I backed away like we were locked in some medieval scene where he was the bored king, and I was a joker who’d just recited thirty minutes of knock-knock jokes, keeping my eyes trained on his tie.
I kept going until the glass tube—and the vampire—were out of view. One more day of this torture and I was free. Relatively free. I’d still have to stay in the tower, but that wouldn’t be so bad with the better escape opportunity from working on Level 44.
Crap, was this how Stockholm Syndrome started?
“Thank fuck for that!” I tipped my head back as my shoulders sagged with the outpouring of tension. The heat drained away, but the ache between my thighs? That was there for good.
Great.
A few of the nearest Vissimo females laughed quietly at my fervent outburst. Some shot me flat looks too. I pursed my lips as I contemplated their underlying animosity.
Was it because they fancied Kyros for themselves? They could have him.
Maybe it’s a superior race complex.
A woman to my left muttered to a vampire on her left. “My Heart Will Go On.”
Oh, right. The karaoke.
I coughed. “I apologise for the singing. I didn’t realise how good your hearing was. I’m going through some stuff…”
I fidgeted on the spot before catching a small smile from a rock-goddess brunette with the biggest blue eyes I’d ever seen.
“You’re in the thrall,” she commented, lifting a shoulder.
And that meant what exactly?
I soldiered on. “In my opinion, I captured the essence of Celine Dion perfectly in the second verse.”
A couple cracked smiles. Some of their expressions were downright adoring which seemed kind of strange.
… I’d still take it as a win.
A tiny win.
Which had to be another Stockholm thing because who was I kidding? I was ducked with a capital D.
15
“Do humans usually sleep on the floor next to photocopiers?”
I nuzzled into the surface under my cheek and frowned. Why was it so hard? I didn’t like it.
“It is night-time for humans, sir.”
The voice belonged to Frangelico. Mmm, loved that smooth hazelnut liquor.
I dragged myself upright. “One cupcake shot, please.”
Through bleary eyes, I squinted at a group of the most incredible specimens this world had to offer. They loomed over me. One of the women looked like she could sing flowers into existence and one of the men could probably flatten a village with a flex of his biceps.
“Spare the villagers,” I slurred, jabbing a finger in his direction.
A blonde in a pantsuit folded her arms. “What’s she saying?”
“I have no idea,” Angelica said, tapping her trembling bottom lip.
“I’m onto you, Frangelico.” I propped a hand against the wall.
I lifted my other hand to the wall on the other side. Felt different. I glared at the grey plastic.
A photocopier?
I was in a narrow corner space between a photocopier and a wall.
What the hell?
My mouth bobbed as I remembered waiting for Angelica. The level had been in so much chaos, I’d stood in this corner. Then sat. Then fallen asleep.
Ugh.
Rubbing my eyes, I threw off the remnants of sleep.
“Cute, isn’t she?” a woman chimed. “Like a kitten.”
“You can’t have one,” a man answered in silken tones.
The pantsuit woman cut off their conversation. “I still want to know what she was saying before.”
“Frangelico is an ingredient in a cupcake shot,” a man with jet-black hair said.
I knew him. And the guy with the shaved head. They were acting as Kyros’s bodyguards during his thrall. Were they his brothers too, perhaps?
“But why should Neelan spare the villagers?” Pantsuit asked.
She wasn’t the first to try deciphering my delirious just-woke-up ramblings. I’d said the words and had no idea what they meant.
“I fell asleep,” I declared gravely as I tried to claw my way up the wall. No easy task in a pencil skirt. Shit, half of my blouse buttons were undone. When did that happen? I only undid two of them earlier.
Cheap, crappy Jamieson clothing!
“Here, let me help you,” a man purred.
Accepting defeat, I took his hand. What were the odds I could get my blouse buttons fastened without anyone noticing?
Without any vampires noticing.
A sudden heat shoved the thought aside, burning away the last dregs of sleep.
“Kyros is coming closer,” I gasped, digging my nails into the stranger’s thick forearm.
My head snapped up to meet Kyros’s gaze no more than fifteen metres away. His eyes were riveted on where I clutched the male Vissimo’s arm.
“Get away from me,” I breathed.
Slowly releasing the man, I edged away until my butt hit the back wall of my corner.
“Wise move,” the man muttered, snorting.
That was about the last thing I’d do if Kyros was looking at me with murder on his mind. This guy had a death wish.
“He really has lost his head,” Pantsuit announced, crossing her arms and surveying Kyros. “I didn’t think it possible.”
Jet Black replied, “Told you so.”
“You’re one hundred and twenty, Gerome,” she snarled. “Quit saying told you so.”
“You’re late.” Kyros hissed the words, stalking closer. A pitiful whine slipped between my teeth as the fire ramped up a notch.
My body hadn’t forgotten our early encounter, and the fire was borderline painful.
But I had nowhere to go. I was literally backed into a corner.
The one with the shaved head, Lionel, ignored his brother. “Don’t you find it fascinating that she doesn’t want him? Usually it’s the other way around.”
“His last compulsion was thirty years ago though,” Gerome said. “And with a vampire. Perhaps that’s it. He has the hots for humans.”
The others grinned.
“She’s had a lot to process in the last few days,” Angelica interrupted, frowning at the vampires.
No kidding. Angelica seemed to have forgotten she was a massive part of that shitstorm.
“Please take this talk somewhere else,” I panted at them. “And take Kyros with you. Now.”
“Did she just give eight members of the royal family an order?” an auburn beauty asked, tossing daggers with her blue gaze.
I closed my eyes briefly.
These were Kyros’s siblings. All eight of them? Of course they were. Because the world was playing a fucking endless joke on me.
Suddenly, their bickering made perfect sense.
“She said please, but it was definitely a command. Are you used to ordering people around, little woman?” The closest male who’d helped me up was facing Kyros—perhaps not completely stupid after all.
I glared at him. “I’m hardly little—”
My knees shook as I really looked at his face. I gasped, tracing over the flawless beauty of his features. Two ocean eyes burned out at me from beneath sandy locks. The waves had a slight flick at the ends—the kind that made half the heterosexual female population long to run their hands through the waves and the rest want to take a pair of scissors to cut a few centimetres away.
My thoughts exactly echoed those I’d had nearly five years ago when I first met him.
It was Business Guy! Fuck.
I’d recognise him in a dark room.
Every scrap of bitter embarrassment I’d experienced the night he rejected me at the opening ceremony pushed forward. I was going to die of mortification on the spot.
How was he even here? And a vampire?
My cheeks flamed as surely as I was seventeen again and left without a partner in the middle of the dance floor, posed to kiss with my eyes closed.
Ugh.
“What’s going on with her?�
� Pantsuit asked. “Her heart just went into overdrive.”
The man frowned at me. “Do I know you?”
“Nope,” I blurted, fidgeting on the spot.
Kill me now.
“Is she attracted to Rory? Jesus, I think she is,” Lionel said, choking on a laugh. “You’re screwed, bro.”
They were the last words anyone uttered.
A roar rent the air.
I turned from the figure of my teenage embarrassment to Kyros just in time to witness as he shifted his weight to rest on the balls of his expensive business shoes.
My fate was tied to Rory’s. He was too close!
Lunging forward, I shoved Rory out of my corner, surprised when the vampire stumbled away.
I should leap out of the tight space too. The thought came a split second too late. Panic had me in its grip, and I jumped back in the nook, pressing myself against the wall.
I screamed as Kyros appeared, slamming his hands against the walls either side of my head. He gnashed his fangs inches from my face, but fear slid from my body, a white-hot burning covering my frame like a gold guild.
We reached for each other.
My blouse was already half undone and he ripped it clean off my body. I jolted as though he’d electrocuted me. Foreign hands gripped at his arms, and Kyros whirled in a blur, lashing out with a hand clawed.
I needed him.
“Kyros,” I panted.
He tossed me over his shoulder, and the air left my lungs as he jumped.
Faces blurred beneath us, and then he was landing, knees bending slightly, already swinging me upright.
I stumbled, but desperation sharpened my balance.
Hands working overtime, I yanked at his tight waistcoat. I only managed to send one button flying before he took over. His hands blurred as he moved between his clothing and my pencil skirt, tearing them to shreds
“Brother,” someone shouted.
“Are you seriously trying to reason with him right now, Lionel?” A female.
I didn’t care—as long as she didn’t come near Kyros. If she did, I’d tear her face off.
A terrible low growl trembled in his chest, the carnal sound a deadly siren call. I pressed my body against his, slipping my leg between the vampire’s thighs.
His terrible snarl cut off, and we moaned at the same time.
In sync, I wrapped my legs around his hips as he lifted me. One large hand supported me under the ass, his other hand splaying over my shoulder blades as he lowered his hot mouth to my breasts.
“Kyros?” I said uncertainly as he ground into my core.
His green eyes flashed down to mine.
I was feeling too much. I was afraid. The flames would consume me. They were consuming me.
“One... two... three!” a voice boomed.
Four pairs of hands grabbed at Kyros, wrenching him backward. Caged in his arms, I went flying with him. Still, I could feel only lust when his fangs descended mere inches from my face.
Kyros flipped us and landed lightly, setting me gently on the ground before blurring away.
Other arms clamped around me.
The person ran, cradling my body close to theirs. I kicked and screamed, but as the woman ran, my urge to escape steadily dwindled. My trembling legs stopped quivering, and my gasping pants slowed to steady breaths as the heat drained from my lower stomach.
The cold longing that filled the empty space was so strong it resembled a cramp.
That was nothing but the bitter, bitter cold filling my mind as awareness returned.
I was set on my feet and swayed on the spot, just managing to stay upright. I threaded my hands through the hair at either temple as the dizziness from the blurry piggy-back ride faded.
Sound blasted through the level—ripping snarls from Kyros, and a few yelling voices that I couldn’t place. That noise was just audible over the swelling murmur of hundreds of people.
… No.
Please no.
Please tell me everyone wasn’t still here.
I peered down the length of my naked body. Only my skirt remained. Well, the waistband. The skirt itself hung in one long piece over my butt like a tail.
We’d lost control.
Kyros had attacked Rory. My hands shook, and I slid them free of my hair, lowering my arms to my sides.
I lifted my chin to look at the crowd of Vissimo on Level 66.
Stations had been thrown everywhere. Monitors and keyboards lay upended and papers littered the ground. The workers seemed torn between watching me and the crashing at my back—Kyros’s doing, I assumed.
When the onlookers caught sight of me standing there, more and more seemed to decide I offered the better odds of entertainment.
Sickly embarrassment trickled through me in an oozing roll, and the instinctual fear that mass numbers of Vissimo caused began to mount within me.
“Okay. We believe you now, Gerome,” the woman behind me said. She’d carried me away from Kyros.
It was the snobby auburn one.
Then her words slammed into me.
This was a fucking set up?
Molten rage mixed with my mortification and fear, and a burning set in behind my eyes. I swallowed hard as Kyros’s snapping faded.
God, we’d ripped off each other’s clothes in front of all these people.
And his siblings orchestrated it.
I couldn’t look at him.
Reaching behind, I undid the zipper of my skirt’s remains and let the garment fall to the floor. Sometimes the only way to get out of the mess was to go further into it.
I kicked the shredded skirt aside with no idea where my blouse was.
Keeping my chin raised, I scanned the Vissimo before me. I was standing by the elevator at least. I didn’t know where Kyros had carried us or how far Auburn ran with me after, but my exit point was close.
I was buck naked in front of hundreds of creatures with fangs, and I’d come face-to-face with the person from the most embarrassing memory of my teens. Yet as I stood humiliated in front of an entire clan of Vissimo, my only crushing, bitter thought was that I could never escape this place. Or Ingenium.
I’d left one game and joined the master edition through sheer stupidity.
Anger exploded in my chest, scratching at the swirling cavern of mortification and fear and lust until it mastered them.
I scowled at the gathered vampires, and in an icy voice I’d never used but heard many times, I said, “Don’t you all have work to do?”
Hint: It was a rhetorical question.
The lot of them scrambled, and I could only silently congratulate their wisdom in not hesitating. Holding onto my fury, I pivoted to face the group consisting of Kyros, his eight siblings, and Angelica.
Angelica.
I fixed my gaze on her first.
The slight smile on her face faded at my condemning look. I let her see my humiliation, my confusion, and my devastation. With my narrowed eyes, I told her this was her fault. She brought me up here tonight—either to mess with Kyros herself or as part of his siblings’ game. She lured me here after apologising for the shit I’d gone through in the last week.
Which rendered her apology to less than worthless.
“Shame on you,” I said softly.
She hung her head, breaking eye contact.
I spun on my heel for the lift and pushed the call button.
Turning back, I sought out Kyros at last. Only anger allowed me to meet his eyes after what nearly happened. I’d happily tear off a man’s clothes in a private room with someone I’d chosen. Never in public like this. Not with him.
Never with him.
He stood in the midst of his four brothers—Gerome, Lionel, Rory, and Neelan. Honestly, I didn’t fucking care what any of their names were. Not after what they just did to me.
Kyros took a step forward. “Miss Tetley—”
“Stay where you are,” I demanded in the same icy voice.
He halted, not a snarl
in sight at my order.
“Good boy.” My survival instincts were out the proverbial window; every ambition to hide my hatred and make my escape easier was gone. So there was no voice of reason to stop me from showing Kyros just how much I loathed him. Not just for the twisted things he had done—for the twisted things those under his power had done too.
Every bit of it was his fault, and I didn’t hold a scrap of that sour hatred back.
Ding!
Funny how quickly that sound had switched from annoying to life-saving.
“Deal with your siblings.” I flung him another order.
Auburn opened her trap. “What did she just—?”
I clicked my fingers at her and she cut off. “Shut your mouth, Auburn.”
Pantsuit laughed. “I like her.”
Whatever.
“Someone get her some fucking clothes,” Kyros roared. He clamped his lips shut, breathing hard.
Man, I was so, so over this.
“She has an excellent body,” Rory said, tilting his head and smiling. “Her breasts are full and pert.”
“Bro,” Lionel whispered.
Rory’s quick peek at Kyros’s heaving shoulders was enough to shut him up.
I stepped into the elevator, pushing the button for level fifty, instead of sixty-one. This bitch needed wine and lots of it. Most of the Vissimo in the tower had already seen me naked. There would be a nude stroll to the cafeteria before I returned to my room.
Leaning against the back bar of the lift, I maintained my cool glare before ten shocked Vissimo faces.
“See you later, assholes,” I said.
I couldn’t even summon the energy to be concerned it was 9:20 a.m. and I was nursing a massive hangover at the same desk I’d been sleeping under before vampires existed.
Two and a half bottles of wine had seen to my current state. I hated wine hangovers—tiny demons were dancing a tango in my temples, I had the mouth dries, and my stomach ached from the acid overload.
I’d passed out yesterday afternoon after a full morning of drinking. I vaguely recollected having the bright drunken idea to just walk out of the tower at some point. I’d woken early this morning back in my bed, so I guess the idea never got to the action part.
Several hours of vomiting and a second exhausted sleep had led me to this moment
Blood Trial: Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers Book 1) Page 17