Vampire Debt - Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers #2) - Kelly St. Clare Page 0,4
hands on his chest, shoving as hard as I could.
“Just leave,” I shouted up into his face.
He wanted to go. I could see it. Since we’d met, part of him never wanted to be around me, and it was no different now.
The sentiment was entirely returned.
“Let me guess?” I panted from the heat of our bodies touching. “You need something? That’s why you’re here.”
I shoved him again to zero effect.
“Stop,” he ordered, capturing my wrists.
I tried to pull away. His grip didn’t alter, and panic found me.
“Let me go.” I kicked out, barely recognising my voice.
“You can’t run away from this, Basilia,” Kyros said, his eyes dimming.
I can. I will.
“Why not?” I spat at him. “You want to.”
He didn’t deny it. I could take solace in that. We were as miserable and trapped as each other.
My head tipped back as I laughed—my usual throaty sound warped to bitterness. Because the third blood exchange we’d completed was important for a whole other reason. Yet another thing I hadn’t paused to decipher since my grandmother’s death.
If Kyros and I weren’t mates, we’d feel nothing for each other. No itch under the skin. No drive to touch each other.
My laughter swelled. “Your true mate is a fucking human.”
Now I’d said the words aloud, I realised that was about the most hilarious thing in my life.
“Stop,” Kyros rumbled, shaking me hard enough to rattle my teeth.
To no effect. My laughter continued.
He bowed his head, holding my wrists tight as I whooped at the shitshow of my life. No friends under the age of sixty. No family. No fucking chance.
Kyros swayed in rhythm to my vicious efforts to be free, his head still bowed, and his expression serene.
No one was more disappointed than I when my manic laughter wouldn’t go the distance against Kyros’s meditative state.
“Please let me go,” I whispered, wrung out. Free me.
The Vissimo game master didn’t obey. Surprise, surprise. Lifting his head, he tugged me against him instead.
“Don’t you dare,” I snapped.
His arms tightened. “I’m here now, Basilia.”
I didn’t need him now. Even with his bullshit fucking lie about the second exchange, I might have accepted his support a week ago. Now, I refused to need anything from a Vissimo.
The funniest thing of all? Only blood bullshit was making me want this contact or his arms around me. The itch under my skin, the drive to touch him. None of that was real. Not like my friendship with Tommy had been real.
Not like the burning truth of my grandmother’s love.
I didn’t relax in his embrace, and eventually, Kyros let go.
Round two to Basi.
“Why are you here?” I flung at him.
“My sisters told me about the conversation you had with them during the thrall.”
“About you being able to feel where I am for the rest of my life?” I asked in a dangerous voice.
He searched my face. “Yes. That.”
“Is that why you took a week to talk to me? I pegged you for an asshole, not a scared asshole.”
His jaw ticked. “I had things to attend to.”
Ingenium. “I hope the game goes fruitfully.”
I got why he had to play, but their game hurt people. Me. Tommy. The citizens of Bluff City. The clans compelled human liaisons who likely lived in daily fear.
… Rhys, whose funeral I’d missed while in the injured haze of my third thrall. Not that I would have attended anyway, being partially responsible for his death.
Kyros’s nostrils flared, but his voice remained steady. “It is. Thanks to the property you secured in Black… amongst other things.”
I didn’t need the pointed look accompanying his words.
Sundulus bluffed Clan Fyrlia into entering a massive development deal for re-zoned agricultural land. The subdivision developer was a heroin addict—something I’d picked up on—and they expected the deal to fall through.
Whatever. I didn’t have two fucks to rub together where Ingenium was concerned. What I was concerned with were the Tonyi triplets.
When Clan Fyrlia attacked me ten days ago, they had specific knowledge of the weak spots in my route. Which meant…
“There’s another matter we need to discuss,” I told him. “Someone in this tower is a—”
He blurred, covering my mouth with his behemoth hand. And Zeus’s left nut, I tried not to acknowledge how perfect his warm, calloused hand felt against my mouth and skin. How did a crown prince even have callouses?