Blood Trial Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers #1) - Kelly St. Clare Page 0,45

Angelica said. “Her heartbeat is all over the place.”

“I assure you, Angelica, I’m perfectly capable of discerning the same,” Kyros said, his eyes flashing.

She cast her eyes downward immediately.

His hold on me tightened. “Conrad, alert the other seconds that my veto is nullified for the duration of the seventy-two-hour thrall. Their majority vote will override mine during that time. Call Gerome and Lionel to the tower as an extra precaution.”

“Consider it done.”

“Angie. Check Miss Tetley’s phone and text those she’s in contact with. A story to cover the next three days.”

She bowed. “Yes, sir.”

“Everyone. Out.”

I watched a row of people file out of the room. We’d had quite the audience.

When they were gone, Kyros sat on the same seat he’d just tortured me in, cradling me in his arms.

There was a block in my brain. I must have short-circuited in the last few minutes. My mind felt like a scratched, warped music record.

Because I should be struggling to get away. Spitting fiery words at him at least.

I was just so deathly tired.

But I was certain that, if I lived through this, the hate would return. In full force. And never ever fade.

For now, we stared at each other in a strange acceptance of what just happened.

“I’m going to drink from you,” Kyros stated, breaking the calm.

I didn’t say anything.

“Then you will drink from me.”

I wrinkled my nose.

His eyes narrowed. “I have not elected to compel someone in a long time, Miss Tetley.”

Was he offended?

“You expect me to thank you?” I rasped.

After a beat, he conceded that with a tiny dip of the head.

I rested my cheek against his shoulder, eyelids heavy. “Will it hurt?”

Will I die?

“I will minimise the pain as much as I am able. There will be a pressure in your head. That is the compulsion where I must set the restrictions we spoke of.”

“’Kay,” I mumbled. What other answer was there?

Later, if I lived, I’d deal with the mental fallout of this night from hell.

He sat me up and forced my legs apart so I straddled his thighs. I dragged open an eyelid to glare at him.

“It’s easier this way,” he murmured, vision tunnelled on my neck.

Sure it is. “No sex, Kyros. I mean it. If I want sex during the compulsion, I won’t be in my right mind.”

He cast me a strange look. “You won’t want sex during the exchange.”

If I had energy, I might have been embarrassed. Maybe paranormal novels weren’t an accurate Vampire 101.

“That comes after,” he hissed.

I opened my mouth, but Kyros shoved my head to the side, inhaling the base of my neck. He groaned deep in the back of his throat, chest rumbling under my fingertips.

I squeaked at the sharp pinch as his fangs sliced into my neck.

My thighs clamped around his legs.

I screwed my eyes shut, panting as a whispering pressure built in my head, mounting. A deep voice bounced between my ears, and it echoed back and forced in the confines, doubling back on itself, crisscrossing until I thought I’d pass out.

A plug was pulled and the pressure faded in a flooding rush.

With one last, lengthy draught, Kyros’s fangs retracted. I jolted. The pain was worse coming out than going in.

“Conrad,” Kyros called. “Be ready to intervene if necessary. I don’t want to bed this human.”

Didn’t everyone leave the room?

Blood rolled over my collarbone, and the huge vampire dipped his head, licking upward over the bite he’d created.

He kept licking, a rumble vibrating in his chest almost like a purr.

“Is that it?” I whispered, unsure if it was wise to interrupt a feeding vampire. I wouldn’t get between a dog and its bone.

He kissed the bite and lifted his head. Heat filled his meadow-green gaze. A few strands of toffee hair had separated from his always neat hair and flopped over his forehead.

Something hardened beneath me.

“No!” I said, squirming on his lap. No sex during blood compulsion, my ass. That was a definite erection.

“Your turn,” he said. There was a dreamy quality to his voice.

Not breaking our stare, Kyros bit his wrist and pressed the dripping wound against my closed lips. In a burst of speed, he leaned forward on the seat so I was forced backward. His free hand whipped between my shoulder blades to support my arched position.

“Open,” he snapped in annoyance, shaking his wrist against my mouth.

I parted my lips.

Thick soup tasting of rust and salt trickled into my mouth, and I gagged—at the texture more than anything—though I wouldn’t be licking any rusty fences to