Vampire Debt - Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers #2) - Kelly St. Clare Page 0,130

make sure you stayed away.”

My forgiveness wasn’t enough.

He strode from the room, and the queen gazed after him, a dullness in her blue eyes. With veiled looks cast my way, his four sisters trailed out after him.

“If Kyros had entered their territory, all of us would be dead right now,” the queen said to me.

I met her impassive gaze. “I know. I’m incredibly grateful that Safina and the others were able to get there in time to prevent that.”

She walked past the foot of my bed and stared out of the window. “His siblings had to prevent him storming the territory twice before Julius got there.”

Oh fuck.

“He lost control, putting us all at risk.”

The queen was a mother who’d nearly lost her children because of my actions.

“Kyros didn’t put you at risk,” I said. “I did. He can’t help what the bond makes him do.”

Her tone hardened. “You dishonour him by believing he wouldn’t come of his own volition. You are his true mate. He could feel—and later see—you dying at the hands of his enemy.”

All this talk of honour. What did it even mean? “I don’t think of myself as part of a pair, Queen Titania. I don’t assume that Kyros will protect me because of this thing with our blood. That’s not intended to disrespect him. It’s because I don’t believe in the mate bond.”

“Yet you disrespected him grievously. Protecting you is his role as your true mate. Just as it is yours to protect him.”

Frustration bubbled within me. “My going there had nothing to do with him or the exchanges.”

She smiled, a hint of iron showing beneath. “You went willingly into the triplets’ hands to protect your dear friend whom you consider family, yes?”

I nodded.

“My king and I watched as you absolved Kyros of guilt at the end. With what you considered your dying breath, you protected your true mate, having successfully protected your family, and having taken steps to ensure my son could not endanger his family. Kyros was unable to do any of those things. On top of that, you don’t give any credit to the connection you both share. Do you understand why he feels inadequate to be in your presence right now?”

That’s what this was about? He felt unworthy as well as disrespected?

I wanted to sleep.

Scrap that. I wanted Kyros’s arms around me. Fear tinged my every thought an ugly green. I’d been tortured and beaten and had no idea how the fuck I was here. Right now, I wanted him so badly.

But I’d gone into this alone.

I’d suffer the ramifications alone.

“Queen Titania,” I said wearily, “this is one of those times when being a Vissimo and being human are very different things. I’m too tired to argue and too tired to see your point of view.”

The queen dipped her head, unscrewing the water bottle.

I drank and rested back.

She leaned forward to kiss my forehead. “Your friend is alive and well, Miss Le Spyre, and guarded by Indebted on your estate. My first son cared for her personally, knowing you would wish it. He tells me she doesn’t remember a thing from the dinner to waking in hospital.”

My lips trembled. “She’s okay?”

The urge to cry was agony on my neck wound.

“Kyros made sure she was,” she whispered. “Just as he made sure to attend to your wound until you got to our surgeon and doctors. If not for him, you would not be alive.”

The last thing I recalled was the camera. “His saliva?”

She nodded. “Do you know how hard it was for him to do that without forcing the fifth exchange on you?”

Some idea, yes.

“Kyros could have killed you himself if his control had slipped for even a second,” she said.

The strength of her son’s disagreement battered my mind. He was listening to every word of this conversation. I got the feeling the queen’s words were more for Kyros than me.

“I owe him my life then. Trenit and Tynan, are they…?”

Her eyes clouded. “Alive. King Julius and King Mikhail negotiated a deal to prevent involvement of an impartial clan. Neither clan was willing to risk losing all.”

That amazed me—that an impartial clan may not have ruled Fyrlia in the wrong.

Kyros re-entered the room behind a doctor. Patting my hand, Queen Titania left the room with a long glance at her eldest son.

The Vissimo doctor grabbed a chart at the end of my hospital bed. The room was filled with medical apparatus.

“Severe abdominal bruising without internal bleeding,” the doctor read aloud with a nervous