Blood Trial: Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers Book 1)

by Kelly St Clare

  Crap, Laurel was about to be minus a head.

  “Rory,” I blurted.

  Kyros froze.

  “I went to a social function with Rory,” I said, lifting my eyes as high as I dared. “I can tell you about it upstairs.”

  His heaving pants were smoothing out into normal breaths. Kyros was calming down.

  I snuck a peek up and froze.

  Not calm. Not calm.

  He took hold of my other wrist. The dress fell away, but his eyes didn’t follow its descent or look to what was revealed. “I need. Fuck, I need—”

  Most of me didn’t want to know what he needed. But I didn’t want to see him made the fool. Colour me surprised after all that he’d done, but I didn’t.

  I stepped into his arms and rested my head against his chest. “Let’s go upstairs, Kyros.”

  He stilled.

  It wasn’t his don’t tell me what to do warning. It wasn’t even a I don’t get hugs confusion.

  Kyros went predatorily still.

  “Miss Tetley, back away now,” Laurel called softly.

  I turned to glance at the pale-faced vampire.

  What was happening?

  Kyros lowered his nose to my neck, features as hard as stone. He sniffed up the length of my neck. Up both sides.

  Those fuckers had done the equivalent of a dog pissing on a plant if I interpreted his expression correctly.

  His fangs descended.

  Shit! “They didn’t touch me, Kyros. I swear. Only tore my dress and made me smell like them.”

  The vampire lowered his mouth to my neck.

  “They only did it to get to you, dumbass,” I said, kicking him in the shin. With heels on, it had the force of a newborn Jackie Chan.

  My diplomatic words stopped the teeth slicing into my neck.

  “I’m so angry,” he whispered against the side of my skull.

  Yeah, yeah. I was in trouble. Were his fangs still out?

  He gathered me against him, one of his hands cupping the base of my skull, his fingers tangling in the waves of my hair.

  “Your hair smells like me,” Kyros murmured.

  Oh… great. Good. That was perfect. My dream in life was to smell like a fucking bouquet for him.

  I jerked as he hoisted me up to cradle me in his arms.

  Ouch, his pelvis wasn’t so good for my sore hip right now. I gripped the front of his shirt as he started for the elevator.

  Please not the stairs. I wasn’t sure my hip could take it.

  I peeked at Laurel over his shoulder, who—bless her behind—seemed genuinely ready to intervene and save me.

  Car-throwing Kyros was a new one for me. This Kyros’s behaviour seemed like desperation layered on possessiveness. I didn’t feel unsafe with him right now.

  “Have the night off,” I sang to the four Indebted in front of the black SUV. “With double pay for your earlier deeds.”

  Kyros didn’t stop, snarling over his shoulder, “I’ll expect a report in one hour, including details of how my brother’s orders somehow superseded my own tonight.”

  Pure malice filled his voice. Sounded like I’d spend that hour smoothing things over for Laurel. Which was the least I could do.

  The elevator arrived, and we fell into silence as the doors closed.

  I fidgeted in his arms, my hip throbbing like a bitch.

  “Stay still,” he snapped.

  “My hip is sore,” I admitted.

  I squeaked as he spun me around so my other hip was pressed against him. Glaring, I tipped my head forward and flung my hair back off my face.

  His gaze lowered to my chest. And remained.

  “Kyros, you’re welcome to look because I’m too tired to pull up the dress, but I’ll karate chop you in your throat if you get handsy.”

  Ding!

  He took off, kicking his way into his office a second later. This time, he had the sense not to place me in the torture chair. He didn’t place me in anything. I exchanged a glance with the other vampires in the room. Angelica and three minions I didn’t recognise.

  Kyros spoke too rapidly for me to understand, and soon two of the screens mounted around the room flickered to life.

  One showed an empty office room.

  The other, a street I’d recently stood upon.

  I patted Kyros’s front for him to let me down. He disobliged. So I watched from his arms as Rhys and I came into view.

  Ah, shit.

  Hopefully there wasn’t sound—

  “We’ll need to stop for condoms,” Rhys’s voice crackled through the monitor.

  I groaned, speaking loudly in an attempt to cover the rest of the conversation. “I’m only going to tell you about the attack because I was assaulted by your enemies. The rest of the night is my business and my business alone.”

  And someone could figure out how to stop the other clan from coming for me again.

  Rory was wrong. This wouldn’t be my life forever. Sure, it wasn’t normal right now, but one day it would be. I could have a normal existence with a human man like Rhys. I just had to figure all this out.

  Kyros ignored me. Everyone ignored me. They watched the CCTV—or their own personal city footage.

  I winced as the two Vissimo sandwiched me, recalling the feeling of their presence. I turned my face away.

  “Watch it, Basilia,” Kyros ordered. “Watch it all and learn.”

  Learn what? That monsters existed? That I’d made a mistake? That ship sailed weeks ago.

  I nevertheless obeyed the vibrating vampire holding me, gritting my teeth as an Indebted picked up Rhys and ran to a second car. Laurel collected me and once I was out of the way, the rest of the Indebted abandoned the fight.

  The screen turned black.

  “It’s the Tonyi triplets,” Angelica said. “Three of the royal children from Clan Fyrlia.”

  I was right. Triplets. That had to be some kind of miracle in the vampire world.

  I shivered. Three psychos.

  “Why is Rory not on the phone?” Kyros grated, squeezing me tighter.

  “Human in your arms,” I gasped, tapping him frantically.

  A growl slipped between his teeth, but he loosened his hold. What were the odds he’d set me on the office chair? I assumed next to none. “Would you like to hear what happened?”

  Green eyes bore into mine.

  He was angry. With me. With himself. Probably with his brother. It might have been easier to list who he wasn’t angry with.

  “I went to the party with Rory and left with someone else,” I said, not moving my gaze from his. “Rory and I made a deal. Laurel would follow, and I was to be left alone for the night. We were attacked—as you saw—on the way back to Rhys’s. They called me your little human before ripping my dress and leaving their saliva on my neck.”

  I watched him swallow, and through everything I was feeling, a strain of pity found its way to me. A vampire as old as him, struggling to control this reaction.

  I hurried on, my voice shaking. “How did they know I was there?”

  “Why were you with Rory?” His voice vibrated.

  I didn’t stop to roll my eyes at that. More and more, I was realising that asking these kinds of questions secretly killed him. Which was good because most of them he had no fucking right to ask. “He needed a human for a date to a social event. People are more likely to relax in his presence if a human is there.”

  “What did he offer you? Did he threaten you?”

  Damn, threatening was his second guess? That was kind of flattering. “Confidential.”

  “Kyros, Rory just answered. He’ll be here presently.”

  Great. “So it wasn’t Laurel’s fault.”

  “They allowed you to move without my knowledge.”

  I set my jaw. “Their orders are to accompany me when I leave the tower. Not to take me to a Kyros-approved location list.”

  “Basilia, I’m warning you that now is not the time to push me,” he replied calmly.
/>   I snapped my mouth shut, heeding his words.

  A different approach then.

  I pushed back a few strands of his toffee hair. “Please promise me you won’t punish them. It was my fault. I’ve learned my lesson.”

  He didn’t budge in response to my touch. “What lesson is that?”

  I lowered my hand to his chest, blinking a few times. “That I can’t have a normal life anymore.”

  Yet.

  At his continued staring, I angled my face away. “Can you put me down?”

  “Kyros,” Angelica piped up. “We have teams waiting to hear from you before they set plans in motion for tomorrow.”

  Oh crap! The dice roll. It was the middle of the night.

  My eyes narrowed. “That timing is way too suspicious. They’re fucking with you at a strategic time.”

  “Who’s fucking?”

  Rory’s face swam into view on the screen.

  I pulled up my dress.

  “Too late,” Rory said, grinning. “I saw them. That’s twice now.”

  His brows slammed together. “What happened?”

  Kyros strode to his office chair and placed me in it. I sighed, clasping my dress to me, and throwing my leg out. The pain in my hip subsided straightaway.

  I spun in the chair, so Kyros couldn’t see me and took the first semblance of a full breath I’d managed since seeing him.

  “Basilia was attacked by Fyrlia,” he said mildly. “The boy she was with is in critical condition.”

  I covered my mouth. He was?

  Opening my eyes, I caught Rory’s furtive peek my way.

  Don’t feel sorry for me yet, bucko. I dropped you in it.

  “Did you make a deal with Basilia and take her to a social function tonight?”

  Rory nodded, watching his brother closely.

  I wanted to do the same. Kyros was way too chill and that was freakin’ terrifying.

  “Did you allow her to go home with a human male, knowing what her intentions were?”

  Rory’s gaze dropped. “We made another deal.”

  Kyros turned away.

  “She bribed me with information.”

  That fucking swine! Though… I had. He’d dropped me in shit right back. I guessed we were even-stevens now.

  Kyros kept his back to his brother. “You let me down, Rory.”

  He flushed. “I went too far, perhaps. I didn’t know she’d be attacked. I made sure Laurel took extra guards.”

  “You knew she was attacked last week,” Kyros roared, spinning to the screen.

  I covered my ears, squeezing my eyes closed until the echoes in the office subsided.

  “I didn’t take my brother for an idiot,” he finished, pacing again.

  The boom of Kyros’s agitated footsteps was the only sound, until Rory replied, “Brother, I admit fault. But I want you to know that I only treasure one thing in this world. Miss Tetley’s information helped to protect our family tonight. We avoided what could have been a catastrophic deal because of her observation skills.”

  Catastrophic? Really? The deal was that big?

  “I’m surprised to hear you value anything more than yourself,” Kyros responded, slamming a finger down on the keyboard to my right.

  The screen went black.

  Eek. Kyros just hung up on his bro.

  “Sir, your father has called twice. We need his approval before we can launch today’s movements,” Angelica murmured.

  I didn’t just make mistakes nowadays. Someone was in hospital, I’d come between two brothers, and interrupted the dealings of an entire clan.

  I spun the chair around. “You can’t let them play you like this, Kyros.”

  “You’ve seen the depths to which my enemies will go,” he murmured, eyes glinting.

  No, my ignorance of his enemies made me afraid of them. I was no more afraid of them than I was when I had no idea what Kyros and this clan would do to me. A Vissimo was a Vissimo in my eyes.

  “What’s it gonna take for you to get your shit together and work like normal?” I asked him. Those fuckers attacked me and yet my guilty conscience had to make sure everything was fixed.

  Kyros glanced at the others.

  I squinted at them. Holy shit, were they pressed against the back wall? Someone needed to invent a Geiger counter for Kyros’s rage.

  Readjusting my grip on the top of my dress, I scanned everyone. “Well?”

  Kyros sighed, moving to the desk and flicking back a panel. His fingers blurred as he entered a combination that rivalled Mary Poppins’ Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. I wrenched to look left as the middle third of the stone wall parted in two, the sections swinging inward like—

  “Batman’s hidden lair,” I breathed.

  One of the vampires choked. He was one of the men from the first night when Kyros tortured me. When he paled, I didn’t have to guess why.

  I stood, wincing as my hip screamed. “Seriously, Kyros. A lair?”

  My lips twitched. His didn’t.

  Maybe I’d make fun of him in the morning.

  “What’s up there?” I asked.

  “That’s where you’ll wait,” Kyros answered. He swung me up into his arms.

  “I can walk, dammit.”

  “No, you can’t. You’re limping.”

  Semantics.

  “Is it your dungeon?” I asked, shifting higher in his arms.

  “It’s a solution,” Kyros replied, not looking at me.

  Fuck. That wasn’t reassuring whatsoever.

  I met Angelica’s gaze over his shoulder, eyes narrowing at the sight of her broad grin.

  27

  A hand stroked my cheek. “Basilia.”

  Mmm, rumbling. “Volcano,” I murmured, not shifting.

  The hand on my head stilled. “Volcano what?”

  The person should never stop stroking or talking. “Throat lozenges.”

  “I sound like a volcano and I need throat lozenges?”

  Duh.

  I complained as the man moved away, but he returned and slipped his arms underneath my back and thighs, lifting me.

  The slight jolt of his footsteps helped me to throw off delirium, and I squinted up at Kyros in the dark. Only his shadowed outline was visible, but lawd knew I’d studied his jawline enough to recognise it blindfolded. Which made about as much sense as me studying it in the first place.

  “What you here?” I slurred.

  “This is my room,” he answered after a beat. “Why were you sleeping on the sofa chair when the bed is right there?”

  His grip tightened.

  Sofa chair wasn’t a kind enough term for the cotton-candy happiness I fell asleep on. It was one of those big circle numbers that young couples wearing fluffy socks watched movies on—at least they did in the adverts.

  “Comfy,” I mumbled in reply.

  “You did look comfortable,” he said, depositing me on the bed. “Like a kitten.”

  I sank into the bed, sighing as I rolled onto my side and pulled a pillow in to hug. Maybe the bed wasn’t so bad either. “Panther.”

  “No,” Kyros said low, standing over me. “I meant a kitten.”

  Whatevs.

  “Time?” I said around a yawn, my eyes fluttering shut.

  “2:00 a.m.” His voice moved away with his footsteps.

  And he’d woken me? I hadn’t expected to sleep until Kyros returned from Level 66, actually. Guess I was wiped after being attacked and all.

  I opened my eyes a crack.

  He’d taken my spot on the sofa.

  “Is that the best spot to sleep?” I wouldn’t put it past the guy to move me and claim it.

  His teeth gleamed. “I sit for a while before sleeping.”

  I adjusted the pillow I was hugging and nuzzled into it—it smelt like him. This whole fucking place did. “You’re back from work early.” He didn’t finish until 3:30 a.m.

  “Yes.”

  Yes, what?

  My heart sank. “Are thin
gs really messed up?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “We got a late start today. Not ideal circumstances for our turn, but we’ve handled similar situations in the past. The whole clan will work overtime to ensure things come together.”

  Yep, things were screwed up. It wasn’t my fault the other clan attacked Rhys and me, but it sure felt that way. I’d been on a my life is still in my control bender. People got hurt because of it. Rhys might not be alive because of my actions. I opened my mouth to ask about him but snapped my mouth shut. That subject would push Kyros’s buttons, and I was too tired for that shit.

  “What was the roll today?” I said instead, trying to keep my eyes open.

  “Blue,” he answered shortly. “I see you found my clothes drawer.”

  I lifted the pillow to glance down at the black tee I’d pilfered. “Going to sleep in a torn gown didn’t appeal.” And stealing his clothes to see what his reaction would be did.

  “I should have offered you clothing. I was caught up by other things.”

  No kidding. “You hoped I’d still be half-naked if you didn’t.”

  His teeth gleamed in the dark, and I propped up on my elbow, jaw dropping. “Oh my god! You did.”

  His grin grew. The only bit of him I could clearly see. Could he see in the dark? Certainly better than me at any rate.

  I threw myself flat again, bouncing on the cloud bed. “Who thinks like that? Wait, don’t answer that. Someone who has played a game their entire life.”

  His grin remained. “You weren’t playing a game by going into my drawer and wearing my clothing?”

  That was different. I was having a laugh at his expense. Not setting him up to be naked in my lair.

  “No,” I told him. “I don’t play games.”

  “Everyone plays games, Basilia. We learn to manipulate from a young age. We just get better at hiding what we’re doing.”

  I considered that. “Yet if we see that’s how we’re behaving, shouldn’t we feel duty-bound to eliminate the fault?”

  His grin faded. “That would depend on whether we accept it as life or define our base nature as a fault at all.”

  “If Vissimo listened to their base natures, would there be any of you left?”

  His eyes gleamed, the meadow-green colour indistinguishable in the dark. “Only the powerful.”

  I swept hair off my face. “Well, maybe humans are more capable of greater growth in a short time because we don’t live as long.” I peeked through my lashes at him.