Yep, that sounded like something Agatha Le Spyre would say.
I peered left to the mahogany panel doors at the far end of the long hall. Grandmother’s suite. Those doors held so many memories for me—sneaking in to try on her jewellery and make-up, standing outside trying to work up the courage to confess after causing trouble somewhere, and barging in to drag her out for Sunday brunch or to snuggle on a Saturday morning.
Swallowing, I wavered on my feet. “Take me to her room, Fred.”
Kind blue eyes on a weathered face looked out at me. “You’re certain, Miss Le Spyre? Perhaps it would be better in the morning?”
Why did he think I’d made a small dent in the liquor bottles over the last week? It certainly wasn’t for the fun of it, and it certainly wasn’t because of Kyros fucking Atagio.
I pressed my hand against my mouth to smother another belch. I rubbed my aching stomach. “Nope, I’m ready.”
“As you say.”
He helped me navigate the never-ending hall. Ten bedrooms made up the second level, five either side of the staircase—with my grandmother’s master suite at the end of the east wing. My suite down the end of the west wing was the same as hers, just slightly smaller.
I grasped the vertical iron handles of the mahogany doors, resting my thumbs on top of the levers. Taking a breath, I pushed the doors wide.
So familiar.
And so not.
The cleaning staff hadn’t allowed a speck of dust to accumulate. Everything was immaculate—as during my grandmother’s life. The only time to see the bed rumpled had been first thing in the morning. Even then, she always slept in the middle, hands resting on her stomach.
There was life in the room then.
Her suite felt lifeless now. Devoid of the person she was.
The sight of her in a white coffin surrounded by lavender flashed before my eyes, and I squeezed them shut.
“You don’t need to do this,” Fred said from just behind me.
I’d tiptoed around this suite, my grandmother’s office, and her lavender tiers since slamming the door of the taxi from Kyros Sky. Agatha Le Spyre would have slapped me upside the head five times already for not tackling her death head-on.
I straightened. “Where did you find her, Fred?”
“She rang the bathroom bell. I found her collapsed by the sink.”
My chest tightened. The bathroom. No one’s grandmother belonged on the bathroom floor.
Fred stepped forward and glanced at me. “I called the ambulance and returned Mrs Le Spyre to bed. When she stopped breathing, I started CPR and continued until help arrived. The paramedics attempted to revive her for twenty minutes.”
If I’d found myself in that position, I’d be a wreck.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that.” I reached for his hand, squeezing it tight.
The butler blinked a few times, his gaze fixed on the bed. “I started working here after serving in the army. Mrs Le Spyre said she needed someone who had equal measure of brain and brawn to protect her family and that if I was stupid or weak to get the fuck off the estate before she set the dogs on me.”
I choked on a laugh. We’d never owned dogs. Or any pet other than horses.
“Thirty-four years went by,” he said, a soft smile on his lips. “Everyday part of me wondered if that would be the day she purchased dogs just so they could chase me to the gate.”
I gave full throat to my husky laughter. “She was something else, wasn’t she?”
Fred lowered his head. “That she was, Miss Le Spyre. And you’ll be every bit the head of estate she was, in your own way.”
“Like driving golf carts down the hall?”
His eyes twinkled. “Coping is to be expected.”
Coping—so like him to spare my feelings and downplay my binge-drinking and online-shopping rampage. I sincerely hoped we hadn’t taken on staff who were getting their first look at me. Then Grandmother would be truly disappointed in me.
I sobered, releasing his hand to wrap my arms around myself.
“Miss Le Spyre.” He hesitated. “Have you considered calling Tommy?”
Everyday.
“She doesn’t want to see me,” I whispered.
“Forgive me for the intrusion, but did something happen?”
I managed to force the corners of my mouth. “You changed my diapers, Fred. Nothing you say is intrusive. And, yes. Something happened. I can’t talk about it though.”
His expression turned grim. “I see. Is there anyone else you can reach out to? A friend?”
I thought of Laurel—the only Vissimo to warn me about Kyros’s fucking game. But she had to report to the very person who’d tricked the rich brat into thinking she was special.
I felt so stupid. I couldn’t face Laurel.
The entire tower, his siblings, Kyros… they’d probably snickered over the farce from day one.
“No,” I answered. “There’s no one else.”
He squeezed my shoulder. Or steadied me—that was always a possibility.
I scanned the room, my chest tightening. “I’d like to be alone.”
“As you say,” he replied softly.
Heart sinking to the floor, I watched the butler walk down the hall before reaching for the double doors to push them shut.
I woke in a cloud of lavender.
Drawing in an inhale filled with regret, I heaved onto my back and stared through bleary eyes at the maroon canopy.
Ugh, I didn’t feel so good.
Crawling to the edge of the enormous bed, I tugged on the bell, then promptly collapsed.
The doors opened.
“Miss Le Spyre?”
“Rosie, thank god.” I coughed. “I’ve awoken with a dire case of the dry mouth.”
“… I see. Might I recommend a greasy breakfast, coffee, and a mango lassi?”
I waved a hand in the air. “You may.”
“Very well, Miss Le Spyre. Will you take your breakfast here?”
Grandmother would arise as undead and stab me. “No, I’ll take it in…” I steeled myself. “In the lavender tiers.”
No answer.
I squinted at the doorway to see the plump head servant whose pallor was a direct contrast to her name. “Problemo?”
“Not at all, miss. Did you want me to wash your clothes?”
Crap. “Am I naked?”
The servant blanched. “You’re in one of your grandmother’s skirt suits.”
Jesus.
Carefully rolling to placate the temple demons, I peered at the teal blazer and below-knee skirt that I’d pulled on—white blouse and mother-of-pearl brooch included. The skirt suit was about six sizes too big and I hadn’t removed the lavender pouch from the breast pocket. That explained the lavender scent.
“No, Rosie. Don’t worry about that. Just breakfast.”
She curtseyed and backed out, closing the doors behind her.
Fuck me, I had to get rid of all the tequila in the house.
“Time to get up, fool,” I whispered.
I stood without vomiting and swept up my discarded clothes before shuffling to my own suite in the opposite wing.
I stood on the threshold, eyeing my white canopied bed with longing. But I’d wallowed in self-pity long enough. It wasn’t just me now. I had staff and an estate to manage. Poor Fred couldn’t be landed with the job forever.
Plus, everything I currently felt could be felt by Kyros, too, unless he was working as hard as I was to ignore the foreign tendrils of emotion. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of feeling my wallowing shame a day more. He’d played me for an idiot, and I had to suck it up and admit that head-on, no matter what my pride wanted to deny.
So many times in the last six weeks, I’d felt out of my depth or moronic. I’d had enough. This was it; the last time Vissimo would make a joke out of me. I wanted nothing to do with them—barring the Indebted.
They could visit. I’d shower them with gifts and kindness.
By the time I’d gone through my shave, wash, hydrate routine in the adjoining en suite, an aching stiffness had settled in my limbs, but I felt halfway human.
Returning to the bedroom, I skirted past the sliding lounge doors to the wardrobe. Striding past the handbags, shoes, and jewellery cases, I stopped in front of the activewear section, which I couldn’t ever recall actually exercising in.
“No,” I scolded myself. “Today is a conquering day.”
I pivoted to the opposite wall and selected dark-blue jeans, light-grey stilettos, a belt with an obnoxiously large gold buckle. Then I snagged a loose linen white shirt equipped with a plunging neckline. The girls would free ball it today—with nipple pads of course. Didn’t want to scare the staff any more than I had. Selecting a black G-banger, I pulled on the entire ensemble, tying a knot in the front of the shirt to highlight the dramatic curve where my narrow waist flared to my hips. Thanks, Mom.
My hair would dry into barrel curls, but I helped it along in the shine department with some oil blend my hairstylist supposedly invented. Returning to my dresser, I picked up a thin gold chain discarded there—a twenty-first present from my grandmother. One I’d flung here the night I argued with her and left. Heart weighing heavy, I clasped it around my neck.
I shifted my eyes to the other objects on the dresser. My phone—from this century, portable charger, headphones, and the voice recorder Angelica gifted me.
Beast would remain by my bed for Snake purposes, but otherwise…
I slipped my 21st-century phone into my back pocket, snagging the charger too. I snatched the recorder up. Today was a list-making day.
“Time to get shit done,” I told the empty room.
Leaving the doors to my suite open for the cleaning staff, I strode to the central stairs, looking around the place for what felt like the first time in years.
All of this was mine now.
Mine to care for the next generations. Which would theoretically come from me.
Wow, I felt so ill-equipped.
I hadn’t even wanted this. Yet my stint outside of the estate taught me there were worse things in life. To be out of that tower, I’d put up with a lot more than a net worth of one hundred and fourteen billion dollars.
Plus, the thought of someone else caring for the estate finances if I relinquished the position, made me feel… possessive. For centuries a Le Spyre had cared for our assets. Apparently that did mean something to me.
Like my grandmother, I’d make this life what I wanted, maybe even relocate to one of the estate’s other properties if I could bear to leave the memories of this house behind. Kyros could find me, yes, but a ten-hour plane trip between us sounded fucking idyllic.
I passed through the ballroom and across the sweeping balcony, past the pool and outside entertainment pagodas, and wound between the towering hedge-way that extended to the west boundary of the estate. Turning left at the break in the hedges, I clicked down the paved path, stopping short when the path opened into the circular lavender tiers.
Rings of lavender bushes rose around a small glass table and wrought iron chairs in the centre.
I sat in one of the cold chairs, my bloodshot gaze trickling over the surrounding purple plants. Only the towering tips of the main house and the tops of the hedge-way were visible.
Did my grandmother sit here the day she died? Did she think of me or miss me in those moments?
Blinking several times, I inhaled, the lavender cutting through my self-inflicted headache.
“Miss Le Spyre?”
Glancing up, I smiled at the head maid.
She set the breakfast tray in front of me.
“Thank you, Rosie. Are the eggs soft but not too soft?”
“I hope everything is to your satisfaction, Miss Le Spyre.”
Rosie had been around too long to fall for my mind fuckery. “I’m sure it will be. Thank you.”
She bobbed and retreated.
I drew out the phone that could take pictures and stay awake longer than thirty minutes at a time, plugging it into the portable charger. I picked up the voice recorder next.
List time.
I was out of the tower, but that didn’t mean I’d escaped Ingenium—not with the Tonyi triplets after me. They hadn’t discovered my new location yet, which I assumed by the fact I wasn’t dead, but I couldn’t rely on that. I needed protection.
Shovelling eggs into my mouth, I pressed the buttons on the voice recorder at random.
“How the fuck does this work, Angie? I wasn’t born in the damn 12th century.” This thing was on par with a Walkman, aka did not compute.
I clicked the middle button, jolting when Angelica’s voice blared out. Fumbling, I cradled the recorder in both hands, freezing.
“... Vampires. Or Vissimo, as we call ourselves, are recorded to have existed from 4500BC.”
Eyes widening, I clicked the button with a square on top.
The sound cut off.
This couldn’t be what I thought it was.
Mouth bone dry, I clicked the play button again.
Her voice rang out. “We exist in clans formed of one core clan and many sub-clans. Clans are led by a king and his queen, and often the sub-clans are headed by their children or other family members.”
My heart thudded, cold shock coursing through me as Angelica detailed Ingenium and everything from my arrival at Kyros Sky to the blood compulsion and the attack by Clan Fyrlia.
I reached for the stop button as her voice trailed off, jolting when she spoke again.
“I am trusting you with this recording, Miss Tetley, because I think you feel very alone right now. In return, all I ask is that you take care of whom you trust with this knowledge. You know what will happen if you err in this.”
“Whoa,” I hushed.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Angelica gave me proof Vissimo existed—while still upholding the Miss Tetley lie and neglecting to mention the first time she compelled me, but—
Fuck.
This was huge.
I didn’t hesitate.
My phone took far too long to turn on, but she was on speed-dial at least.
The phone rang three times.
What was the time? And the day. Was she at work?
“Basi?”
I blew out a long breath, shoving away my barely touched breakfast. “Tommy.”
“… Is everything alright?”
I cut her off. “Are you working today?”
“Yeah, I start in an hour.”
Dammit. “Can you come by the estate after? I have something to tell you. Finally.”
Her silence made my insides shrivel. What if things had gone too far to salvage? What if—
“I’ll pull a sickie.”
Hope swelled in my chest. “That’d be great. I can send Fred to pick you up.”
She grunted. “Thanks.”
“See you soon then?” I asked, beaming.
“I probably don’t need to tell you this, but whatever you tell me, better be really fucking good.”
Nerves twisted my gut. Revealing the truth to Tommy might be the most selfish thing I’d ever do.
I couldn’t live without her in this cold, empty world.
My lips didn’t so much as twitch. “Oh, it’s good, Tom. Whether or not you believe it is another thing.”
7
I clicked the stop button and looked at Tommy across the office. This room had the best soundproofing in the house because Grandmother had hated the slightest noise while poring over estate investments and accounts.
Tommy glanced up from her balled hands.
I remembered the feeling. Right now, she’d feel like Matt Damon in Martian when he was catapulting through space. “Tom…”
My friend stood, rubbing her mouth and nodding. “Vampires are real. Vissimo are real. You’re under a blood compul
sion.” She stopped, shooting me a look. “You still can’t talk about any of this—even if I know?”
Was it worth possibly alerting Kyros by testing the boundaries? I could talk openly around Sundulus vampires unless a human was near. And I’d wager if I tried to repeat anything from personal conversations with Kyros to a random one of his minions, I’d fail. I could work around the restrictions by being vague. If there was another way, I was yet to figure it out.
I pursed my lips. “I’m not going to try. Because of consequences.” Now I’d let my friend in—and now my last family member was gone—protecting Tommy took first priority. Just not, apparently, from myself.
Tommy hummed. “Okay, still a lot I don’t know.”
I watched her pace between the chaise and the ceiling-to-floor bookcase.
She pivoted. Paced. Turned again.
“Tom?”
“This is better than I could have hoped.” She burst out, a beaming grin pushing her cheeks high. “You only ended our friendship because vampires existed and you literally couldn’t tell me anything because of the compulsion. Then, you couldn’t live without me so you figured out a way around it.”
More like Angelica took pity. “You’re taking this really well.”
Strangely well.
Crossing to the chaise, I perched on the armrest.
She rushed me, gripping my hands. “Not knowing was so much worse, Basil. Thinking you were being abused by a powerful new boyfriend. That you’d gotten into drugs or some kind of organised crime ring so big even your grandmother couldn’t do anything about it.”
I grimaced. “Yeah, I can imagine.”
“So this is great.” Her smile stretched wider. “Perfect, really.”
Tommy walked to the row of decanters by my grandmother’s business awards. She filled a snifter with brandy and tossed it back in four gulps, thumping her chest after.
“Just great.” She coughed.
I shot to my feet as she burst into tears.
“Oh my god!” Tommy gasped, reaching for the brandy with shaking hands.
She didn’t bother with the snifter this time.
I wrested for possession of the decanter. “Tom. Shit, give it—”
The bottle slid free.
“—here.”
Vampire Debt: Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers Book 2) Page 9