“Tell me something about yourself,” she said, resting her cheek on his shoulder. “You're like this big mystery that I don’t know anything about other than the one rather notable fact.”
“That I’m an incredible lover?”
She laughed and playfully smacked his arm. “That’s not what I meant.” She paused, then added, “Even if it is accurate.”
He was pretty sure he found his new favorite color when she blushed a little, and the crimson hue of her cheeks accented the strawberry scent enveloping him like a cloud.
He didn’t even notice the medicinal tinge anymore.
All he smelled was her. If he closed his eyes, he could practically imagine himself sitting in a berry field, feeding slices of pie to Cora.
It was tempting to lick the side of her face and see if she tasted as good as she smelled since he had already experienced just how delectable other parts of her were.
“It’s just a little weird,” Cora continued. “I feel like I’ve known you for years, and yet I don’t actually know anything.”
Saiden knew exactly what she meant. He could barely remember his life before Cora, and he couldn’t imagine his life without her.
“I like to crochet,” he offered, needing to lighten the mood before he did something stupid like confess his eternal and undying love.
“No, you don’t,” she said with a giggle, and the sound was sweeter than any music.
“I’m serious,” he replied, nuzzling the top of her head. “I spend a lot of time on surveillance just sitting around. If I don’t keep my hands busy, I’ll go insane. Don’t tell my cousins, though. I’d never live it down.”
Cora propped herself up and gave him a dubious look. “You’re not messing with me?”
“Not even a little bit,” he said, removing a stray twig from her tangled hair. “My little sister used to knit all the time a few hundred years ago. I like crocheting better, but it still reminds me of her.”
She blinked at him a couple times as if the factoid short-circuited her brain cells.
“What do you make?” she asked once the gears seemed to reset themselves.
“Little animals usually. Sometimes I come across human children when I’m hunting rogues, so I’ll leave one with them for comfort until Tressa arrives to wipe their memories.”
Cora’s eyes searched his face for so long that the scrutiny started to make him uncomfortable.
“What?”
She shook her head, then lay back down on his chest. “You just keep surprising me is all.”
“And that’s a good thing?”
She sighed. “Honestly? I’m not sure yet.”
He stroked her hair and slowed his breathing so his rising chest didn’t disturb her too much. “What else do you want to know?”
She was quiet for a moment, and he listened to the sounds of rushing water mixing with the crickets chirping nearby.
At heart he was a predator, more dangerous than any of the other nocturnal forest creatures emerging from their dens to begin their evening hunts.
There was a peacefulness to the night that he could never find in the day, as if the shadows settling over him forced a pressure to drop away from his chest. With night vision better than any of the owls watching over them, he was just as at home in the dark as any human was during the day.
Eventually it would become too cold for her, though. Or she would be too nervous to be in the woods late at night. Until that time came, he would cherish every second of contact with her.
“I guess tell me more about this whole rogue hunting thing,” she said a minute later. “When you first brought it up, I thought you were just a method actor trying a little too hard to get the role. Now that I know the truth, I’m kinda curious about what it all entails.”
He let his gaze lock on the stars above him for a second, searching for the answer in their glittering brilliance.
He didn’t remember what it was like to look at the night sky as a human, but he knew it was a damn shame that Cora couldn’t see what he could—a tapestry of constellations spreading out over a blanket of swirling sapphire and violet.
An explosion of stardust, like grains of twinkling salt tossed up into the sky with abandon.
To his disappointment, the stars didn’t hold the guidance he was looking for. The answer to her question was easy, but what he struggled with was how much truth to reveal. Too much, and she might bolt like a rabbit. Too little, and she would think he was hiding things from her.
In the end, the reality of the situation made the decision for him. He had precious little time with her, so best to get it all out in the open that way he could judge her reaction and determine the amount of damage control needed.
“There are laws within our society,” he began slowly, keeping his tone soft and casual as if discussing the Treaty of Ghent.
Nothing too disturbing here, just a little lesson in how much of a murderer I am, he thought.
Damn, he would kill for Tressa’s calming ability. She could tell a person their entire family had been brutally massacred, and they’d take the news no worse than hearing they stepped in dog shit.
“One of those laws,” he continued, “is regarding the creation of more vampires. Secrecy is paramount to our existence, naturally, but it’s also necessary to control the population. If vampires were allowed to go unchecked, siring more and more of our kind, eventually we would have no food source.”
He felt her stiffen and kicked himself for phrasing it like that. He made it sound like vampires looked at humans the way Cora looked at a hamburger. Like mortals were little more than twitchy, irrational, anxiety-filled cows.
Smooth, Saiden. Smooth like butter filled with pop rocks.
“I guess I can understand that,” Cora accepted, relaxing slightly, and he thanked Lilith that she reacted to things better than the average high-strung bovine.
“To prevent the inevitable downfall of our kind, a bunch of vamps got together long before I was born and established two rules. The first being that no vampire can sire more than one other vampire, and the human they choose has to be willing. It keeps our population relatively low and still allows us to turn our mate.”
Cora ran a hand leisurely over his chest, and the casual relaxed motion almost caused him to shiver with delight. He wanted to stay there with her forever, hiding from the pain of reality.
“You said that word before. ‘Mate.’ I’m guessing you aren’t referring to the Australian definition?”
He chuckled. “No. A vampire’s mate is essentially the other half of their soul.
The only other person who could happily endure spending eternity at their side.
It’s a supernatural bond that transcends reason and science.
More than love, more than devotion, it’s a connection that can’t be explained, only felt.
When a vampire meets their mate… they just know. ”
“It sounds wonderful,” Cora replied, her voice full of awe and maybe a hint of wistfulness.
“It is.” Saiden gulped, wondering if it was the right moment to tell her. “Or so I’ve heard,” he added, chickening out.
A heaviness settled over them until Cora eventually broke the silence. “What’s the other rule?”
Saiden ran his fingers down the curve of her hip, wishing they could go back to the conversation about mates so he could try again to tell her. “Rule two is the obvious one. Not telling anyone about our kind.”
“Which is why you brought me here; you need Marquin to wipe your existence from my brain.”
There was a sadness to her voice that nearly broke his heart. He wanted to believe it was for him. That she hated the idea of being forced to forget their time together.
He knew better than that, even if he wished he didn’t. All she wanted to do was make her movie before she died, and he was likely nothing more than a pleasant distraction for her.
He cleared his throat. “Yeah. That’s why.”
She nodded. “So, a rogue vampire is what then? Someone who broke the rules?”
“Essentially,” he replied. “Sometimes it’s a vampire that isn’t being careful and is letting mortals learn about us.
Most of the time, a rogue is one making more of our kind beyond their allowed single turn.
Oftentimes that behavior just ends up breeding more vampires who don’t know about our rules.
A rogue might change three mortals then grow bored and abandon them.
Those three don’t know anything about how to survive, so they resort to what little they’ve heard about vampires from books and movies—brazenly killing and feeding.
Then they go make more like them. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle, and it’s my job to stop it. ”
“You hunt them down and kill them,” she said. A statement, not a question.
Saiden stiffened. “I do.”
“And do you like it?”
He pulled away from her hold and stared at her. He doubted she could make out too much of him in the dark, but he needed to see her face. Needed to see what she truly thought of him.
“No, Cora. I don’t. Do you honestly think me so evil that I would enjoy killing anyone, regardless of the situation?”
She bit her lip and wrinkled her brow for a second before her face relaxed. “No. I don’t think that. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be offensive.”
He settled down and guided her head back to his shoulder. Back to where she belonged. His mate.
“I hate it,” he whispered into the night. “I hate that it needs to be done, and I hate that it’s gotten worse lately. Mostly, I hate that I’m good at it.”
“I hate that for you,” Cora whispered back, their words melding in the darkness.
“Thank you,” he said, unsure of any other adequate response.
“I don’t think I’ll ever stop doing what I do, because I still hold onto the hope that I can save some of them.
The other enforcers don’t even try. They’ve become so desensitized that the rogues are little more than animals to them.
I’ve seen firsthand how wrong that can be if you get to them early enough.
” He paused. “I just wish it wasn’t the only thing in my life. ”
“That makes sense,” Cora murmured, her voice taking on a sleepy tone. “I hope you find your mate someday. I hope she’s so amazing that you can forget about all the bad in your life, Saiden. I hope you can just be happy for once.”
Her words were a curse and a blessing.
“I hope so too,” he whispered, clutching her tighter. “I hope so too.”