I needed to get to the gate. Kyros couldn’t be there! He also couldn’t ambush the triplets on the way.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Maybe telling him was the only option. Yet Tommy’s life was on the line. I didn’t trust anyone with her—not now my grandmother was gone.
I stared at the bookshelf lining the wall, eyes lingering on Tom Hanks’s autobiography.
… Maybe I was overcomplicating this.
“I don’t want you here. I want space,” I whispered, letting my very real hopelessness creep in.
His hurt vibrated through me. “I know, my beauty. And I wish I could give you what you want, but I must give you what you need.”
I sighed down the line. “Please then. I mean what I said, I don’t want you on the estate. Laurel can bring me to the tower after I shower and change.”
He wouldn’t take it.
His voice regained its menacing edge. “Is there a reason you don’t want me there?”
“Besides the list I’ve already given you?” I snapped. “Let me rephrase that for you. You’re not stepping foot inside my house. If you can’t control yourself enough for me to come to the tower, then drive over. I’ll meet you outside. If that’s what it takes to convince you that I’m leaving this vampire-infested city, then whatever. I won’t change my mind.”
Kyros was holding onto his control by a thread, but he managed to hold it together. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Make it thirty. I’m tired and need to shower. So I don’t try to kill you.” I disconnected, holding fast to my furious and panicked cocktail of emotions. That mask couldn’t crack. Regret and sadness couldn’t slip through my fingertips.
Not until the triplets had me in their possession.
Ten minutes had passed since Theodore’s call.
Twenty minutes remained.
By the time Kyros got here, I’d be long gone.
26
“The master called and told Laurel you’d meet him outside the house,” Evie said as I stepped outside into the night.
Four minutes to go.
Her eyes widened at my apparel.
“Do I look like Jessica Alba in Dark Angel?” I asked the Indebted, forcing a bright grin.
Dressing head to toe in leather made sense considering I was likely walking to my death. Last time, it turned out pretty handy in keeping my organs inside my body.
She smiled back. “No idea. I’ve never seen it.”
“Today’s youth.” I tutted.
“I’m fifty-nine.”
Of course she was. I started walking down the driveway, crossing my fingers inside the pockets of my leather jacket. “I’m meeting Kyros at the gates.”
“Okay,” she said pleasantly, falling into step beside me. “How are you going with your new senses?”
I groaned. “Not great. Apparently things will improve over the first few weeks. It seems like a long wait when everything is so off-kilter.”
She grimaced in sympathy. “I bet.”
The gravel crunched underfoot. I focused on keeping my breathing even, grateful beyond measure that Evie was here instead of Laurel. She’d know something was up immediately.
My hands were slippery on the metal of the front gate when we slipped through a few minutes later.
“Hey, Evie?” I asked in a low voice.
She bowed. “Yes, Basi?”
Guilt panged, and I swallowed it back. Tommy needed medical attention without delay. That was if I could keep the triplets from killing her before then. Despite this, I didn’t want any of my Indebted friends hurt in the coming minute.
I glanced at her, wrinkling my nose. “Do you mind giving me some space for a few minutes? I’ve got bad news for Kyros and want to get everything straight in my head before he arrives.”
On time, I hoped.
If Kyros arrived early, I was fucking screwed.
“Of course,” she replied, concern etched on her beautiful face. “I can’t go too far though.”
The moment Evie put a few metres between us, a body slammed into me.
Snarls and shouts erupted, but they were lost to the whoosh of wind and blur of trees in the warped mess of my new senses. I fought against dizziness, staring up into one of the triplet’s face.
He didn’t sneer down at me, entirely focused on putting distance between us and the estate.
Knowing Kyros was fast on our heels, I couldn’t blame him.
“How far away is he?” the triplet spat.
I breathed through nausea. “Ten minutes. He’ll be running now. Don’t count on more than a few minutes.”
“If he catches up, you know what happens” was the cold reply.
A blurred glimpse of a huge house told me that we were on the estate opposite mine—the Gregorians’.
A car waited on the far side of the property.
I stared at it, blood pounding in my ears, my body otherwise numb.
This is it.
“Get in and shut up,” the triplet hissed as he shoved me in the back seat.
“Stop talking and drive,” I hurled back, glaring at him.
The back of his hand met my face with a sickening thud of flesh. I crashed against the seat, landing behind the driver’s seat.
The door closed.
With a screech of tires, we were moving.
I blinked through the pain, testing the movement in my jaw. My senses were more sensitive now, and I would have expected pain to have heightened. The sensations on the skin surrounding my throbbing cheek were stronger though, overriding the pain somewhat.
“Which triplet are you?” I asked the vampire as I pulled myself up onto the seat.
His lips twisted in a smirk. “I’ll give you one guess.”
Theodore. Hatred filled me as I stared at him in the rear-view mirror. “There are a few things you should know if you want this plan to work.”
His fangs lowered and his fingers curled around the wheel. “Is that so?”
I didn’t waste time. Tommy’s life was riding on this. “Kyros can feel where I am at all times.”
From Gina’s cut-off sentence, I’d pieced together our destination. “I know you think that Kyros won’t enter your private territory, but—”
Theodore’s hazel eyes glinted. “He won’t interrupt us. Not for you. I guarantee it.”
Hesitating, I relented to curiosity. “Why is that?”
He barked a laugh. “You think he’d forfeit Ingenium for you? His family will die.”
Oh, shit.
I’d known the penalty would be steep. Not that steep.
Even then, Kyros would come. I knew that categorically. Our bond would drive him past the point of control.
“He will,” I replied on a breath. “I can feel his emotions, and he isn’t in control right now. You don’t have to believe me, but if you want this plan to work, you should consider the risk he’ll do the unexpected. I can prevent him entering your territory with a single call, but I need to make that call immediately.”
I expected more laughter, but really, out of the two of us, the vampire probably had a far better understanding of who he was messing with.
He ripped the wheel to the right, and I scrambled for purchase as the car skidded onto an on-ramp. “Who?”
“His siblings.” They could stop him. If they could get there in time.
“Do it then,” he snarled.
It gave me perverse satisfaction that Theodore was so scared of Kyros. With the solid black rage currently filling the vampire, he should be deathly afraid.
I dialled Safina without delay, not needing the triplet’s warning look to remind me what hung in the balance.
“Basilia,” she said in her usual clipped voice.
She didn’t know yet.
“Safina, listen. The triplets took Tommy hostage. I’m with them now and on the way to their private territory. Kyros is coming after me and he’s out of control. He will enter their territory. You know what that means. I need
you to gather everyone and stop him.”
Credit to her, she took three seconds to process that. “Which of their private territories?”
Theodore rattled off an address at vampire speed, and my new hearing managed to catch that it was in Red—as far from the tower as possible.
Cowards.
“You all need to get there before he does,” I told her. And I’m sorry.
“We will” was the reply before she disconnected the call.
I put down my phone, surreptitiously making sure the GPS tracker app Fred insisted upon was still open.
“Well done, Basil,” Theodore purred, not slowing our murderous speed.
“You said Tommy would be freed if I came.” I crossed my arms.
“I said we wouldn’t kill her.”
“That’s a shame,” I said. “Because I just texted the address of your territory in Red to one of my staff. Before I left, I instructed her to call the media and law enforcement if she didn’t hear from me in thirty minutes. Your territory will be crawling with humans if Tommy isn’t alive and receiving medical care at a human hospital in the next twenty minutes.” Hopefully changing Fred to a woman protected him somewhat if this went pear-shaped.
Theodore smirked. “That’s a good try. For a stupid whore.”
I stilled as our gazes met in the rear-view mirror. My heart stalled at the unhinged light in his hazel eyes.
He licked his lips. “Do you have any idea what my brothers and I can do to you and your little friend in thirty minutes?”
“Tommy!” I gasped.
Theodore let me go.
I staggered through the heavy iron doors to where she lay in a heap, black dress barely covering her ass.
“Oh my god, Tom,” I whispered frantically, dropping to my knees beside her. Her pulse was steady. Maybe slow? I had no idea what was good and not, but she wasn’t conscious and her skin was cold.
Ripping off my leather jacket, I rolled her onto the warm fabric to get her off the freezing concrete and placed her on her side. I’d wanted to bring some kind of antidote with me, but Fred said the cures for drug overdoses had to be given intravenously.
“I like her better when she’s unconscious,” Theodore called, ambling into the room.
I ignored him, gripping her chin. “Come on, girl. It’s Basi.”
“Basil,” he corrected.
She wrinkled her brow.
It was enough. I could get her out of this somehow.
I had to.
Spinning in my crouch, I reached out a hand to steady myself. “Our deal stands. Get her to the hospital. I’m here. She goes.”
Bravado was worth a try.
A second voice carried from behind Theodore. “Our deal, brother?”
“Or a bluff?” a third voice added.
The remaining triplets slipped out of the shadows like the fucking eels they were.
I looked around.
This wasn’t where Theodore called from.
Though there weren’t stairs leading up to a throne, the long concrete room was just like King Julius’s chamber. His gave the impression of an ancient trial chamber in Egypt. This one gave the feel that a train could run overhead at any moment. As though blood was hosed off the concretes into drains each morning.
The ceilings were high and dripping, and the lights weak and dim. There was a wide stage along the opposite wall. Another set of heavy iron doors sat there.
Two exits.
We’d walked through a garage, multiple halls and levels to get down here. My chances of getting Tommy out by escaping somehow were nil.
I’ve fucked us both.
There was no Plan B. There wasn’t enough time to make one after figuring out they had Tommy. I’d spent all my time ensuring their trap was Kyros-proof.
The triplets regarded me, the tilts of their heads so eerily similar that I couldn’t help the shiver working through my body.
Slowly, I stood next to Tommy, inhaling. The dizzy sting of ammonia and sweet decay hit me. Bumps erupted over my arms left bare in my black tank.
“She’s scenting us,” the one on the left said. A long machete hung from his belt. “The rumours are correct. They’ve completed the fourth exchange.”
Theodore answered, “Yes, brother. Her balance is impaired.”
The vampire on the right was dressed in a death metal T-shirt. He grinned. “Her ears must be very sensitive. Tynan, do we still have those metal barrels from last year?”
Tynan wheeled away from the other two, leaving the dingy chamber.
All I heard was barrel.
What were they going to do? My heart sputtered and thumped in turn.
Trenit circled me, machete swinging with each step. “Four exchanges with a human. Kyros is no brother of ours.”
“Take care,” Theodore said, his gaze flashing to the ceiling.
There were others around? I assumed King Mikhail might take issue with Trenit’s statement.
“No matter. We will take care of the problem for him,” the other continued. “Perhaps he hopes we will kill her.”
They were trying to get in my head.
Whatever. I hadn’t come into this expecting to be saved. I just needed to get Tommy the fuck out of here somehow.
Tynan re-entered the chamber at a run, a large barrel between his arms. I staggered forward as my eyes and ears battled for control. Shit, I could make out running vampires. Not that seeing them running would help me if I couldn’t stay standing.
He set the barrel down and strong arms circled my body. I kicked out, connecting with flesh.
My head was dragged back via a ruthless grip in my hair. I gasped against the stinging pain, staring into hazel eyes. Theodore forced my head to look at where Tommy lay. The third brother held a knife just below her ribs.
“No,” I wheezed, stilling.
Theodore ran his nose up my neck. “You struggle, and we cut. Now tell me, what are you again?”
“Stupid whore,” I blurted, tears squeezing from my eyes at the pain erupting across my scalp. If he thought the words bothered me, he could think again. I’d call myself that any day to keep Tommy and myself from harm.
His brothers smirked as he dropped me into the rusty barrel.
My throat constricted as they sealed the top and I was left in pitch darkness. A tiny hole was opened and I felt around, shifting to a crouch in the tight confines.
Water poured in through the tiny hole.
Oh my god.
I stared at the water gathering at the bottom. They were going to drown me? Surely not. They hadn’t been anywhere near manic enough when Theodore put me in here.
This had to be the warm-up.
I managed to stay quiet until the water climbed to my chest. Panting, I called, “I’m disappointed. I expected a beating at least.”
Dying before Tommy was out wasn’t an option. My voice echoed in the barrel and I winced, covering my ears.
The water stopped.
Thank fuck.
I strained to hear as the cap was replaced, cutting out all light once more. Why were they so quiet? I lowered my hands.
Bang.
I screamed as the clash of wood on the barrel exploded in my sensitive ears. Their laughter followed, and my hands inched to cover my ears again, my mind and senses in numb shock.
Shell shock.
They began.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
The barrel echoed and rang without pause, and my screams joined into one endless cry.
I couldn’t fathom anything through the agony.
I had to force away the sound, but I couldn’t remember how.
I thrashed in the barrel, breaking from my crouch as I tried to force the lid off. My nails scratched at the inside, and I threw my body against the walls in a bid to push the barrel over.
No more!
I shoved my fingers in my ears and submerged under the water to no effect. Knives were stabbing into my ears over and
over. It had to end.
Breaking the surface for air, my vision began to blacken.
So much pain.
“Enough,” a voice said.
The lid was removed. I couldn’t have lifted a finger to resist as two of the triplets hauled me out. They threw me to the ground and I rolled, drawing my legs underneath me. My hands shook either side of my ears. They felt blistered and raw—a pulpy mess.
“Father,” the triplet behind me said.
“Theodore, Gina has informed me that you have Kyros’s human embarrassment down here.”
Gina was here.
I lowered my hands, raising my head gradually so I didn’t pass out.
A hazel gaze, not Gina’s, slammed into me and I immediately lowered mine.
Gina stood next to her father, along with five other Vissimo who I assumed were the other royal siblings. I recognised one of the sisters and one of the brothers from the basement.
The king’s eyes were heavy on me, and I sagged as his gaze shifted. “Who is the other human?”
“Her best friend, Father,” Tynan replied. “It’s how we lured her here.”
King Mikhail ambled closer. “Why is it that you lured her here?”
I glanced at Trenit, catching the flicker in his eyes before he dropped his head in a small bow.
“Because she killed our beloved youngest brother, my king.”
Gina’s gaze flicked to me and away.
My head hurt like shit, but I couldn’t afford to stand here. Gina had brought her father to this chamber. Assuming she was trying to help, I had to figure out how to work his presence to my advantage. The stone-cold truth was that she couldn’t and wouldn’t protect me against her family.
Whatever hand Gina was playing, it didn’t include championing me.
The king was able to keep the triplets in check. I knew that he wanted to win the game.
Think, Basi.
“What is your name?” the king demanded. My body seized, but I was already on the ground.
I craned my head. “Basilia Le Spyre.” Like he didn’t already know.
“The richest woman in Bluff City, Father,” the triplet answered.
Why was the king pretending he knew nothing about me? It was as though he and the triplets were playing some kind of game—the wink-wink-nudge-nudge kind of conversations adults had when kids were in the room.
Vampire Debt: Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers Book 2) Page 33