Vampire Debt - Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers #2) - Kelly St. Clare Page 0,61
on the wheel. “Then that would be very, very bad.”
I nearly choked on the possessive rage unfurling from him.
“I won’t react well,” he added—as if I needed more explanation than the black violence coursing through him. “That, more than anything, will put us both at risk. Swear to me you’ll do as he says. Be angry at me. Tell him I forced you to come here, but never, never, let him see the depth of our connection.”
The depth of what connection?
I snorted. “Shouldn’t be an issue.”
I fixed my gaze out the window as I scrambled to think of a way to stay alive in the next few hours.
14
I was padding—barefoot—into a king’s mansion. At least I wasn’t intimidated by his riches, which included one hell of an art collection.
Was any of this stuff from the last three hundred years?
Kyros walked behind me, and I trailed before him like a good doggy.
Whatever. I’d act the part if it meant getting back to my estate with my secrets and life intact. Shit.
This was really bad.
“Miss Tetley!”
White teeth and pink material flashed a second before Lalitta barrelled into me.
She held me at arm’s length. “Oh, it’s Le Spyre now, isn’t it? I’m so glad that’s in the open. I felt really bad about lying.”
I seized onto my anger at her with both hands, but it slipped between my fingers like sand. She was too guileless. I couldn’t be mad at her. “Le Spyre. Yes.”
A maid opened the heavy wrought iron door into the house—an Indebted? I smiled at her, but the woman’s gaze was fixed on the floor.
I traipsed into the mansion beside Lalitta and realised the intense discomfort prickling my neck was gone.
Kyros had disappeared, so that was fucking great.
I stared at my damp cover-up. “Uh, should I take this off?”
Francesca appeared behind her sister. “I’ll get you something dry.”
That was uncharacteristically mature of the youngest royal. “Okay.”
I tugged off my cover-up, passing it into the maid’s outstretched hand. “Could you hurry?” I asked the youngest princess.
Meeting Kyros’s parents in my G-banger bikini was pretty low on my priority list.
She displayed all her teeth. “Sure thing.”
Fuck nuts. I was just played. Looked like I’d meet the king and queen wearing butt-floss.
“Miss Le Spyre,” Safina said from the top of a small flight of wide steps embedded with flecks of quartz.
I climbed to join her, spotting Deirdre sitting at a table that appeared to have been carved out of a ginormous tree trunk. “Hey, how’s it going?”
Safina paused in the act of arranging a vase of Singapore orchids. She pursed her lips, taking in my outfit. “Better now. It was boring without Kyros, but that’s about to change.”
Because the clown had arrived? Me being the clown.
Deirdre wrinkled her nose. “Do you dress in less to cover insecurities about your worth?”
What the hell?
“No, Deirdre,” I answered calmly. “I was in the pool when Kyros came to discuss business. I don’t like tan lines.”
Her brow cleared. “He would have enjoyed that view.”
Safina grinned.
“Can’t say I give a shit if he did or not,” I answered for all the royal parents who might be listening.
Oh my god, I was about to meet Kyros’s olds.
My heartbeat took off anew at how many peoples’ lives and livelihoods depended on me playing this right.
“You weren’t aware of the business meeting then?” Safina asked, sticking in one last stem and cutting me a look.
Was this the pre-interrogation? “I’d hardly have agreed to meeting with a lying sonofabitch, would I? He jumped me.”
Safina pressed her trembling lips together. “In what sense? It’s obvious to anyone with a nose that the meeting wasn’t just business.”
Did that mean I stank? Or that Kyros’s stank was on me. I sincerely hoped for the latter.
Gerome sauntered into the room. “Basil!”
I glowered at the vampire who headed the entertainment industry for Sundulus. He was the one who called Kyros and got me into this mess—even if it was Neelan’s big mouth that did the real damage.
“Don’t call me that,” I said woodenly as he picked me up and squeezed.
He plonked me back down, tugging me through the mansion that rivalled the size of my own house. “Nonsense. I call you Basil, and you call me—”
“Germ.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of Rome.”
Slipping my hand free, I peered around—in vain—for Francesca. We were in a large interior courtyard that was open to the sky. Wide stairs ascended out of sight opposite where I stood.