“Kitten is the wrong word for you,” he acknowledged.
Glad he’d caught up.
“Vixen is more accurate.”
That made me sound like a sexy, annoying person.
… I was okay with it.
He continued. “I’m glad you helped yourself in any case. I can’t say a woman in my clothing has ever done it for me, but you’re proving that wrong.”
Uh. Did he just compliment me on a whole other level? To my memory, most of his prior compliments were backhanded—or said with pity.
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. “Do you have water up here? I have the champagne dries.”
“I’ll get it.” The huge shadow that was Kyros stood.
As he moved farther into his lair, my eyes narrowed.
Kyros just offered to get me water. Without a dig at me drinking too much. Kyros. Not a word about my slight hangover or the man I’d intended to go home with last night. I’d expected a lecture and more rules—and to have to talk him around about Rory and Laurel.
Yet he hadn’t.
He’d grinned at least once and complimented me twice—if the vixen thing could be lumped in there.
I swung my legs over the side, grimacing at the pain in my hip, and reached over to flick on the lamp. Where was the switch?
“Bedside light on,” Kyros said.
The hanging lamp flared to life.
I bit back a groan. Of course his lair was ultra-modern. He had super speed and couldn’t be bothered to flick a damn switch.
Blinking rapidly against the burst of light, I accepted the glass of ice-cold water from him and two pills.
I glanced up at him.
“Pain medication. Your breath caught when you moved.”
Yep, something big was coming.
“What do you think?” he asked, returning to his chair. He kicked off his Freens, still in his suit.
I threw him a surreptitious look as I gulped back half the glass. Swallowing, I said, “About?”
“My lair.”
He’d deposited me unceremoniously several hours ago and I’d inspected his room immediately—I wasn’t perfect. The snooping left me disappointed if truth be told.
“The words cold and empty come to mind,” I answered.
Settling back in the couple-movie sofa again, he pondered my words. “I don’t like clutter.”
Sure, I got that. Marie Kondo got that too. But she also understood the need to spark joy with the possessions in your space. Where were the family pictures? Where were presents he’d received over the years? Cards. Ornaments. Hell, even paper and rubbish.
The space was minimalist. Contemporary. Beautiful.
Impersonal.
Bed. Bathroom. Drawers. Kitchenette. The warmest part of the room was the circle sofa which is why I’d gravitated there. Even Kyros did without realising why.
Don’t feel sorry for the vampire, Basi.
Darn it all. I did.
I felt sorry for a one-hundred-and-forty-nine-year-old fucking vampire. Because the softest part of his apartment—in the same building where he worked—was a sofa he liked to sit on before bed.
“I see.” I settled on, shoving down my honest opinion.
He tapped a finger on the side of the couch—which he filled. There wasn’t any room for me. I’d be squeezed in either side or more likely elect to sit on the floor. Squeezed in. That’s what was wrong with the tension between us.
If each year added to my life distanced me from the bond I’d shared with my parents, then the opposite was true with regards to Kyros. I’d lived for a fraction of his life and known him a tiny blip of that. How could what lay between us mean or amount to anything ever?
Over a century and a half of living lay between us.
“Out with it,” I told him wearily, guzzling the rest of my water.
Kyros raised his head.
“You’re buttering me up for something. Spit it out.” I’d come up blank. Not surprising in this shitshow.
His lips twitched and he rested back, tapping his finger on the curved armrest again. “I came back an hour early because my seconds, several of my teams, and my siblings have raised concerns that our situation poses a moderate threat to the smooth running of Ingenium.”
Our situation. The temptation to scoff was real.
“More specifically, my… lack of focus.”
Phew. I imagine Kyros received that feedback with all the happiness of a grizzly bear recently woken from hibernation. “Right. Your response?”
He cast me a flat look.
“Thought as much,” I said. “But you know what I meant. You must have listened to them. That’s why you’re here and not on Level 66.” My hand inched up to my throat. “Holy fuck, are you going to kill me after all?”
Darkness flittered over his face. He stood in a blur, scowl firmly in place. “I’m not going to kill you, Basilia. Why would you say something like that?”
Uh, a lot of reasons.
I lifted a shoulder. “Wouldn’t it solve your problems?”
He shoved both hands in his pockets and tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling. “No, Miss Tetley. It would not solve my problem.”
I brightened. “Oh good.”
“Something needs to be done. Distance has not worked. Ignoring you was fucking pointless.”
From our conversation over dinner, I knew there was another option. “You want to drink from me again.”
Kyros sighed. “No, I want to exchange blood with you again.”
He was 200 percent out of his mind. Wasn’t that just another blood compulsion? That’s what got us into this mess!
I surged to my feet, crossing my arms. “No. Nope. Never again.”
“There are cases like ours where—”
Balling my fists, I rounded on him. “Cases like ours. Tell me straight, Kyros. You owe me three honest answers from dinner the other night. I’m calling one of them in. Why the fuck is this happening to us and what are the implications?”
He’d evaded the same question so many times prior that I had zero expectation of receiving an answer.
The vampire put the round sofa between us, leaning forward on it. He cursed under his breath, lifting his gaze to mine. “It means, Miss Tetley—”
Shit, I was getting an explanation?
“—that for reasons unfathomable, my blood considers you a potential mate.”
Mate, mate, mate.
The word bounced around his cold, empty lair.
Mate.
I gulped audibly. This seemed like bad territory to be in. I lumped the word mate in with irreversible matrimony. “Like dogs or something?”
Kyros didn’t laugh. His face was as solemn as I’d seen it.
“If we’re going with animal analogies,” he replied, “then much more like ducks.”
I didn’t know what that meant. Did ducks do one-night stands? Maybe there was hope. “What does that mean?”
“It means I want to drink your blood and fuck you forever. Potentially. If two people’s blood is compatible, the initial drive appears after the first blood exchange but can recede after the second and third exchanges. If the drive is still there after that, we’re a true match.”
The scraps of my hope evaporated.
I was human though! And— “How can it be that your clan knows so little about this? Or have you just strung me along pretending not to know what’s going on? Mates can’t be that rare. Can they?”
Kyros’s shoulders relaxed. Whoa, he should not take my question as a sign I was okay with this conversation.
“We rarely mate,” he said. “With our need for harems to boost reproduction rates, mating causes unnecessary complications.”
If his behaviour was anything to go by, I could imagine. “So there’s a good chance the mating drive will disappear if we share blood again?” I pressed.
He nodded.
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Kyros, I know I called in one of my three questions,
but I still don’t know if you’re lying to me or not, and I really need to know if you’re telling the truth.”
If Kyros’s yearning for me disappeared, half my problems could be solved—the more life-threatening half of my problems too. The other clan would lose interest once they heard Kyros had tired of me. Maybe we could leak rumours about another woman. More importantly, Kyros wouldn’t track my movements so closely. He may even let me leave the tower to rent somewhere. Escape would be that much easier.
He closed the space between us and towered over me. “I believe this is the answer to our issue or I wouldn’t be here.”
That didn’t cut it. “What happens if a second blood swap doesn’t work?”
He fidgeted. “We’ll be the same, just more intense.”
I glared at him. “That’s the secretive shit I’m talking about! How intense?”
“Around 10 percent more.”
How the fuck could he know that but not know if this would get rid of the mating call? My chest rose as questions flooded my mind.
Eyes wide, I glanced up at Kyros.
“Basilia,” he said, stepping closer. “It will be okay. This is the best course of action. I swear it.”
That was just it though. I didn’t know him. Him swearing anything meant jack shit.
“I only have your word for that,” I whispered. “I have none of the facts. You’re either purposefully obtuse with the exact details, or it doesn’t occur to you what I am ignorant of. And I suspect the former.”
“We need to do something.” His jaw clenched. “The situation is too volatile. It’s affecting the game.”
The game. “What about my life, Kyros? What about yours? Is the game everything to you?” I asked, ripping my arms free of his grip.
“Yes.”
“That’s so fucking sad,” I told him.
His eyes flashed and he crowded me. “You know nothing of why I play the game.”
Angelica had filled me in on Level 66. “Your clan would become part Clan Fyrlia if your family loses.”
He regarded me and said, “The working Vissimo in our clan, yes. But not the royal family.”
I stared at him. “What happens to your family?”
“Execution.” He turned away, shoulders and back rigid.
Execution.
Fuck. “All of you?”
He didn’t turn back. “All of them. My sisters. My brothers. Everyone with a blood connection to my father will die. Only my mother and I will live—to join their clan also. If we win, the same will happen to Clan Fyrlia.”
My throat worked.
That put a different spin on his addiction to the game. “I see.”
“Do you?”
I didn’t let his sarcastic tone rile me. “My parents died when I was nine, Kyros. So yes, this orphan understands loss—traumatic loss.”
“How did they die?” Kyros faced me.
Craning to look at him hurt my neck, so I studied the bottom of his waistcoat.
I pursed my lips. “Crash.”
I had a feeling mentioning it was in their private helicopter and over the Maldives could raise uncomfortable questions.
He opened his mouth, and I shot in, not eager to answer more personal questions or hear his apology for something he hadn’t caused. My parents’ deaths weren’t anyone’s fault. Shit things just happened.
“Is it fair to say that everything you do is for the game to protect your family?”
I would attempt to move the fucking sky if in the same position. Especially if I had to live on.
His answer startled me. “It is.”
I’d known the game was everything to him, just not exactly why. “Then the answer is no. I won’t agree to a second blood swap. I don’t know what it will do to me. Or you. I do know that I’ll have to survive the thrall again.”
“There will be proper precautions in place this time. There won’t be a repeat of what happened last time.”
My muscles coiled with the unchecked nerves and energy coursing through my body. I stood again. “Why are you talking as though it’s happening? It’s not.”
Kyros stepped closer, eliminating the space between us.
I stared at his waistcoat, pressed my hand against his stomach to stop him. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer, pushing me gently. I bounced flat onto the bed. He blurred down on top of me, hovering above.
“Kyros—”
“Do you feel that, Basilia?” he murmured, drawing his nose up to my temple.
Did I ever. Pure heat coursed through me.
I breathed hard underneath him, hands poised to shove him away. Or to pull him closer.
His furious gaze met mine. “Do you feel it?”
The crackling between us was akin to anxiety. Desperation itched in my fingertips. In my toes. It wanted to get out. It wanted Kyros. I’d battled this since first sipping his blood.
“Yes.” I choked.
His meadow gaze flared as his control slipped. “Can you live like this?”
“I want it to go away,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut against his bright gaze. Against his nearness. A pointless endeavour.
“That’s what I thought.” The bed dipped down as Kyros moved off me to sit on the edge.
Opening my eyes, I studied his back. “I can’t take 10 percent more of whatever this is between us. There are things you’re withholding. If you were me, would you leap for the opportunity?”
Kyros stared straight ahead. “It’s unlikely you’re my true mate. I’ve told you humans are incompatible with us. They don’t survive a long-term relationship and our kinds can’t reproduce together.”
Was that meant to convince me?
“There’s a greater possibility this plan will succeed than fail is what I’m saying,” he finished. “I’m in the game of probability, and that’s enough for me to continue. But you’re right. There is something more you deserve to know.”
I tensed.
“Clan Fyrlia is aware of your existence now. I only put basic restrictions on your mind in the first compulsion. I’ll need to place more during the second exchange in case they get a hold of you.”
I sat, ears buzzing. “More? I haven’t done anything wrong. You said you’d only do that if I fucked up. I haven’t fucked up, Kyros. I’ve done everything you said.”
My breath came in ragged bursts. This couldn’t happen. I didn’t want him controlling me like that. Or anyone. Not with their eyes. Not with blood.
It took a while to notice Kyros was watching me, his expression carved from stone.
“You still fear me so.” The words were low. He broke off, and the only sound was my fear-filled breaths. “I’ve tried to rid you of fear. You hide it so well, I’d started to think… Yet disgust fills your eyes.”
Could he blame me? Not that his words were entirely true. He wasn’t a monster. I hadn’t seen him that way for a week or more. But fear? Yes. In spades. “You expect me to rise above my base instincts? Weren’t you arguing against that before?”
“Such a thing is impossible for any creature in the presence of its predator. I just know that when you look at me like that, I want to fucking kill someone.”
He cared what I thought of him? Or was it the lack of control over his response that bothered him?
“This is new to me,” Kyros admitted.
I had to understand one particular point because we weren’t on the same wavelength. There were a lot of reasons for that, but there was something I needed to understand right now. “Kyros. Do you want this connection between us?”
He inhaled.
I bounced off the bed and padded around to study him. His head still came to the level of my chest. “Do you?”
“I’m not in my right mind,” he replied. “Everything is telling me to drink from you and force my blood down your throat; to lock you up here, naked, for days on end. So yes, I want this. If I was lucid? No idea. I haven’t been lucid for weeks.”
Right. �
��That’s about what I feel too,” I said heavily. At his surprised look, I scoffed. “You know I’m attracted to you.”
“I know you view that attraction with fear.”
I released a pent-up breath, fists curling as I spoke words I’d rather keep inside. “It’s overwhelming. I’ve never been so overwhelmed in my life. Ever.” Disbelief tinged my words. “When I’m in your presence, I can’t think of anything else. I hate that. Because it’s not real. It’s Vissimo voodoo.”
Kyros’s eyes glinted, his focus shifting to my breasts.
I scowled at him. “That wasn’t encouragement.”
The vampire reached up and loosened his tie.
My mouth dried. What was he doing?
His fingers went to the buttons on his sleeves next. Throwing his tie to the ground, he started on his top shirt buttons.
“Not that I disapprove, but should I put music on for you?” I asked drily.
He arched a brow. “It’s time to sleep.”
Uhm.
“Weren’t we having a conversation.”
“I asked a question. You said no.”
He pulled his shirt overhead, not stopping to undo the lower buttons. Holy hormones in my motherfucking ovaries. Or whatever body temple the holiest of hormones lived in. Kyros removing his shirt was no mortal sight. It was a looping GIF I needed to deposit in my wank bank without delay.
“To be clear, I said no to the blood swap,” I whispered as his hand moved to his pants.
He popped the top button, pausing. “You did. I’ll think of something else.”
Okay, but what about no-strings sex?
His hand moved away from the zipper. I looked at him in outrage that only swelled when I caught sight of his smirk.
I shoved his shoulder and flopped on the bed beside him, snapping, “That was really mean. I can’t help it.”
“I could help it.”
“I know,” I said huskily. God, could he help.
Large, warm hands slid up my thighs and I choked on thin air. Kyros’s lips trailed in the wake of his palms, and I froze. Utterly.
Mother of Zeus.
“Smooth,” he murmured against my golden skin. “And so fragile.”
My heartbeat ratcheted. “Kyros?”
Blood Trial: Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers Book 1) Page 33