Glancing to where one of the triplets threw the cage, I whistled. “Looks like that dog house is ruined beyond repair.”
Perhaps I shouldn’t gloat too much.
Right now, I stood to the left of the panel. The trajectory from the door to me meant Kyros would miss the cleared space and petrol. If that was the trap.
Gina unlocked her tongue first. “Suddenly I see the appeal.”
Without shifting her eyes from my face, she snapped her fingers to the male who snatched me.
“Callum,” she said. “Sit her down. Watch her. She can’t get anywhere without help.”
… There was that.
“Vera, get a first aid kit. Her heart rate is erratic.”
Crap.
Dropping my eyes, I watched the dark blood seeping from my stomach. It wasn’t bright. Which meant it was venous blood, not arterial. That was the better of the two. Thank you, Truth Ranges.
The triplet let me go, shoving me toward the other Vissimo, who kicked a box into the place where the cage had been. Hands on my shoulders, Callum forced me to sit.
Dammit.
Back to the start. But I wasn’t in a cage anymore. One point to me.
The muted pop of gunfire sounded above our heads. As one, everyone glanced to the ceiling.
Breath catching, I squinted at a thick square groove on the ceiling directly above the cleared space before me. A wide track was carved out of the otherwise smooth surface.
I looked down. Then up again.
That had to mean something.
Gina lowered the phone from her ear, every trace of amusement gone.
She glanced at me. “He’s here.”
32
The door was ripped from its hinges.
Kyros stood in the buckled opening, which just admitted his towering frame. No more than five minutes could have passed since the first gunshot.
Five minutes was enough time to feel I’d lost crucial blood.
The vampires spread themselves throughout the room—not in an obvious funnel to the cleared space before me—but dotted at random in a manner I assumed was meant to mask the trap. The petrol had been moved away from the area before me as soon as the gunfire began.
Kyros’s shoulders heaved, and I got the sense the uncontrolled panting wasn’t from fatigue. An animalistic, ripping growl traversed the distance between us, and I shivered.
Kyros wasn’t home right now.
A leaden beat thrummed through the room for a moment as everyone stared at him with something akin to curiosity—as though wondering how the coming fight would go down.
“The space in front of me is the trap.” I spoke the words as fast as my mounting wooziness allowed.
He’d surely smell the petrol, so that would alert him to the burning threat.
“Shut her up,” a triplet snapped.
That’s right, asswipe. The little human figured your trap out.
Callum slapped me from behind. My head lolled from the blow, throbbing pain filling the left side of my face.
He returned his hand to my shoulder, holding me fast atop the box.
Don’t lose consciousness. Please.
I dragged in loud breaths, focusing on the furious snarls and crashing that had erupted around me.
Kyros had moved.
Attacked.
Opening my eyes, I fixed on my leather-clad stomach and thighs slick with my own blood before forcing my weary body to search for him.
Not hard.
I gasped as Kyros backhanded Gina. She was hurtled over my head, crashing against the concrete wall behind me.
He hadn’t been joking.
I’d never seen his power.
Not even close.
I could barely look at the dark creature cannoning through the basement. His eyes were beacons of green. His skin illuminated with unearthliness of a golden moon. Predatory power bulged his entire body, making his black shirt and pants strain to contain him.
My body trembled with distant fear despite the bone-wearing fatigue fast spreading through me. The vampires closest to me were glued to the action before us, tensed and ready.
Ten against one—what fucking cowards.
And they were still afraid of him.
Fierce pride swept through me. I had little concept of his power in comparison to others, but Kyros was a warrior.
I had to be a warrior too.
I had to get away from the cleared space. Something bad was meant to happen there, I was certain of that.
Pressing the heel of my palm into my dripping wound, I slumped where I sat atop the crate, pretending to lose consciousness. Callum’s grip shifted.
I threw my head back directly into his balls.
He howled, releasing me to cup his crown jewels.
I didn’t waste time, throwing myself forward to stagger through the midst of the battle in a drunken run.
Kyros was aware of me. He didn’t look my way but shifted to keep me in his peripherals.
I leaped for an open box, picking up the first object my blood-covered hands encountered.
Shit! It was a fucking drill!
“That was a mistake, bitch.”
A hand spun me and I shrieked, swinging my hands to cover my face.
Something stopped my right arm.
Callum grunted and jerked, and we both dropped our gaze to the drill bit stuck between his ribs. Oh my god.
I’d stabbed him with the power drill.
My fingers were wrapped around the handgrip.
In a daze, I squeezed the trigger.
The whir of the drill was lost to the Vissimo’s screams. His raw pain filled my ears—I’d never heard a man scream. Horror caught up, and I released the power drill.
The tool didn’t fall, wedged between his ribs, but Callum began to fall.
Not a stagger, not a slow descent to the knees. Before my eyes, his skin turned grey and his eyes black. His fingers clawed, stiffening with the rest of his body.
Like a wooden board, the vampire fell back, slamming onto the concrete floor like a toppled wardrobe.
Transfixed, I lifted my eyes to Kyros’s.
The fighting had stalled. Suspended in time by my actions.
Nine sets of furious Vissimo trained on me, and my knees gave way, my body caving to its terrified instincts.
I couldn’t deal with that on top of everything else.
I groaned, black spots filling my vision.
Kyros laughed, a cold sound, and called out, “Your brother is dead.”
The four vampires surrounding him launched at him. Fuck, I’d killed their brother. Someone would come for me.
I had to move.
The door out of here was metres away. Running for that would make sense.
Escaping.
Removing myself as Kyros’s weakness in the battle.
But taking one step required strength I no longer had.
Fuck!
A sob caught in my throat. I couldn’t make it.
My muscles were drained of energy. I offered no resistance when a vampire gripped my hair and dragged my head back, exposing my throat.
“Stop,” a woman ordered.
I blinked upward at Gina.
The crashing and roaring in the basement didn’t skip a beat.
A jagged edge was placed against my throat. “Immediately. She has one second to live.”
Whoa!
As though switched off, the chaotic frenzy froze.
“That’s better,” she purred.
I swallowed awkwardly as I swayed in her grip.
“Hurt her, eldest child, and I’ll kill everyone in this room,” Kyros said conversationally. “And I’ll leave you until last.”
“You cannot defeat everyone in this room, eldest child,” she retorted. “Even you are not that powerful.”
“You have no notion of how powerful I am, Princess Gina.”
She dragged me to the side, forcing me to scuttle on my knees or say goodbye to my scalp.
“You may be more powerful,” Gina answered. “But I match you for speed. You can’t stop me killing her unless you step two metres to your left.”
“Something happens with the roof over the panel,” I gurgled.
Gina chuckled, shaking me like a limp doll. “You chose a smart one, brother. I’ll admit she’s brave too. Would you like to keep your human?”
Brother?
Why was she calling him brother?
I retched violently, the situation undoing me at last.
“I’ll step into your cage,” Kyros mused. “In return, you’ll allow her to walk away unharmed.”
“Agreed.”
“Kyros, no,” I whispered, despair tinging my voice. No one was burning to death for me. I couldn’t take more guilt. Losing him would be a hundred times worse than losing Rhys.
“My Indebted are outside, Miss Tetley. They will aid you,” Kyros said in a calm voice that made me furious.
Who’d help him? I choked on the bitterness surging within me, wishing I could see his face.
Was this just a ruse? Did he have a secret plan? He always had a plan, right?
The floor shook as metal slammed into concrete, but I knew for sure he’d stepped into the trap the instant Gina let go of my hair. She even laid me carefully on the ground when I began to topple in a dead heap.
Kyros watched between the column-like metal bars of a cage. The cage had descended from the ceiling.
“Go,” he ordered, shifting his eyes from my face.
Yeah... about that. His deal depended on me being able to walk.
His eyes landed on me again. “Get up and go.”
Oh, is that all? Why didn’t I think of that?
“This alloy costs a pretty penny,” Kyros said, drawing the attention of the smirking triplets. He ran his hands up the metal columns, his fingers not quite able to wrap around the thick bars.
A triplet sneered at him. “It is for the imposter, Julius.”
“King Julius, my father,” Kyros replied.
“Brainwashed,” another triplet said. “You’re our brother.”
And they were about to kill the man they claimed as brother? Then again, though appearing furious at me killing their brother, they’d hardly sobbed over his corpse.
Dang.
This floor was feeling increasingly comfortable. Comfortable concrete was probably a cause for alarm. I took several full breaths and returned a hand to my wound—not that I had any blood left inside.
I kept my eyes on the vampires, curling my knees toward my stomach.
Gina cocked her head to the ceiling. “They’ve broken through the outer defences. They’re about to reach the house. Girls, with me.”
Who was they? Was it Laurel and the others?
I froze as a stream of vampires blurred past.
Four were left.
The males.
Better odds. For Kyros.
Who was in a vampire cage.
If I stopped moving, it was over. This was my last chance. I managed to get my elbow under my shoulder and focused on staying upright when I made it to my haunches.
Fuck. I was going to be sick.
“Petrol, boys,” one of the psychotic trio called.
The fourth vampire—not one of the triplets—hesitated. “Gina isn’t here.”
“She doesn’t need to be,” the middle triplet snapped. “The plan is set.”
I choked on horror as the other two picked up the cans and splashed the reeking liquid through the gaps of the cage.
Kyros gripped two of the thick metal columns, unmoving as they doused his body with petrol. He held my gaze, and while the triplets worked around the back of his cage, he mouthed, “Turn away, Basilia.”
No. Not from this.
I leaned onto my hands and knees and began to crawl to him, gasping as my body demanded I lay down and submit to unknowing bliss.
Someone snorted. “Look who it is. The human is coming to kill us, boys.”
“She killed Callum,” said the fourth male.
Silence met his words, and I continued my sluggish crawl to the cage. A simmering heat filled me. I was getting closer. The thrall was warming me again.
The heat mounted.
Kyros had to feel it too.
His quiet calm turned to a menacing snarl.
I glanced up, but shoes appeared before me, halting my crawl. I swayed back and forward on my hands and knees, staring at the combat boots.
“She isn’t leaving here,” the owner of the shoes stated.
Kyros’s snarl filled the basement. “You’d break your eldest sibling’s word?”
“Accidents happen,” the male replied.
Another set of shoes, casual sneakers, joined his. “We set him on fire. She crawled to him and caught on fire too. Oops.”
Laughter swept under Kyros’s furious snapping.
The combat boots and casual sneakers parted ways for me.
What?
They expected me to keep moving after that? I wasn’t a dumbass.
“Crawl. Or I’ll cut your fucking throat before setting you alight.”
That changed things.
I resumed my crawl, and the heat deep in my stomach swelled. Crackling. Soaring.
Kyros’s growl, his call, reached inside me.
My eyelids hooded, and the swaying of my crawl felt languid instead of bone-wearied. I bit my lip and peered at Kyros, my gaze raking him. The fire in me was an inferno. For him too.
Kyros was trying to rip the cage apart.
The swing of my hips was designed to entice. The extra arch in my back meant to drive him to insanity.
For me.
I held him captive as he attacked the metal confines. Releasing my lip, I licked the small wound I’d created.
Kyros was crouched and waiting when I reached the cage. I placed my hands on two metal columns, gasping in pleasure as he reached through and yanked me upright.
Fire consumed me as his fingers roamed my skin.
I let out my own snarl as I grabbed for him only to encounter thin air.
“Kyros?” Where did he—?
My leather jacket was ripped apart and my black tank rolled up. The flat of a hot tongue moved over my stomach, lapping with gentle, careful strokes.
Peering down, I studied Kyros as he licked the gushing wound there.
Enough of the gentle shit! I needed him now.
My tugging hands were encased in his before I could blink. Abandoning that, I tried to squeeze into the cage, my breath coming in desperate, frantic gasps.
Why wasn’t he kissing me? Why wasn’t he touching me?
I didn’t care about the damn wound.
“I don’t want your tongue there,” I snapped at him.
His lips curved against my bloodied skin, but he didn’t stop lapping. I groaned as he plucked glass from my torso, rotating me so he could continue his licking ministrations over the smaller wounds. He drew closer and closer to my breasts, and I tried to help him along.
When he touched them, I’d come undone.
I wanted to come undone.
He brushed the underside for a mere instant before returning to my largest wound, licking it all over again.
My cheeks flushed, and I sagged against the thick bars. “Please, Kyros. I need you.”
I’d cry if it convinced him to take me right there and then.
Kyros’s eyes shifted over my shoulder. People were fighting. I’d dismissed them because I was between the danger and my vampire.
At last, Kyros ran his hands up over the uninjured plain of my stomach.
The clothing had to go.
We were of the same mind. He tore my tank from my body as I went to work on my boots and pants. I shucked the remains of the outfit as Kyros’s hands blurred on his own clothing.
Our mouths met desperately between the bars. His arms snaked out of the cage either side of me, drawing me flush against the metal columns where he proceeded to palm my breasts wi
th one hand.
I made an angry sound when he pulled away, whimpering as Kyros used his fangs to tear at his wrist.
Blood dripped from the wound and I snatched at his arm as he stretched it to me.
His purr of approval rumbled through the basement.
I clamped my mouth around his wrist and sucked hard, peeking up through my lashes.
He was mine.
Under my spell.
There was nothing he wouldn’t do for me.
“Inside,” I gasped between swallows of his blood.
His eyes. His beautiful green eyes held mine. I was his prisoner, and I couldn’t feel one shred of regret over that.
His hands already through the bars, Kyros drew my leg up, supporting me under the knee. Still drinking, I used my other hand to free his erection before sliding my underwear to the side.
I’d been denied too long. He occupied my thoughts entirely.
“I almost feel bad to keep doing this to them,” a voice said behind me.
Kyros growled over my head, dragging me around the side of the cage with not-so-gentle shoves through the bars. His fangs gnashed when foreign hands wrapped around me from behind.
Not the hands I wanted!
“Kyros!” I screamed as the person dragged me from the cage, need cramping like a fist in my stomach.
I was shoved against the far wall of the basement.
I stared mutinously into blue eyes as my heat slid to pain. As fever burned away to fatigue.
Mindlessness melted to confusion.
My furious screams faded to silence.
The person’s face filled my vision just before the white dots connected.
“G-Gerome?”
Sighing, I fell forward into his arms.
33
I groaned, hand moving to my pounding head. It wasn’t just demons tangoing in my temples this time, it was the entire apocalypse partying in my skull.
I tried to roll onto my side and was stopped.
Wrenching awake, I stared at the hands on my torso and traced them upward to the owner.
Pantsuit.
“Safina,” I croaked. Pain ripped through my dry throat. “Ouch. Water.”
Arching a perfect brown brow, Safina spoke over her shoulder. “Francesca.”
An exaggerated sigh drew my attention to the retreating back of Kyros’s youngest sister. The two other sisters stood at the foot of my bed.
Blood Trial: Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers Book 1) Page 39