章 10: Inevitable

After a solid five minutes of watching Cora sleep peacefully, Margo started to feel peaceful herself. She pushed the laptop to the side and grabbed the folder containing Cora's work documents. They had pulled most of the information from her previous employer at the insurance agency. They had given her address as the actual apartment she was allocated on the twentieth floor for this position.

Margo had assigned the day concierge the job of getting her mail from that box and bringing it 27C every day then tacked a weekly bonus to his pay for every week that Cora required the service. Only the concierge and the desk clerk Sharon knew that there was a person on Cora's floor by her name and they would be paid well for their discretion.

Margo had asked that HR send over a range of salaries for Executive Assistants in the area and they had attached a typed summary and an estimated good salary for someone with Cora's experience. The estimate made sense, but this was her mate, and she wanted her comfortable but couldn't be too generous without raising alarms.

Margo chose one of the higher numbers but not so high as to be unrealistic. Cora would make eighty-six thousand per year, plus the apartment, use of a private chauffeured sedan as she would be ferrying sensitive documents a good portion of the time, and full benefits. Cora would have a company card for work expenses.

Since she was setting this up for her mate, every instinct she had was to give her everything that she had a right to but knew she couldn't do that yet not without answering some major questions. Instead, she added that Cora was welcome to redecorate her apartment at company expense if she chose. After setting up the financial sections of the documents the rest flew by.

Margo was happy an hour later to stack the documents neatly and stuff them in a manila envelope. She wrote Cora Mann across the front and ran them down to 27C, slipping them in the mail slot and stood outside the door to Cora's apartment for several moments wishing she could just go inside and hold her sleeping mate. After a mental jerk Margo left Cora's floor and went back to her own.

She cleaned up the papers that been hers to hold onto like the salary sheet and a few others and put them away in a filing cabinet behind her desk. Then Margo pulled the laptop back in front of her and checked on Cora while finishing the last of her bottle of blood wine.

Cora had kicked the blanket off in her sleep and the nightgown had ridden up to her hips. She was completely covered but Margo couldn't help but notice how long and smooth her mate's legs looked like that. She couldn't wait to touch her and feel that softness for herself. Margo groaned; this was accomplishing nothing but frustrating herself.

She tried to imagine how she could manage to stay away from the mate that it had taken fate nearly 1100 years to see fit to give to her. Margo had waited so long for this that she barely made it through the first night. Only by repeating over and over that Cora would die and the presence of Antione had saved Margo from going to her.

Antione had helped because she knew he would try to stop her, and she would have hurt him. She couldn't imagine the cruelty of having to live without them both because she couldn't control herself. There wouldn't be much point in continuing after that. It had given her just enough control to keep her ass planted in that office seat.

Margo's monster wanted its mate badly. She knew this was going to be an ongoing battle and that she would need to keep the darkest part of herself firmly leashed if they were going to come out the other side of this situation without a catastrophe unfolding. For whatever reason her monster didn't recognize the eclipse as a good enough reason to hold itself back from claiming its mate.

This wasn't the first time mates had been found during the eclipse but from what she had understood the instincts tended to be less intense during the eclipse to avoid this kind of loss. However, her experience tonight belied those accounts entirely. Her monster hadn't recognized the danger in the slightest. She was one of the oldest remaining of her kind and maybe that was why. Margo wasn't sure of the reason, but it had been no picnic to keep herself in her office chair.

Margo unplugged the laptop and took it with her into the bedroom. She got into bed and set the laptop on the blankets beside her. Turning toward the screen she tried to imagine that this was like them sleeping together. Margo imagined running a hand along Cora's smooth leg until it rested on her hip and pulling her sweet girl close to her. She pictured pressing her face into her sweet, scented hair and Cora's soft sigh of contentment at their closeness.

Margo's mind began to take this originally sweet moment of imagination and push it in another direction. Margo groaned feeling herself becoming aroused. She just wanted to hold Cora. Was that so much to ask for? Apparently, it was because she would not be given the luxury for whoever knew how long. Margo's soulmate wasn't far away, just a few floors, but she might as well be on the moon. That was how inaccessible Cora was to her right now.

It wasn't even that they couldn't see each other or possibly even be together. It was that every interaction brought them closer to disaster. Either by others finding out about Cora and coming for her to get to Margo or by repeatedly tempting the vampire. Margo could never forget that she was an ancient monster that was ruled by instinct.

Instinct said they must claim what was theirs and keep it safe beside them. Every interaction brought them one step closer to that inevitable day when instinct overrode rationality and demanded Cora's turn. Once the process started it could not be undone.

Margo stared at Cora sleeping peacefully in the window on her laptop monitor. She would rather have been lying with Cora in her arms, but this was helping to soothe her and for tonight that was enough.

"Goodnight my sweet." Margo whispered before closing her eyes, eventually letting her mind rest.