Chapter 48
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 that still 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.
“That,” Jinx answered excitedly after the ASL interpreter finished translating, “was all the work of our incredible writer and director Ms. De Beaufort. We thought vampires needed an update in terms of their vulnerabilities. The various mythologies believed vamps didn’t like garlic because it has antibiotic properties since vampirism was thought to be a disease originally.
Oregano, on the other hand, has antimicrobial, antifungal, and antiviral properties. Way more effective in our minds.”
The crowd murmured their agreement, and Jinx went on to answer another question about their casting choices.
“You know,” Cora commented, keeping her voice lower than any human could register. “You’re lucky the oregano swap worked out. You could have told me before I was turned that vampires are allergic to apples. No more apple pie. No more apple fritters. Might as well put a stake in me right now.”
Saiden chuckled, fully aware that her threat was harmless. “Next time you’re dying in my arms I’ll be sure to go over the list of food restrictions first.”
It still boggled her mind that apples were deathly poisonous to vampires.
Saiden told her it had something to do with Lilith and the origins of the vampiric species, but all she heard was that her Halloween tradition of making caramel apples needed to be replaced with something a little less lethal.
If it wasn"t for her originally choosing that innocuous red fruit, though, then she never would have met Saiden, Cora realized as they slipped quietly from the theater. She couldn’t even remember why she put apples in the first version of her script to begin with, so maybe there was something to this whole nudged by fate idea.
She opened the door to the McLaren that she was starting to become rather fond of and slid into the passenger seat, promptly locking the door. Of course the action would become second nature after she no longer needed it.
Saiden settled into the driver’s side and turned to face her. “Where to now, my beautiful mate?”
Cora smiled. She would never get tired of hearing those words.
Would never get tired of him. Sure, they fought at times as all couples do.
He could be unreasonably protective, and she could be obstinate.
She didn’t like him risking his life by being an enforcer, and he didn’t exactly love her skating the edge of discovery by continuing to make horror films. Eventually, they compromised.
She promised to stay away from vampire-themed movies, and he agreed to share the workload when it came to his hunting.
Even so, things weren’t always sunshine and daisies. Sometimes they were gray clouds and wilting roses. But in the end, all that mattered was the fact that they loved each other—flaws and all—and the turbulent moments meant nothing when compared to everything she’d gained.
A mate.
A family.
A future.
And most importantly, the time to enjoy it all.