I was about to detonate, and I really didn’t want to do that.
Kyros stepped closer. “Miss Tetley—”
Oily throbbing.
I held up a hand. “Tell me, Kyros. Why do you feel that way each time you say my name?”
Shock. Fear.
What a surprise. Kyros was hiding more bullshit.
“Something big, huh?” I said sarcastically. “Nothing new then.”
He turned away, and I took the opportunity to stride to the door.
His siblings watched in silence, eyes darting between us. Deirdre alone appeared bored by the proceedings.
“No is your final answer?” Kyros said in an even tone, still facing away.
I studied his back. “Sure is.”
“Then this conversation is over,” he stated.
Finally.
Pulling out Beast, I clicked my way back into Snake, noting the phone’s depleted battery.
Tonight seemed like the perfect fucking time to set that high score.
4
I dodged another sloppy missile thrown by the upstanding Bluff City citizen, Mr Triffz.
“Get the fuck off my property, you barrel-scraping hooker,” he bellowed.
Age showed in the fragility of his roar, but in the two minutes I’d known Mr Triffz, I’d realised he was anything but frail.
“I’m leaving!” I shouted back, dodging another missile as slop, from the throws he’d landed, slid from my hair.
He shook his cane in the air, reaching for the bucket by his feet. “Down with Live Right. You can’t put me in a home!”
If this was happening to anyone else, I’d be in stitches. Which, when I dived into the car a moment later, was what I discovered my crew doing.
Laurel hit the acceleration as soon as I was in.
Their laughter rang in my ears as I groaned at my new black jeans and sheer white blouse combo. Ruined. I might be able to salvage the jeans and white bra, but the blouse was a goner.
“He’s crazy,” I snapped, plucking the blouse away from my chest.
Josie clutched her stomach. “I’ve never seen a human run so fast in six-inch heels.”
Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up.
“Is it safe for you to be driving?” I asked Laurel. The SUV swerved all over the road. Blood streaked the vampire’s face. Crying with laughter never looked so messed up.
She gasped for breath. “Didn’t want to risk getting compost on the car.”
“That’s what this is?” No wonder it smelled so bad. Perhaps I should just be thankful the slop wasn’t his shit.
From the middle seat, I stared through the windscreen, recounting the last ten minutes of my life. “It’s safe to say, Live Right won’t secure that house anytime soon.” A house in Pink would always be owned by a human. There was some comfort in that, even if he was a compost-throwing sonofabitch.
I leaned forward. “Hey, can we—?”
“Nearly there,” Laurel answered.
She pulled over outside Mrs Gaughton’s less than a minute later, and I gave up the battle of keeping my white bra from damage. It was over.
Mr Triffz had won.
This round.
Certain the lavender bush would have guzzled the water I gave it three days ago, I reached into my Elegance pack and pulled out the bottle of water I’d brought along.
I’d barely taken a step when the front curtain twitched and a flash of garish red lipstick appeared in the gap.
The window opened a crack. “Basilia? That you?”
“Sure is, Mrs Gaughton. Just here to water your lavender bush. I stopped by the other day and it was looking sad.”
The front door swung wide. “You came around? Why didn’t you knock?”
Because knocking wasn’t necessary when it came to Mrs Gaughton. I wonder if she had a rocking chair right at the front next to the window. “It was Sunday. I assumed you were at your extended lunch.”
There was no reply, but a beat later, the entrance was yanked open. The mid-sixties woman barrelled down the driveway.
“I forgive you,” she scolded, slightly out of breath. “And I told you to call me Mrs Hannah.”
“I apologise, Mrs Hannah.”
“Don’t apologise.” Her voice unfurled like a whip. “Just do it right next time.”
Yikes.
Laughter bubbled up my throat, accompanied by a sadness that was no mystery.
She took me in. Her red lipstick had leaked into a few of the wrinkles around her mouth, and the sight drew a smile to my lips.
“You roll in something before coming here?” She blinked as though seeing me for the first time.
Grimacing, I stared down the length of my splattered body. “Went to meet a client who thought I wanted to put him in a home.”
Mrs Gaughton patted my arm. “Can’t win ’em all, dear.”
Ain’t that the truth. Hell, I’d just like to win one round at this point.
I unscrewed the cap, leaning forward to feel the ground around the lavender bush.
“Wondered why it hadn’t died,” she muttered, glaring at the plant.
Say what? “I thought you wanted it alive? You asked me for tips.”
She hugged herself. “I do. I want it to flourish like Betty Neesin’s.”
Was she sure? Sounded like she had a personal vendetta against the poor bush.
“Not that I don’t appreciate it, but why are you watering an old lady’s plant?” she asked after a beat. “Are your messed-up body chemicals affecting your brain? I see those ads about mental health on the TV.”
Lawdy.
“There’s a lot wrong with my body chemicals,” I told her, lopping a smile her way. Especially my sex hormones. “But no. Just thought I’d help out.”
I became entirely focused on watering the lavender, emptying the entire bottle in the soil around it before plucking out a couple of tiny weeds. I squeezed out my top so some of the compost juice dripped around the bush.
Ha! Take that, you old jerk.
When I straightened, two keen eyes fixed on my face.
I peered down immediately, screwing the lid back on the bottle. “My grandmother died.”
A weathered hand reached out and gripped my forearm.
“Oh, Basilia. Your grandmother who loved lavender?” Her voice warbled.
I nodded, glancing at the half-alive bush—a weak shadow of the estate’s lavender tiers.
“I’m so sorry, Basilia. You meant a lot to her, so I know she meant a lot to you.”
“How do you know that?” I whispered, clutching her forearm in return.
She smiled, displaying dentures smeared with red lipstick. “Because young women don’t become like you without someone’s devotion.”
My heart squeezed and the pain of it spliced through me.
“Won’t you come in for a cheese and onion toastie and peppermint tea? I stocked up on supplies in case you returned.”
She had? For a stranger?
I loved this woman.
“I don’t want to traipse compost sludge through your house, but how about I return in a few days for lunch and to check on the lavender bush again?”
Mrs Hannah glared at the plant once more.
What was her deal?
The older woman sighed heavily and faced me, mouth setting. “Between us both, we’ll have the entire garden blooming.”
Something was up, but it wasn’t any of my business. “Sounds good to me.”
Really, really good, actually.
Smiling to myself, I slid back into the middle seat of the SUV. None of the vampires said a word.
Mr Triffz was my last appointment of the day, and I’d already secured a house in Pink earlier that afternoon, a referral from Vernon Yersaw, my first success—I really was getting a rep for giving people far more money for their property than anyone else. Usually, I’d race back to see how much commission I earned through the house purchase. Now, I had so much money, I didn’t know the exact billion-dollar
amount after my absence.
“I don’t want to go back just yet,” I announced.
Kelsea slid me a twinkling look. “You don’t want to wash all that crap off?”
“There is that…” I peered through the windscreen. “Are we near Traitor’s Lane?”
Laurel zipped through Orange toward the freeway. “We are.”
“Let’s go that way.”
She caught my gaze in the rear-view mirror, her Indebted cloak descending. “What’s out there?”
“Guess you’ll have to find out.”
“No, really. I need to know for security reasons.”
My smirk slid away. “A little waterfall.” Owned by the ill-tempered Lygons, if she wanted to get technical about things. Growing up, everyone snuck in there to swim.
Josie snorted. “Laurel was playing you, Miss Tetley.”
Dammit.
I folded my arms, dislodging more grime. “Fyrlia kidnapped me once. The triplets are after me for real now. And they’re fucking psychos. If Laurel asks me a security question, I’m always going to answer.”
“Which is exactly the right thing to do,” Jillian piped up from the row behind. She was the youngest of my crew at forty-nine and tended to remain mute unless there was a chance to prove herself.
“Just here,” I said, leaning forward to point. “We’ll walk the rest of the way.”
Laurel’s gaze flicked up. “This is legal, right?”
I chh’d. “Course. Come on!”
Grinning, I led the seven Indebted along the quaint back road that formed the border between Orange and the estates. To my left, opulent wealth. To my right, behind a wall of trees, sat moulded walls, cracked paint, and missing roof tiles.
Stopping to remove my heels, I ducked through the treeline, waving them after me.
“Miss Tetley, the sign says No Trespassing,” Josie murmured.
“Hmm, what?”
I picked up the pace, and in no time stood upon jutting boulders, staring across a few metres to the clear water below.
Whoa. Higher than I recalled.
“Oh,” Kelsea gasped, her blue eyes popping at the sight of the waterfall. Water erupted an arm-length down from our position atop the rockface, pounding into the pool.
“Have you seen a waterfall before?” I asked her.
“Only in pictures. I was born into servitude.”
I gritted my teeth but bit back on my angry rant so as not to taint the moment. “Well, now you have.”
I looked anew, trying to remember the first time I saw a waterfall, and whether I appreciated the sight as much as the vampire beside me.
A few furtive glances confirmed at least four of the Indebted were seeing a waterfall for the first time. Laurel was one hundred and forty when her father committed his crime, so she didn’t appear overly excited. Josie and Vie were appreciative, but not wondrous like the others.
I eyed the drop, taking note of where the boulders were. “Time for a bath.”
Stepping back, I ran and leaped from the rockface.
I yelped as a body crashed into mine mid-air. Arms wrapped tight around me. The water came rapidly to meet us, and we plummeted through the surface.
The cold tightened my chest, and I struggled until the arms loosened.
Kicking for the surface, I scowled at a drenched Laurel, sucking in air. “What did you do that for?”
“You didn’t check the bottom,” she snarled an inch from my face. “You had no idea how deep that water was.”
It was plenty deep. “I’ve been here before.”
“Conditions can change.”
I’d never seen her lose her cool. I’d worried her. A lot. “You’re right, that was stupid.”
She shook her head and swam for the small beach opposite the rockface.
Eek. Really upset.
Cannon splashes erupted around me, the squeals of the six Indebted filling the tree clearing as they joined me in the pool.
I snorted as they surfaced and began dunking each other.
Hands shoved me down and I sucked in a breath, batting at their hands and breaking the surface again.
Kelsea shoved Josie away. “You’re not supposed to dunk our client.”
Josie cast me a guilty look. “It’s Miss Tetley.”
Did she know my real name? Maybe Laurel hadn’t told the others. I’d just assumed she would or that the others listened in at the time. Maybe Josie was just used to calling me that now. I coughed, my body tiring quickly. Shoot. Perhaps I should force myself to eat more. “Seriously, I don’t mind. I’m just wondering if I’m fast or strong enough to get you back.”
Kelsea displayed her teeth. “Want me to give you a freebie?”
“Where’s the glory in that?”
Stretching my body flat, I swam to the beach to join Laurel.
Water poured from my stained clothing as I stood. The top was definitely a goner, but at least there weren’t clumps of compost in my hair anymore.
“You like swimming?” Laurel grunted.
“Used to swim most days of the week.” At the estate. When the world was normal.
She sat on a small rock, knees hugged in and chin propped on top. Her hair was a midnight black contrast to my butter-blonde, but to all other outward appearances, she could be my slightly older sibling.
“There’s a pool on the 30th floor of Kyros Sky,” she said.
There was? “I’ll have to get a swimsuit.” Or ideally just return to the estate and use my own pool.
How to get there though? Fred couldn’t handle my business affairs forever. Maybe I could lie and say that a client from the estates had called expressing interest to sell. Kyros wouldn’t know the exact property I was on, right? Or would he? Except Live Right would definitely want to know the name of the clients.
Dang.
Maybe I could go there for a fake social function as the date of a friend.
In that case, I’d just need friends. Which honestly seemed like the more impossible of the two.
Fuck my life.
“Thank you for giving them this,” Laurel said in a low voice. “I apologise for snapping at you.”
Everyone was apologising to me lately. Laurel, however, meant it.
I shrugged a shoulder. “I deserved a scolding. Sorry for upsetting you.”
She hesitated. “If I act that way sometimes, it’s because your actions, your … continued safety has a direct effect on the lives of these women.”
Finding a rock to perch on, I mimicked her posture, chewing on that tidbit. “If I’m injured on your shift, this crew will be punished?”
“Usually there aren’t repercussions, but with how... tied Kyros is to you, I fear any injury to yourself could cost these women their lives.”
That made me jumping into the water pretty selfish and stupid. I could understand her reaction.
“Noted and absorbed,” I told her. “Thanks for explaining, and I’ll be more careful in the future.”
A small smile curved her lips.
“I’d love to help pay off everyone’s debt one day. If I got the money,” I added as an afterthought, aware that Laurel was the only vampire in the know.
I scanned the crew of female vampires, and my eyes widened. Holy shit, they were taking water fight to an entirely new level.
Was that blood?
“You’d do that for us?”
I tore my gaze from the water fight at her off tone. “Does that offend you?” She must know what my real name meant—that I was loaded.
“No, it’s just... for you to offer is—” She broke off, her chest rising.
Stretching out, I punched her shoulder.
Ouch!
I shook out my hand.
“Though your intention touches my heart,” Laurel said hoarsely, “our debt is not so simple. Our payment must be matched to a deed. Only a Vissimo can set the deed and pay the debt.”
Crap. “There’s no way around it?”
“They feared we woul
d influence human benefactors to be free of our chains.”
That made sense.
Her eyes glittered, and I pounced. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Laurel shook her head.
“Whatever! You can’t hesitate and then not tell me.”
“If Laurel isn’t telling you something, it’s probably for your own good,” Jillian said, joining us on the beach.
Laurel’s lips quirked at my eye-roll as the others took seats around us.
“Fess up, Loz,” I pressed, folding my arms.
“You expect me to speak because you’re crossing your arms?” She arched a brow.
Kelsea cocked her head. “What about when she stomps her foot?”
“Or the hands on the hips,” Josie added.
My jaw dropped. “I hardly ever do those things.” Anymore.
Their silence didn’t inspire confidence that I’d successfully kicked the habits.
Laurel sighed. “Humans who’ve exchanged blood with a Vissimo six times are no longer classified as human. They’re well past the stage of being vulnerable to anyone’s compulsion but their mate’s. As such, they are able to hire Indebted of their own accord even though the mating bond is still incomplete until the seventh exchange.”
I stared at her.
Exchange blood with Kyros three more times?
When he mentioned the ability to read each other’s thoughts after the final swap, I’d assumed he meant the fourth exchange. There were seven of the fuckers?
Fuck me.
“Exactly,” Laurel said, standing. “Which is why I wasn’t going to tell you.”
“Yeah.” I drew out the word. “Sorry, ladies. I’d love to help out, but I can’t get any deeper into that craziness or I’ll never get out alive.”
Kelsea’s blue eyes didn’t hold their usual glimmer. “We understand. We’d never ask that of you.”
They’d never ask anything of anyone. That’s what broke my heart. Their shackles were too tight, they couldn’t remember a time when they hadn’t worn them.
Josie peered through the trees. “Humans are running toward us. ETA: three minutes.”
Ah, yes.
I cleared my throat, avoiding seven sets of blue eyes. “That would be Mr Lygon.”
Grinning at their sudden tension, I bellowed, “Run!”
“Miss Tetley?”
Vampire Debt: Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers Book 2) Page 5