Blood Trial Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers #1) - Kelly St. Clare Page 0,59

ago, so the males had purposely arranged themselves far away from me to accommodate their boss’s… mood.

Oops. Guess I went and messed that up.

The females filed to my side without a word, rearranging themselves so the male Vissimo running around the level so they didn’t get too close to me could gather behind their boss.

Not a single one stood closer to me than Kyros. I rolled my eyes and, too late, saw the man himself was perusing me again.

Thankfully, the view of him was obscured as an image filled the glass tube. In the middle of the tube, two gorgeous men stood facing each other. A way behind each man, two women sat on thrones, and on the floor between the two beautiful men rested two dice.

It seemed to be a live stream from wherever the kings rolled each night. The image was so clear I felt like I was in the room with them. Only the lack of sound reminded me that wasn’t the case. Creepy.

“Each night, the kings and their queens gather to roll the dice,” Angelica murmured in my ear. “The dice are weighed and carefully checked by a member from an impartial clan each night beforehand.”

That was a lot of effort. I guess the clans had no reason to trust each other. I’d paid attention to everything Angelica told me, but all the information was tinged with incredulity. I’d lived in Bluff City my entire life. If she was right, and I really was watching the kings of two warring vampire clans play a game that had spanned one hundred and forty-nine years, then I’d been part of a game my entire existence.

I’d hated living within the elite world. But I’d merely existed in a rich game within a bigger, uglier game.

Bile rose up my throat, and Angelica shot me a look.

“Are you okay, Miss Tetley?”

She could sense something was up. I shook my head, swallowing hard. “So did your king choose your sister for his queen after the dispute so all her children would be his?”

Angelica nodded. “And fifty years ago, King Mikael also chose a queen.”

I focused on the royals in the live stream. Kyros was related to one of them. Picking out his mother was too easy. She had the same meadow-green gaze, currently fixed on the Vissimo I assumed was her husband. The king had jet-black hair and blue eyes—like the bodyguard who’d gone head to head with Kyros in my first room. I could see hints of ruddy-brown in the king’s hair, too, a subtle likeness to Kyros’s toffee hair colour.

He was larger even than Kyros by at least a head. Was that an age thing, a blood thing, or a protein shake thing?

I shifted to look at the other royal pair.

The second king’s skin was olive, an obvious contrast to the other king’s golden brown. The main difference was the upward slope of his almond-shaped eyes. His queen had the same shaped eyes, though her dead-straight curtain of blonde hair and bright violet eyes were a stark difference to her lover’s hazel and dark-brown combination.

“The kings aren’t related?” I asked for confirmation. They didn’t look it.

The vampire beside me shook her head. “Kings rarely are.”

The queens—both of them, took my breath away. The word exquisite came to mind. So graceful and untouchable. Like they’d break into a thousand pieces if I spoke too loud in their presence. But once I had a moment to blink through my initial response to them, I found my eyes continuously drawn to Kyros’s mother.

There was something magnetic about her, even through the cameras capturing the dice roll.

“They’ve done this each day for one hundred and forty-nine years?” I asked.

Angelica didn’t tear her gaze from the tense scene. “No. We have two days off each month.”

Their work standards hadn’t changed much in one and a half centuries—or their union sucked.

“King Julius is about to roll,” she whispered.

The female Vissimo at my back hushed. Even with my human ears, I could have heard a pin drop.

King Julius stooped to pick up the dice, holding one in each of his massive hands; hands that could probably crush my little mouse head. I shivered. I never wanted to meet this guy face-to-face. He was one scary mothertrucker.

He let his hands swing back and then whipped them up to shoulder height. As the dice left his fingertips, he bent over, adding a fierce backspin.

The dice spun in the air, too fast for my eyes to track. I shook my