Vampire Debt - Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers #2) - Kelly St. Clare Page 0,30
they’d probably snickered over the farce from day one.
“No,” I answered. “There’s no one else.”
He squeezed my shoulder. Or steadied me—that was always a possibility.
I scanned the room, my chest tightening. “I’d like to be alone.”
“As you say,” he replied softly.
Heart sinking to the floor, I watched the butler walk down the hall before reaching for the double doors to push them shut.
I woke in a cloud of lavender.
Drawing in an inhale filled with regret, I heaved onto my back and stared through bleary eyes at the maroon canopy.
Ugh, I didn’t feel so good.
Crawling to the edge of the enormous bed, I tugged on the bell, then promptly collapsed.
The doors opened.
“Miss Le Spyre?”
“Rosie, thank god.” I coughed. “I’ve awoken with a dire case of the dry mouth.”
“… I see. Might I recommend a greasy breakfast, coffee, and a mango lassi?”
I waved a hand in the air. “You may.”
“Very well, Miss Le Spyre. Will you take your breakfast here?”
Grandmother would arise as undead and stab me. “No, I’ll take it in…” I steeled myself. “In the lavender tiers.”
No answer.
I squinted at the doorway to see the plump head servant whose pallor was a direct contrast to her name. “Problemo?”
“Not at all, miss. Did you want me to wash your clothes?”
Crap. “Am I naked?”
The servant blanched. “You’re in one of your grandmother’s skirt suits.”
Jesus.
Carefully rolling to placate the temple demons, I peered at the teal blazer and below-knee skirt that I’d pulled on—white blouse and mother-of-pearl brooch included. The skirt suit was about six sizes too big and I hadn’t removed the lavender pouch from the breast pocket. That explained the lavender scent.
“No, Rosie. Don’t worry about that. Just breakfast.”
She curtseyed and backed out, closing the doors behind her.
Fuck me, I had to get rid of all the tequila in the house.
“Time to get up, fool,” I whispered.
I stood without vomiting and swept up my discarded clothes before shuffling to my own suite in the opposite wing.
I stood on the threshold, eyeing my white canopied bed with longing. But I’d wallowed in self-pity long enough. It wasn’t just me now. I had staff and an estate to manage. Poor Fred couldn’t be landed with the job forever.
Plus, everything I currently felt could be felt by Kyros, too, unless he was working as hard as I was to ignore the foreign tendrils of emotion. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of feeling my wallowing shame a day more. He’d played me for an idiot, and I had to suck it up and admit that head-on, no matter what my pride wanted to deny.
So many times in the last six weeks, I’d felt out of my depth or moronic. I’d had enough. This was it; the last time Vissimo would make a joke out of me. I wanted nothing to do with them—barring the Indebted.
They could visit. I’d shower them with gifts and kindness.
Kicking the doors to my suite closed, I shucked my grandmother’s outfit, draping it over the heavy wooden seat in front of my dresser.
By the time I’d gone through my shave, wash, hydrate routine in the adjoining en suite, an aching stiffness had settled in my limbs, but I felt halfway human.
Returning to the bedroom, I skirted past the sliding lounge doors to the wardrobe. Striding past the handbags, shoes, and jewellery cases, I stopped in front of the activewear section, which I couldn’t ever recall actually exercising in.
“No,” I scolded myself. “Today is a conquering day.”
I pivoted to the opposite wall and selected dark-blue jeans, light-grey stilettos, a belt with an obnoxiously large gold buckle. Then I snagged a loose linen white shirt equipped with a plunging neckline. The girls would free ball it today—with nipple pads of course. Didn’t want to scare the staff any more than I had. Selecting a black G-banger, I pulled on the entire ensemble, tying a knot in the front of the shirt to highlight the dramatic curve where my narrow waist flared to my hips. Thanks, Mom.
My hair would dry into barrel curls, but I helped it along in the shine department with some oil blend my hairstylist supposedly invented. Returning to my dresser, I picked up a thin gold chain discarded there—a twenty-first present from my grandmother. One I’d flung here the night I argued with her and left. Heart weighing heavy, I clasped it around my neck.
I shifted my eyes to the other objects on the dresser. My phone—from this century, portable charger, headphones, and the voice recorder Angelica gifted me.