I squirmed on the bed as he reached for the bottom of my borrowed shirt. It had hiked high on my thighs. His tongue traced a line on my skin just beneath the hem.
My back arched and my legs bent, coiled with the surge of heat filling me. Kyros cupped my knees, helping me to lift them. He blurred into position between my legs and ground his erection into me.
I groaned at the rock-solid feel.
“My lust for you trumps anything I have felt before,” he said, breathing hard. “One hundred and forty-nine years teaches a being to welcome the new, not run from it. I would show you the meaning of ecstasy, Basilia. Believe me, fear of being overwhelmed would be the last thing on your mind.” His fangs descended. “Any more than you wish for it.”
My body quivered in our current position. Maybe this should happen. Maybe we should have sex before any blood swapping was looked into again.
Maybe this would cure everything.
Except that was fucking ludicrous. Kyros had slobbered on my thigh and given me the most erotic experience of my life. If we had sex, I’d be ruined for mortal men.
He leaned forward, grinding into my core again—before kissing me quickly.
“I need to shower,” he announced.
Huh? “Why?”
Weren’t we doing… each other?
“Because this will happen between us, Miss Tetley. Once you’re rid of human doubts.”
Human doubts. Really? What a cheap shot.
He lifted himself off, and I placed a foot in the middle of his chest to help him away.
Grinning, Kyros swiped up his discarded shirt, tie, and waistcoat, traipsing around a jutting segment of wall to where I’d found the bathroom earlier.
I catalogued the sight of his bare back, heat throbbing low within me.
The vampire had learned a few tricks over the decades and felt pretty proud of that from what I could tell. He was far too pleased with himself.
“My doubts are normal, not human,” I said sulkily, the heat in my belly furious at the change in plans. “Stupid Vissimo jerk.”
“I can hear you,” he called before the shower started.
I jolted and sniffed as I crept under the bed covers. “Good. Then I don’t have to wait to inform you that you’re sleeping on the fucking couch.”
28
I woke up groggy and warm.
An attempt to move my arms and legs proved futile and I panicked before recognising I’d wrapped myself in the bed cover.
Sometimes I formed midnight cocoons. Trussed up, I blew my hair out of my face and glanced behind.
Kyros had ignored my order to sleep on the couch and took up most of his oversized bed. He lay sprawled on his back, not a square inch of bed cover on him.
Oops.
But there were perks.
I swallowed at the sight of his grey cotton boxers and the bulge I could easily make out beneath them. Those muscular thighs of his were pretty nice as well. In fact, none of him wasn’t nice.
Crap, where were my grown-up words? None of him wasn’t nice. They’d gone down the drain with everything else.
With a grunt, I craned my head the other way, reading the white alarm clock. 12:00 p.m.
That explained my grogginess. This room was so dark it had messed up my normal wake up time.
Perving on the Vissimo beside me was tempting, but I was done with sleep.
I had things to do.
Kyros stirred when I returned from the shower wrapped in a towel. Part of me was surprised to find vampires could sleep that soundly. Or maybe he’d lain in tortuous wakefulness for hours like me last night—though his shower was long enough to suspect he’d done something about his libido before returning to bed.
“What are you doing?” he grumbled.
I studied the remains of my ballgown. “Trying to decide if the walk to my room will look worse if I go wrapped in this towel or if I borrow more of your clothes.” Both options seemed as bad as each other. Then again, I wasn’t likely to encounter anyone on my walk of externally perceived shame.
“Where are you going?” he snapped.
Sheesh. Grumpy much. “I’m going to work,” I said cheerfully, knowing that would annoy him most.
“It’s Sunday.”
“Like that stops any of you.”
“We’re Vissimo. You are human.”
Yeah, and this human fucked up yesterday and felt the urge to do something to right the situation. The roll landed Clan Sundulus on Blue. I had a ton of Blue properties in my trouble folder. And I had to ring the hospital to check on Rhys without further delay. Which I dreaded in no small measure.
Kyros rubbed his eyes. “Basilia, it’s your weekend.”
“Kyros, don’t think I haven’t noticed you using my name. Stop it. I’ve told you only my grandmother calls me that.”
“No, you said that only one person calls you that,” he replied.
Fuck. I had. And I just mentioned my grandmother.
I riffled through the drawers under the television, pulling on a pair of trackpants under my towel. Turned away, I dropped the towel, my back bare. Rolling the waistband of the pants several times, I found a long-sleeved merino number and pulled it on, turning back to Kyros.
“It’s Sunday,” he repeated huskily. “Go do human things. See your friends and family.”
I jerked violently at his words, and he stilled.
“No,” I said casually as my heart took off—something he couldn’t fail to notice. “I don’t want to.”
I had no family that I could visit without everyone finding out I was Basilia Le Spyre. Tommy hated me, and I had no other friends. Dammit, maybe guilt wasn’t the only reason I felt like working. I could easily forget misery when busy.
Kyros swung his legs over. “You’re not working today.”
“I am,” I snarled. “Why the fuck should that bother you? I work for you.”
He studied me in the dark. “My life is my job, and I don’t wish for it to become yours. You’re upset about your friend and using work to avoid thinking about it.”
The mention of Tommy was a knife in my heart.
Dragging in a ragged breath, I snatched up the tatters of my dress for no other reason than to have something in my arms. “I’m not talking about this with you.”
He paused. “She still loves you.”
Which meant he’d heard everything. No surprise there.
I strode for the door but slowed when I reached it. “I just thought it would take more than a couple of weeks of lies to destroy our friendship is all.” I’d thought nothing could break us.
“The stronger the friendship, the quicker it dissolves. Weaker friendships are willing to put up with more. There is bittersweet solace in that.”
Dissolve was all I heard. Like sugar in boiling water. That was me and Tommy. How did I let it get to this point?
I willed the burning behind my eyes away—away for good. I was sick of feeling so close to tears. It was almost as bad as actually letting the damn things fall.
Kyros’s voice was soft. “Why don’t you cry, Miss Tetley? You’ve gone through more than most will in a lifetime in the last few weeks.”
The question was nearly my undoing.
I balled the gown in my hands tight, letting my nails dig into my palms through the material. “I’ll take Laurel with me. More if she thinks it necessary. That okay?”
The vampire didn’t move from his position perched on the side of the bed.
Seconds, each heavier than the last, stretched between us before he sighed. “Yes, that’s fine. Fyrlia won’t try anything. It’s their roll tonight.”
“Good,” I whispered, wrenching open the door.
“She’ll come back to you,” he called just before I pulled the door closed.
So what if she did give me another shot? I was tied to these creatures, to this tower, for the rest of my pitiful fucking life.
I leaned my forehead against the wall in the stairwell, knowing full well he co
uld hear me. I hated that my grief wasn’t private.
Tommy wouldn’t come back.
I’d pushed my best friend away, and there was a great reason for it. That’s what I had to remember.
No matter how fucking hard it was.
I’d had no luck with anyone in Blue. I had thirty trouble houses in that suburb and the occupants of the six I’d visited were either out for the day, on vacation without their teens, or had gates and weren’t answering their com.
Fucking rich people.
“I called the hospital while you were yelling into the com,” Laurel said, casting a look at the male Vissimo from last night who I’d learned was named Fernando.
Hearing his name had only reminded me of Fernando’s Eighth Ab and made me heartsick for Tommy.
I caught the Indebted’s steady gaze in the rear-view mirror. “Is he still here?”
“Yes, but he isn’t doing so well. The nurse I spoke to said he took a turn for the worse during the night.”
Blood pounded in my ears. Oh god. I did that to him. I put him in the hospital. He might not make it.
The Vissimo real estate agent said that if I didn’t back away from securing that house, he’d hurt people I cared about. I hunched forward. They could have hurt Tommy. Or my grandmother. Her chest could be caved in now.
“It’s not your fault,” Fernando said after sharing a look with Laurel.
She nodded. “He’s right.”
I didn’t argue. I knew differently. My actions that night were entirely selfish. I’d acted like a rebelling twenty-one-year-old. Acting that way with what I knew—and who knew of me—bordered on insanity. I would’ve never behaved that way if it meant danger to Tommy or my grandmother.
Rhys might pay with his life because I’d shoved aside danger for one night of normalcy.
Ignoring the churning in my gut, I straightened. “I need to go to the hospital.”
Silence met my words.
“… The hospital is on your blacklist,” Laurel replied.
“It’s what?”
“Kyros—”
Fury rocketed through me with a strength I’d never felt. I held up a hand. “Say no more. I’m going.”
Laurel’s cloak descended. “I’d be duty-bound to stop you. We both would.”
“Then how much to take me there?” I snapped at her. “You’re mercenaries, right?”
Their faces hardened and neither answered.
I scrubbed my face with both hands. “That was uncalled for and insensitive to your situation. I apologise sincerely.”
Laurel unlocked.
Fernando didn’t.
“Can I borrow a phone?” I added. “I’m going to yell at Kyros if that’s any reparation for what I just said.”
Fernando passed his phone over immediately.
You clearly don’t like Kyros.
His phone wasn’t all that much better than Beast.
“You got Snake on this thing?” I asked him. When he dipped his head, I asked, “High score?”
His dark-brown hair was cropped short. He was decked out in black leather like Laurel but seemed younger. Maybe more hopeful.
“Two thousand five hundred,” he said, grinning.
My jaw dropped. “You’re fucking with me?” Mine was two hundred and thirty.
Fernando lifted a shoulder. Like that high score was nothing. I was in the presence of a king.
“Mad respect,” I told him. “Do you have Kyros’s number?”
He took the phone back and pulled up the info. With a look at Laurel, he passed the phone back.
I snorted. Kyros was listed under D-bag. “Don’t worry, I won’t say a word. It’d bounce off his ego anyway.”
“I overheard talk that you spent the night in his private quarters,” the male Indebted blurted.
I eyed him, opening the door. “Yet you handed over your phone. So I won’t justify your question with a reply. You know things aren’t what they seem.”
Laurel whacked him on the shoulder, and he yelped.
Taking the conversation with Kyros outside the car was stupid, really. Like they wouldn’t hear everything anyway. But the distance made me feel better.
I checked the time—5:00 p.m.—Kyros would be awake.
Pressing the dial button, I gritted my teeth.
“What’s wrong?” he snarled over background murmuring.
Did his phone even ring before he answered? If that was how he greeted the Indebted, no wonder they had him listed under D-bag.
“Kyros,” I said sweetly.
The background murmurs cut off.
“… Basilia, one moment.”
I placed my free hand on my hip. “No, not Basilia. It’s Miss Tetley.”
“Are you hurt?”
I wouldn’t break the phone. Only because it wasn’t mine. “Why have you banned Laurel and Fernando from taking me to the hospital?”
“Because Clan Fyrlia could be watching the area.”
“Me visiting another male could only dispel their notions that there’s something between us. And how could they attack me in a hospital during the day?”
He didn’t make a peep.
“Of course, you could admit this has nothing to do with them watching me and everything to do with your fucking possessiveness.”
A growl reached me through the phone. “My Indebted have their orders. I will not alter them.”
Rhys was in ICU because of me. Did Kyros understand how fucking sick with worry and guilt I felt? I had to be there right now.
“I’ll be going anyway.” I pulled the phone away from my ear and held it to my mouth, shouting, “Asshole.”
I threw the phone as hard as I could.
It bounced across the ground, and I clapped both hands over my mouth. “Oh shit! That’s not Beast.”
After a hasty glance at Fernando—who definitely hadn’t missed my missile launch—I scuttled through a garden bed to retrieve his phone.
When I climbed into the car, Laurel had her phone glued to her ear.
She cut me a look in the rear-view mirror. “I believe she feels guilty about what happened to the human, sir. Yes. She is not herself. The male is unconscious and unlikely to live long.”
My eyes widened, and Laurel shook her head at me, her eyes glittering.
I passed Fernando’s phone over, mouthing “Sorry.” Luckily, there wasn’t any damage.
He snorted and pocketed the device.
Laurel spoke again. “Yes, sir. Of course. I’ll call in more of my team to sweep the area and control the perimeter.”
Because that wasn’t a huge sign to Clan Fyrlia. I folded my arms and slumped in my seat.
“Yes, sir. Here she is.”
Laurel stretched the phone back to me, and I sighed heavily before taking it.
“What?” I grumbled.
“Miss Tetley, what have I told you about my low tolerance for your mouth?”
I smirked. “Can’t recall. Did you have something to say, Kyros?”
Several moments passed during which I imagined him pinching the bridge of his nose. Maybe taking some Advil.
“You entered the car and heard the pertinent part. I want you to know that this concession is not easy for me. I’m doing this because it’s important to you.”
I pondered that. “You still hope I’ll say yes to the second blood thing.”
Laurel and Fernando stiffened in their seats.
I guess that was still a secret. From the Indebted at least—or maybe Kyros’s lair was soundproof.
“You’re already aware that I think it’s the best course of action. I don’t wish to discuss our personal matters over the phone. Go to the hospital. See this human. I’ll see you tonight.”
What? Why did I have to see him tonight?
A click told me he’d hung up.
Wordlessly, I passed Laurel’s phone back. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”
She shook her head, lips twitching. “You’ve got balls, Miss Tetley. Or v
agina.”
“Definitely vagina.” I studied her profile. “Thanks for calling him.”
She started the car and navigated us away from the house in Blue. “He called me.”
Dammit.
Why couldn’t he just be reasonable when I called him? Did he think I enjoyed losing my shit like that?
“Second blood exchange,” Laurel said casually as we reached an intersection.
Kyros didn’t want me to discuss personal matters. Laurel had to report to him, so any questions I asked her had to be with that in mind.
“Yeah,” I said after a beat. “Ever heard of it before?”
“Heard of it? Yes. Doesn’t happen very often these days.” Her hands gripped the wheel tight.
I stared at them. Her eyes were glittering again. Was she trying to tell me something? I caught Fernando’s subtle head shake her way. They knew something but couldn’t risk telling me?
“In your experience, why do people undertake a second blood exchange?” I hedged.
Laurel pulled onto the freeway and didn’t immediately answer. I tried to remain relaxed as her face worked.
“Our master knows why he’s doing it,” she said eventually.
I replayed her words. Our master knows why he is doing it. She usually called Kyros by his name when we were out of the tower. Was she purposefully reminding me of her position as an Indebted? If there was an unstated subtext to her words, that seemed like it…
Was Kyros enslaving me somehow?
“I hear you,” I told her, watching her hands and eyes.
They loosened, and she blinked a few times.
“I know the blood swaps can be a mating thing too,” I added.
Fernando jolted.
“It can,” he blurted. “That really only happens in the upper middle classes nowadays—those who aren’t rich enough to support a harem but hope to improve their family status sometimes combine wealth with another middle-class family through the mating ritual. Doing so comes at the risk of never having children, so it’s still unusual.”
Laurel hissed under her breath, and he snapped his mouth shut.
I wasn’t sure what to make of his explanation. Kyros was plenty rich. He’d openly told me humans and Vissimo weren’t compatible to reproduce. I even knew what I stood to lose if the mating drive didn’t disappear after the second thrall—my libido would get 10 percent stronger.
Blood Trial: Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers Book 1) Page 34