Blood Trial Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers #1) - Kelly St. Clare Page 0,140
Kyros should’ve given me more.”
Her guilt reminded me so much of my own. Perhaps Kyros saw her remorse would be punishment enough. A family was mourning because of Deana. Ryder died. That warranted punishment. I just couldn’t be comfortable with the Vissimo’s method.
To be made a slave...
Turning from her, I ripped open a sack, selecting a pinecone from within.
“I’ll make you a pinecone first,” I announced.
She’d feel better in no time.
I stuck the final diamante to the last pinecone. I’d remembered my destroyed gown from Rory and torn it to bits, adding a bit of extra glam to each hanging pinecone.
My body ached from two and a half days in a hunched position—and too many beer floats.
Fuck me, how much ice cream had I eaten? Why the hell was I making decorative pinecones? It had seemed like a normal thing to do thirty seconds ago. Now, not so much.
Empty beer bottles littered the mirror bench space. It looked like a racoon had ransacked my room.
“Have I been acting like a crazy person?” I asked aloud.
The Indebted no longer stood in an awkward row against the far wall. They sprawled on the floor and on the bed around me. One of them was even eating a beer float.
I grimaced. Gross.
Had the thrall made me do all this weird shit?
Laurel was sitting against the front door. “Yep.”
“Don’t feel like you need to spare my feelings.”
Her lips curved.
The rest came back to me. Oh, shit, I’d ransacked rooms in the tower for blankets.
I flushed. “Please tell me you haven’t handed the pinecones out yet. We need to burn them.”
“All handed out,” a woman quipped. I couldn’t remember her name.
I flopped back on the bed. “That’s really embarrassing. Can you guys tell everyone to chuck them out? I bet they look like shit.”
Who in their right mind wanted a hanging pinecone?
“They won’t chuck them out,” Laurel said quietly.
I moaned, turning to look at her. “I seriously wouldn’t be offended.”
Laurel pressed her lips together.
I held up the pinecone in my hand. I’d glued a burlap bow at the base of the stalk and wrapped twine around the stalk itself, forming a loop to hang the cone upside-down. Three black diamantes caught in the light.
I held the embarrassment out, my eyes squeezed shut. “Who’s this one for then?”
“An extra. We had a spare pinecone,” another Indebted piped up. The sides of her head were shaved, the top a floppy arrangement of beach waves that she totally pulled off.
I chucked the pinecone on the bed. Ouch. My stomach was really sore.
Laurel’s phone chirped. She pressed it to her ear as I massaged my stomach. Felt like I was having food octuplets.
“What’s the time?” I asked the closest vampire.
She leaned around three of her comrades to peer at the alarm clock. “4:00 p.m.”
Huh. Twelve hours of the thrall to go. “Time flies when you’re making a dick of yourself.”
Bright blue eyes appraised me. “We don’t think of what you did that way. No one has ever made something for me. It’s probably the same for most of us.”
A lump rose in my throat, and I battled against it. Okay, maybe I wasn’t as clear-minded right now as I thought—though more lucid than the last two and a half days that was for fucking sure. Karaoke was my limit when it came to making an object of myself. Turned out the thrall symptoms got stronger the second time.
That would’ve been nice to know.
“Miss Tetley,” Laurel said.
Her tone was so strange, I nearly gave myself whiplash spinning to look at her.
She extended the phone out to me. “It’s a client from Black. They got your number from Mr Polton.”
Mr Polton. Henry? The future husband of Bess.
I took the phone, frowning.
“You’re speaking with Basilia Tetley.”
A thin voice crackled from the other end. “Miss Tetley, I hope you don’t mind me calling you directly. I’m sure you’re a busy woman.”
I glanced around the room, eyes landing on the spare pinecone, empty tubs of ice cream, and strew of beer bottles. An Indebted choked back her laughter, and I threw her a grin.
“Not at all,” I replied, though the woman sounded sorry not one bit. “I understand you’re an acquaintance of Henry.”
“Yes, his aunt through marriage.”
“Lovely to meet you, Mrs….?”
She let out a short laugh. “Where are my manners? Mrs Maria Fenton.”
I rolled my eyes at another of the Indebted, who snickered.
“Mrs Fenton, how can I help you today? I hope Henry and Bess are well?”