Death Game: Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers #3) - Kelly St. Clare Page 0,63

one week ago,” King Julius said, resting back.

“Yes, King Julius.” I kept my gaze on the armrest of his throne.

He held the picture out to me.

Hands shaking, I took it, bracing myself before looking again. There was a date on the picture. Yesterday.

“The recording of her testimony is useless,” he said, blue eyes never colder. “Now she is dead.”

The feeling of falling overcame everything else. It swamped my horror over Sandra’s fate. Because I could feel Kyros’s fear and his struggle not to join me on the stairs.

He was trusting me to handle this, and that was so hard for him to give.

His siblings were barely breathing.

The king’s hand curled. “Arrogant human,” he spat.

My gaze dropped further.

“Why was this note addressed to you?” Queen Titania asked in a steady voice.

She wasn’t any easier to look at than the king. Not when she was the mother who would survive, minus a husband and with only one of her nine children. Even if she hadn’t given birth to all of them herself—which is something I’d never insult her by asking—she would die for any one of them.

My heart thudded pathetically. We all heard it.

And still Kyros hoped… hoped this was part of my plan.

I’d betrayed him and the only people he cared about.

Taking a breath, I said, “Because when the Tonyi triplets took me hostage, I made a deal with King Mikael.”

Even the king hadn’t expected that.

I continued. “I told him about the bluff you played with the Mr Ringly deal so Tommy would live.”

Lalitta gasped, and yet I couldn’t turn to face her because Kyros’s pain froze me to the core.

Disbelief. Anguish.

“Acceptance,” I whispered as Kyros’s disbelief dissipated to be replaced with bitter betrayal.

My insides shook as hardness overcame him. I was left reaching for his emotions, fingernails scratching at a rock wall.

Queen Titania closed her eyes.

“You couldn’t be compelled though,” Kyros whispered. “You offered the information freely.”

I swallowed three times before recovering my ability to speak through the emptiness of his absence in me. “Yes. I honoured the deal once Tommy was delivered to a hospital.”

The king’s blue eyes bored into me, but the pain bursting from the vampire at my back was of greater importance. I had the presence of mind to back down the stairs before facing Kyros.

I flinched at the hatred on his face.

“You sacrificed the lives of my entire family for one human,” he spat.

“She’s my family.”

“I’m your family too.” His roar was terrible to behold.

None of the siblings looked at me aside from Safina.

I jerked back at her burning hatred.

“You’ve killed my daughter,” she whispered, voice shaking with loathing.

Kearra.

I sucked in a breath. The entire bloodline would be executed aside from the queen and Kyros. That included her daughter.

Horror suffused every part of me.

Torment filled Kyros’s voice. “Why?”

I’d already told him.

But he wanted to know why I’d hurt him this way. Why I’d gone after the one thing he valued in life—his family.

“There was no other choice,” I told him simply.

“The choice was seeking my help when the triplets first contacted you,” he growled in my face.

I tried to breathe through my reaction, clamping down on the urge to collapse in a heap.

“The choice was telling me what you did as soon as you woke.” Kyros’s hands clawed. “The choice was coming to me when you discovered the possible discrepancy in the council papers. Mr Ringly transferred his bank loan to one of Fyrlia’s banks. We thought they were protecting their investment. The debts of his drug dealer were suddenly paid. Every planning breach we’d taken note of was cleared up overnight. We thought Julia Dinh was playing us.”

I lifted my gaze to his meadow-green eyes and part of my soul chipped away.

“You were stabbing us in the back,” he said. “Is this your fucking revenge for what I did then?”

The lump in my throat made my voice hoarse. “No,” I whispered.

Kyros strode past me, and I turned to watch as he knelt at the base of the stairs. “Father, please forgive my lack of judgment.”

Lack of judgment.

That’s what I was now.

I took the hit, telling myself it was just hurt from his words and not my heart shattering.

“Your idiocy will be discussed at length, but not in front of human trash. Get rid of her.”

It took Kyros less than a second to accept the order.

“Leave,” he said, his back to me. “Do not return.”

I’d expected this.

I’d known he’d be angry.

What I hadn’t expected was to feel like a speck of dirt on the bottom