Vampire Debt - Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers #2) - Kelly St. Clare Page 0,103

way I came.

“It’s us,” Neelan whispered.

The queen sniffled. “Look how happy you all are. What were you about to do to your brother?”

“Lionel took sexy photos with Basilia and put them on a billboard for Kyros to see,” Lalitta said.

The king roared with laughter, sending the fear of death through me as he displayed a few teeth.

Lionel grinned.

Gerome plucked the frame from his father’s grip.

“Careful,” Kyros snapped.

I hovered on the edge of their group, my discomfort mounting.

Gerome returned the picture frame to his eldest brother, who, after another good look, placed it back in the wrapping, face up.

“Basilia,” Kyros murmured.

I folded my arms. “Yes?” My voice shook.

“Come here.”

I resumed my seat and gasped as I was deposited on his lap, facing away from his avidly watching family.

He held my hand to his lips, closing his eyes as he pressed a lingering kiss there. Green eyes bore into mine.

“I will treasure it always.”

The urge to smile was overwhelming, so I gave in to it.

“You’re not allowed to smash this one,” he murmured.

That would never happen. Not with this.

“Happy birthday, Kyros.”

“It is,” he agreed.

His family was less than a metre away and showing no sign of giving us privacy, so I made to slide off and return to my seat, but Kyros clamped an arm around my waist, touching his lips to mine in a kiss that awakened every part of me.

Kyros pulled back, capturing my chin. “I understand now.”

“You understand?” I repeated in confusion.

His grin was blinding. “Yes.”

22

I made my excuses at 10:00 p.m. last night to give them family time before they went their separate ways to play Ingenium. How did the game not wear on them as the years went by?

“Basilia? That you?”

“It’s me,” I replied to the flash of red lipstick through the twitching curtain. “The garden’s looking great.”

The front door swung open and Mrs Hannah rushed out.

I studied the ground and plants but couldn’t see anything that needed doing. I’d expected to spend a good hour here on the way back from viewing the changes at my new club. “You’re a green thumb.”

She cackled and shooed me.

I wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “It looks just beautiful. The lavender and marigolds.” She’d even trimmed the low hedge, which formed the semblance of a fence across the front of the property.

“The garden is perfect,” she said. I peered down at her wet sniff.

She was crying.

“Shit, Mrs Hannah. What’s wrong? Did I say something?”

“N-No, dear. Don’t mind me.”

We’d grown close over the last two months, bonding over the lavender problem. Maybe it was that old people reminded me of my grandmother and her friends, or maybe because I’d had an older guardian, me and the oldies just clicked.

“I certainly will mind,” I told her crossly.

Leading her back into the house, I guided her to a kitchen chair and set about making peppermint tea—the only thing I knew how to do in a kitchen, let’s be honest.

Her face was drawn when I placed a steaming mug before her and sat opposite, clutching my own.

“What’s your beef with the garden?” I asked outright.

Her face screwed up and fresh tears leaked from her eyes. My chest squeezed and I shuffled my chair around so I could rub her back.

“Better out than in,” I said quietly.

She shrugged a shoulder, leaning forward to grab a tissue from a box in the middle of the table. “Never really talked about it before.”

I waited.

“Five years ago, I decided to re-do the front garden.” She drew in a deep breath, and then words rushed out. “I asked my sister for some cuttings from her garden. Asked her to make a special trip down from Furnley Gorge to bring them because I don’t drive. We grew up close, Basilia. Foster homes, in and out of bad situations, but we were lucky enough to stay with each other during those years. That kind of crap bonds people in a way those with normal upbringings could never imagine.”

I could imagine.

“There was a storm the night she drove down. I waited up all night for her to arrive, sitting at the window, but I must’ve fallen asleep because her knock on the door woke me.” Mrs Hannah drew in a shaking breath. “It wasn’t her, it was the police. As soon as they said, ‘Are you the sister of Ms Heath?’, I knew. They told me she’d gone over the cliffs, killed on impact.”

Shock filled me as I thought back over our interactions. How she’d always said her sister was visiting