and my gasping pants slowed to steady breaths as the heat drained from my lower stomach.
The cold longing that filled the empty space was so strong it resembled a cramp.
That was nothing but the bitter, bitter cold filling my mind as awareness returned.
I was set on my feet and swayed on the spot, just managing to stay upright. I threaded my hands through the hair at either temple as the dizziness from the blurry piggy-back ride faded.
Sound blasted through the level—ripping snarls from Kyros, and a few yelling voices that I couldn’t place. That noise was just audible over the swelling murmur of hundreds of people.
… No.
Please no.
Please tell me everyone wasn’t still here.
I peered down the length of my naked body. Only my skirt remained. Well, the waistband. The skirt itself hung in one long piece over my butt like a tail.
We’d lost control.
Kyros had attacked Rory. My hands shook, and I slid them free of my hair, lowering my arms to my sides.
I lifted my chin to look at the crowd of Vissimo on Level 66.
Stations had been thrown everywhere. Monitors and keyboards lay upended and papers littered the ground. The workers seemed torn between watching me and the crashing at my back—Kyros’s doing, I assumed.
When the onlookers caught sight of me standing there, more and more seemed to decide I offered the better odds of entertainment.
Sickly embarrassment trickled through me in an oozing roll, and the instinctual fear that mass numbers of Vissimo caused began to mount within me.
“Okay. We believe you now, Gerome,” the woman behind me said. She’d carried me away from Kyros.
It was the snobby auburn one.
Then her words slammed into me.
This was a fucking set up?
Molten rage mixed with my mortification and fear, and a burning set in behind my eyes. I swallowed hard as Kyros’s snapping faded.
God, we’d ripped off each other’s clothes in front of all these people.
And his siblings orchestrated it.
I couldn’t look at him.
Reaching behind, I undid the zipper of my skirt’s remains and let the garment fall to the floor. Sometimes the only way to get out of the mess was to go further into it.
I kicked the shredded skirt aside with no idea where my blouse was.
Keeping my chin raised, I scanned the Vissimo before me. I was standing by the elevator at least. I didn’t know where Kyros had carried us or how far Auburn ran with me after, but my exit point was close.
I was buck naked in front of hundreds of creatures with fangs, and I’d come face-to-face with the person from the most embarrassing memory of my teens. Yet as I stood humiliated in front of an entire clan of Vissimo, my only crushing, bitter thought was that I could never escape this place. Or Ingenium.
I’d left one game and joined the master edition through sheer stupidity.
Anger exploded in my chest, scratching at the swirling cavern of mortification and fear and lust until it mastered them.
I scowled at the gathered vampires, and in an icy voice I’d never used but heard many times, I said, “Don’t you all have work to do?”
Hint: It was a rhetorical question.
The lot of them scrambled, and I could only silently congratulate their wisdom in not hesitating. Holding onto my fury, I pivoted to face the group consisting of Kyros, his eight siblings, and Angelica.
Angelica.
I fixed my gaze on her first.
The slight smile on her face faded at my condemning look. I let her see my humiliation, my confusion, and my devastation. With my narrowed eyes, I told her this was her fault. She brought me up here tonight—either to mess with Kyros herself or as part of his siblings’ game. She lured me here after apologising for the shit I’d gone through in the last week.
Which rendered her apology to less than worthless.
“Shame on you,” I said softly.
She hung her head, breaking eye contact.
I spun on my heel for the lift and pushed the call button.
Turning back, I sought out Kyros at last. Only anger allowed me to meet his eyes after what nearly happened. I’d happily tear off a man’s clothes in a private room with someone I’d chosen. Never in public like this. Not with him.
Never with him.
He stood in the midst of his four brothers—Gerome, Lionel, Rory, and Neelan. Honestly, I didn’t fucking care what any of their names were. Not after what they just did to me.
Kyros took a step forward. “Miss Tetley—”
“Stay where you are,” I demanded in the same icy voice.
He