Death Game: Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers #3) - Kelly St. Clare Page 0,2

failed to protect you on the estate.”

I stopped moving. Stopped breathing. “You wouldn’t do that.”

Evie would be the first in the firing line. When I misled her, it was in the knowledge Kyros would never cross that line and hurt her because of my actions.

The vampire glanced over his shoulder, fangs lengthening. “Test me.”

I stood, staggering slightly with dizziness. “So, what? You’re trapping me here?”

“You can’t be trusted not to put yourself in danger. You’ll remain in my personal territory until that trust is earned again. Look at it however you want.”

He was there one moment and gone the next.

The door to his room slammed.

Sitting heavily, I stared at my hands. What the actual fuck?

I couldn’t be trusted to put my safety first? I only had one person whose needs I put above my own. Kyros had eight of them.

Yet guilt rose hard and fast.

You can’t be trusted.

Little did Kyros know just how true those words were. When I got back to the estate, I wouldn’t just be picking up where I left off with my grandmother’s legacy of winning Ingenium.

Nope.

Two weeks ago, I pretty much handed Clan Fyrlia everything they needed to win the game. Unless I put Clan Sundulus back in the game somehow, not only was my grandmother’s work and death for nothing, but most of Kyros’s family would be murdered. I couldn’t let either of those things happen. Equilibrium had to be restored.

So Kyros was right—yes—I couldn’t be trusted.

Just not for the reasons he thought.

2

I inched forward, peering over the cliff edge at the ocean crashing below. In the distance, to the left, the golden shores of Lyall Bay called.

My head spun and I closed my eyes, inching away. My ears were mostly healed according to Dr Olivia. Tests had confirmed permanent damage to the canal. I couldn’t hear a whisper at farther than fifty metres away. Considering human norms were a few metres, I wasn’t shattered over the disability, but the news devastated Kyros; one more punch to the stomach. I’d genuinely feared for Olivia’s life when she presented the results. Poor woman.

A safe distance from the drop, I opened my eyes again and settled into my senses practice. I worked to stretch each individually and then mute them one by one. I worked on operating two at once. Looking as far out to sea as possible, I did my best to block out the crashing noise of waves. Once I achieved that, I dialled each sense in the opposite direction, pulling in my vision to the grass by my feet while flaring my hearing to maximum despite the tender twinge of protest.

After repeating this for paired combinations of each sense, I returned to sight and sound, adding touch to the mix. Holding the sensation of wind on my skin at a medium, I proceeded to juggle the three around, dialling them up and down in turn.

I was a shit juggler.

Blowing out a breath, I walked to the house, aka my prison. The cabin fever was real. Kyros had cooled off from our talk three days ago though, so when he woke, I’d open the estate talk again.

I had to.

I’d ignored Tommy’s calls for the last week, texting her that I was with Kyros and couldn’t talk. She’d read between the lines, but I needed to see her with every fibre of my being. And I had so many freakin’ apologies to make—to the Indebted—that I didn’t know where to start.

I shat on a lot of friendships to save my most important one.

“Kyros! Wake up. We brought pizza.”

I wrenched to a halt, my eyes lifting to the house. His siblings were here. At least one. And generally they—

“Why are you still asleep?” another asked.

—moved in a pack.

Shit. Just what I needed.

Their brother wasn’t asleep, but maybe our talk could wait until tomorrow. It was my turn to avoid him—and his family who would soon be dead unless I could undo the damage I’d caused, and fast.

How long until they figured out the truth?

Maybe Fyrlia would tell them before that happened. King Mikael couldn’t wait to turn Kyros against me.

I managed a single step toward the hidden garden I found two days ago.

“Basi!”

A wincing glance confirmed Lalitta was waving at me from where she stood in the bay windows of the open kitchen-dining area.

Fuck my life.

“Oh, hey,” I said weakly, wobbling as I pivoted back to my initial route.

Neelan appeared next to his sister. Then Gerome and Dierdre.

I picked up Safina’s dry voice and Francesca’s higher