Page 43 of Cold Heir

Silas’ brow quirked when I piped up with the question.

“Well, for starters, I’d need several samples of the tainted blood, which is kept under tight security inside a vault within the Simon Tine Facility.”

I knew the place well, seeing as how I’d infiltrated it on three separate occasions.

“Do you know of someone who can get you in?” I asked hesitantly, because of the shape my thoughts were beginning to take.

A frustrated sigh left his mouth. “Unfortunately, not anyone I trust to be discreet, which has been the holdup.”

My heart raced inside my chest, and I tried to bite my tongue—to no avail. “What if I told you that isn’t true?” I asked, nearly panting. “What if I told you …Icould get you inside?”

There was a long stretch of silence as I let my admission resonate with him, while I let him understand what I was proposing. The amount of trust I’d just staked in his character blew my mind, leaving me feeling a bit nauseated, if I was being honest.

When his brow tensed, and he stared with so much confusion bleeding into the look, my heart skipped a beat.

“Then, if you’re serious, the next thing I’d ask you for would be a well-scaled map, and information on getting past their tight security.” He continued to stare with so much wonderment, I wasn’t quite sure how to read it.

Is he in awe of me, or considering turning me in to someone who could punish me for what I’d just shared?

Yet, there was something about him, a sense of trust between us that defied all logic. So, I threw caution to the wind.

“You won’t need it,” I blurted, “because if you go through with this … I want in.” Tension rose at an alarming rate, but I’d already put myself out there. “What do you say?”

“I say it’s a bit insane for a human to willingly put themselves in that sort of predicament,” he answered, perplexed.

“And I say it’s a bit insane for a vampire prince to risk his title,andhis good standing to help humanity,” I countered, feeling a smile ghosting on my lips as the raw energy emerging between us left me breathless.

“Then, I suppose we’re insane together,” was Silas’ final conclusion. “Where do we start?”

Excitement budded within me when he didn’t dismiss this notion of us joining forces, but instead seemed to embrace it.

“We start by finding a keycard and calibrate it to match the facility’s current system. We might not need it if we’re able to get in some other way besides waltzing through a door, but it’d be handy to have in our possession just in case. I used to know a guy who—”

“If you can get the specs on the system, it’ll only take me a few days to have the card ready and at our disposal,” Silas interrupted.

My heart raced, and I didn’t impress easily. There was something about a guy with a face and body like his, who could also talk nerdy to me.

“I’ll get Felix on it right away, and get back to you,” I promised, but that thrumming inside my chest still hadn’t quieted.

Silas nodded.

“We’ll have to keep this between us.” His warning touched my ears next. “The others will never understand why I’d take you along to carry out something so dangerous. They’d never understand the importance of having someone with me who’s done this before.”

I nodded. “Understood. Aside from enlisting Felix for help, no one else has to know. I’ll even insist that he keep this from Liv and the others.”

Silas smirked at that. “Then, I suppose we agree that we’ll ask for forgiveness instead of asking for permission.”

I liked the way he thought. He could probably tell as much from the huge grin I now wore on my face. However, the look onhisconfused me when it dimmed.

“What is it?” The question left my mouth just a little above a whisper, as the depth of his stare pulled me into it. My initial thought was that the reality of what we just agreed to hit him like a ton of bricks, and he was going to change his mind.

“It’s just that … I’m concerned I’ve misled you in a way.” Those were not the words I expected to hear.

“How so?” I asked.

“Before meeting you, my thoughts toward humans weren’t so different from most Ianites. I wasn’t an advocate for equality among your people and mine, andcertainlywouldn’t have considered carrying out this plan we just devised. So … I don’t mean to represent myself as some sort of saint,” he admitted. “Giving you a false impression of myself is the last thing I want to do.”

The meaning within his statement wasn’t lost on me. I got it. He wanted me to know that, in the not-so-distant past, he wouldn’t have shown someone like me an inkling of compassion, wouldn’t have thought twice about ending my life if our paths were to have crossed under different circumstances.

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