Page 65 of Don't Bite the Director
Reaching up to the thick metal bolt, Cora slid the latch over and pushed open the door to the cage.
The tiger stalked over to the threshold and stared down at her. Something ancient and primal danced in the depths of its dark brown eyes as they searched her face.
It really was so beautiful.
And then the beast pounced.
Chapter thirty-nine
Saiden
“Bianca Holgrem.”
Saiden snapped his head over to where his brother sat in front of the computer monitor. “You found her?”
They had been searching for almost an entire day for any information about the blonde vamp that attacked Cora. Baylin had been able to pull only a single blurry still from the security cameras before the system went dark, and he’d been running it through an enhanced facial recognition program for the past ten hours.
Granted it would have been more like twelve hours except Saiden wasn’t particularly helpful in providing details at the beginning. His family showed up at the compound shortly after he started Cora’s transformation, but he didn’t even bother asking where they’d been or what happened. All he cared about was his mate.
Without so much as a word, he’d taken her into his bedroom and stayed locked to her side for the first couple of hours. Turning someone into a vampire wasn’t an instant process. It could take anywhere from half a day to three days depending on the human, and the entire time they needed a slow trickle of Essence to keep the initial influxburning until completion. It was why vampires almost always had family nearby before a change. That way someone could step in and take over when the sire needed a break.
Tressa was with Cora right now, but Saiden couldn’t fight off the urge to return to his mate for much longer. He’d stepped away once to tell them everything he knew about the attack, and a second one shortly after to demand answers from his family. He may have also made a handful of idle threats against their lives and limbs, but his fury at them died off when he was reminded that his cell would work better if he kept it on him. He’d been so wrapped up in his date with Cora that remembering something as trivial as a phone had fallen to the wayside.
It was all Eliana, they’d relayed once he calmed enough to see reason. She’d seen something and pulled all the vamps from the compound at the last minute, leaving only the humans inside, clueless as to what was happening. Minutes later gas filled the house, knocking everyone out, and Bianca showed up.
It was all too easy. Had to be an inside job, they’d determined.
Tressa was the one who eventually caught Donna trying to sneak out the back of the property. It took little effort to wring the confession from their housekeeper, and the sound of hearts breaking could be heard throughout the compound. She had been like family to them, and no one could fathom any possible reason for her betrayal. Until they could figure out not only the how but the why, she was currently enjoying an indefinite stay in their five-star dungeon.
Saiden had made them all promise not to touch the human. Not until he had his chance first.
“Yeah,” Baylin said, pulling Saiden’s attention back to the task at hand. “I think so. Is this her?”
It would be a thousand years before he’d forget the faceof the one who stole his mate’s life. The one who stole his chance to convince her to turn willingly. This Bianca had ripped everything away from him, and staring at the grainy snapshot on Baylin’s monitor caused an intense kind of anger to flare to life that he hadn’t felt in a long time.
The overwhelming urge for violence coursed through him. Not because it was his job and not because it was necessary. No. He wanted to fulfill every promise of pain he’d made to Bianca last night. He wanted her to suffer.
“Where is she?” he gritted out, clenching his fists so tight he might break his own bones again if he didn’t calm down.
“Unknown,” Baylin replied as screen after screen flashed up on the monitor.
Too fast and complicated for Saiden to understand, he collapsed into the chair next to his brother and tried to force the tension from his muscles. He needed to think rationally right now. Later, he promised himself. Later there would be blood. Oceans of it.
“Let me check one other thing…” Baylin trailed off, his eyes glued to the screen as his fingers danced over the keyboard with supernatural speed. “There!” he exclaimed triumphantly.
Saiden leaned forward. “Did you hack into the Ruling Coalition’s database?” He didn’t know much about computers, but he’d seen screenshots before and was confident that he was looking at the Coalition’s internal dossier on Bianca.
“Nah,” Baylin dismissed, scrolling through the document and sipping his Celsius energy drink. “After the third time I broke their firewall, they just gave me access. Said it was easier than trying to find a programmer skilled enough to keep me out. We have an arrangement. I don’t use the database for anything nefarious, and so long as I do the occasional tech job for them here and there, they let me keep my head. It’s all good.”
“Right,” Saiden grunted, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’ll ignore the fact you’ve been hiding that from me if you can tell me where to find her.”
Baylin chuckled and continued scanning the document. “She’s been on their radar for over a hundred years, it looks like. Originally born in 1878 in Stockholm, she was sired by somebody named Gunther Larsson in 1897. Looks like he wasn’t her mate, so the reasoning for her turn is unknown. After that, she was a perfect vampire until she lost it in 1905 and murdered her sire. She’s been tied to seven different minor rogue outbreaks throughout Europe, but they’ve never been able to catch her. It’s her siren gift, apparently. Most enforcers end up dead or incapacitated, and she escapes to do it all again.”
Saiden pushed himself out of the chair and paced anxiously around the room, waiting for his brother to tell him something helpful. Bianca murdered Cora. He didn’t care what her life story was. Didn’t care what drove her over the edge. He just wanted to make her pay.
“There’s some sort of flag on her file,” Baylin continued. “It’s not labeled, though. I can dig a little deeper, but your pacing isn’t exactly helping my concentration."
“So have another energy drink,” Saiden growled, but halted his attempts to wear a hole in his brother's floor. He grabbed the back of Baylin’s chair and leaned in to take a look at the file, his nails slicing into the leather upholstery with little pops while his eyes passed over Bianca’s grainy picture.
