Blood Trial Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers #1) - Kelly St. Clare Page 0,43
bright lights. I moaned, clutching at the front of his crisp white shirt.
He came to a brutal stop, and I clamped a hand against my mouth. Theme parks were my jam, but nearly dying had pushed my body to its limits.
Shoving nausea back, I was flopped onto a metal chair. Kyros strapped my arms and legs into restraints on the framing. The thought of me escaping was laughable. I couldn’t have moved at all—except to fall on my face.
But if he’d strapped me here to make me panic, then mission accomplished.
“Kyros,” I pleaded, trying not to jerk on the restraints. “This is a misunderstanding.” The words slurred together.
He strode to a cabinet and removed a vial.
What the fuck was that?
I tugged at my restraints with the strength of a newborn kitten. “No.”
Blurring back, he plunged the needle into my thigh.
I screamed as life exploded within me. Energy, too much energy, seared through my veins. It couldn’t get out. An itch under my skin. I thrashed to be free. The desperation to move hit my mind in a clamouring chorus of bells. A thousand voices chattered in my ears.
Adrenaline injection.
“Kyros, let me go,” I shrieked. “Get me out.”
He gripped my hair, wrenching my head so I arched back over the chair. “What did you tell Clan Fyrlia?”
Tears of pain stung my eyes, but my muscles coiled at snapping point. “Tell who?”
“Who do you answer to?”
“Please,” I sobbed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His top lip curled, revealing dreadful fangs. A whimper left me.
“Then again, they would have ensured you couldn’t reveal anything. No matter, I can work around that.”
My legs attempted to bounce up and down. My hands formed tight fists. Loose, tight, loose, tight, loose, tight.
I shook my head to clear my tripping vision.
He dipped his head to catch my gaze.
I couldn’t have looked away if I’d tried.
“What were you doing on Level 44 tonight?” he demanded. His deep voice ricocheted through me.
My mouth moved, words flowing freely. “I got kicked out of my apartment for not paying rent. I went to the library. It was dark when I left. The buses had stopped running. I was scared of walking in the dark. Angelica gave me a key last Friday. I decided to sleep under my desk.”
He hissed a string of words over his shoulder, and someone answered.
There were others in the room.
I was frozen to his will but could still think despite being unable to do anything about it. Maybe these people could help. I’d yell for help when I could.
“Continue,” he said, face showing his disgust.
“A woman came to reception with a man. I wanted to check where they were so they didn’t find me. I thought they were just having sex, then she bit him.” My body shook anew. My feeble human mind was trying to put the world back together again, but like Humpty Dumpty’s shell, there was not a chance in hell of it happening.
“She bit him and didn’t stop. He died. She picked him up, saying you could help.” I continued against my will.
His grip tightened. “No one came to me.”
“His name was Ryder,” I gasped.
Footsteps. “Sir?”
The monster’s meadow-green eyes didn’t budge from mine. “Did you give her keys?”
“I did, sir. She was to open on Monday because of the meetings you scheduled for me.”
It was Angelica.
Was she a vampire too?
I choked on a whimper.
Kyros’s lips pressed together. “She was kicked out of her apartment today. What do you know of that?”
“She asked for payment on Friday evening for the hours worked. I said no, as per our policy. She mentioned that would render her unable to make rent.”
Every word from her lips seemed to make him angrier. I wouldn’t have any hair left by the end of this.
Though I’d be dead, so that didn’t matter.
“Deana?” he asked.
My body didn’t react, held immobile in his power. Or maybe his eyes. The eye contact appeared crucial to rob me of control. I didn’t know how the vampire was doing it, just that I couldn’t escape the snare of his gaze.
“In her room, sir.”
I couldn’t see the man who spoke, but he continued. “With a dead human. A man called Ryder who she’d been seeing for some time.”
More footsteps. Another voice. I could only see the person’s business shoes.
“There was a bag under her desk, Kyros. It contained clothing and toiletries,” Business Shoes said.
“Fuck,” Kyros muttered.
He shifted his gaze and removed the hand from my hair. It was almost more painful to be free.