Death Game: Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers #3) - Kelly St. Clare Page 0,9

car as he smashed the passenger window. “I’m your fucking mate—your true mate—and you don’t have faith in my strength or my power or my ability to keep you from harm. You don’t want to be in my company, on my property, or in my territory. You don’t believe in the blood bond or see us as a single entity. How the fuck am I meant to change your mind? How do I show you when killing more of my enemies means losing my family? What gives me the right to show you when you’re just so untouchable?”

Understanding trickled to me slowly.

Really, fundamentally, Kyros’s torment had the same roots as many of my childhood demons. He felt trapped and incapable of taking action.

I may not completely grasp his inherent Vissimo need to protect me as the male, but I could understand the emotion making him feel helpless. And I knew from clawing my way back to self-worth that I couldn’t make him feel better.

He had to do that himself.

But maybe he needed a kick-starter.

Guiding the vehicle around again, I said, “You think I don’t trust you to protect me? That’s the issue?”

That was just so… moronic. Who else was better equipped to do so and had more motive to save my butt?

“I can feel your uncertainty around me,” he answered after a beat.

I hit the steering wheel, pushing down on the accelerator. “I only feel that way because you’re acting like a caveman who didn’t spear a pig for dinner!”

“Slow down.”

In reply, I wrenched down on the wheel to circle us around, gauging the distance between us and the cliff edge. “What if I could give you proof that I trust you with my life?”

Kyros whipped his head to me. “You can’t.”

My heart spluttered uselessly in my chest. I gripped the wheel, firming my resolve on the fucking craziness I was about to unleash.

“I can. In the boot. There’s a bag.”

He stared at me. “No there’s not.”

I groaned. “Because you look there all the freakin’ time? Check the damned boot.”

Massive vampire in an itty-bitty space? He lowered his seat back and wrangled his way onto the back seat.

As soon as he pulled the seat down and stretched into the trunk, I planted my foot, wrenching the wheel to the right. His startled snarl was lost to the roar of the engine as we hurtled toward the cliff ledge.

Closer.

“Basilia!”

Closer.

His hand closed around my seat belt.

The engine whined as the ground disappeared and I gasped as we glided straight in thin air.

The nose tipped, and a scream lodged in my throat as we plummeted down to the ocean.

Kyros ripped my seat belt off. Moving me too quickly for me to fathom up and down.

Metal screamed. Light poured in. My new senses were overloaded. Shot.

I couldn’t take it anymore—though I’d created this.

Terror forced my scream. “Kyros!”

His arms were around me. Wind rushed past as we catapulted to who knew what, and yet still his soft words were audible in my ear.

“I have you.”

He did.

So why was I afraid?

The calm spreading through me wasn’t mine but worked all the same. My head cleared, and I was able to focus on the cobalt blue rushing up to meet us.

Kyros curled around me, covering my ears an instant before we crashed through the surface.

Water closed over us.

Forever passed as we forged a path through the depths. When our downward movement stopped, Kyros kicked upward with me in tow.

Just as my chest began to tighten, we broke the surface.

The vampire whirled me to face him.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” he hissed, water dripping from his toffee hair.

He hadn’t touched me in weeks, and as his words floated away, we both gasped at the electrical contact.

The current underneath my skin exploded.

I panted for air, wiping water from my eyes to better see him. Call it adrenaline, call it the blood bond, or call it something else entirely—throwing myself at Kyros, I looped my arms around his neck and pressed my lips to his.

His moan was immediate.

Saltwater seasoned our kiss as our tongues moved together, our union working both of us to a frenzy. I burned with the need to draw him closer, to tie him to me by whatever means possible.

To never exist as separate from him again.

I bobbed under the surface without warning. Surfacing, I coughed for air.

Kyros joined me above water a second later, glancing around in confusion.

“Did you just forget we were in the ocean and you had to swim?” I asked, breathing hard