He pushed my white cover-up down, baring a shoulder.
I gasped as he kissed between my breasts, moving across the hem of the tiny bikini triangles to kiss every inch of skin the swimsuit failed to contain.
I gasped as he bit the outside of my right breast gently, then lapped at the same spot with his tongue.
“You doubt my power?” His mouth moved to repeat the ministrations on my other breast. I arched up against his leg as he slid a hand up the outside of my thigh with grating slowness.
I’d mentioned car bonnets to him yesterday, but hell if I wasn’t changing that fantasy to the passenger seat. My back arched higher, and I panted my reply, “Not your physical strength.”
I’m going to combust.
“I’m already one of the most powerful alphas in the world,” Kyros snarled. “In time, there will be few I cannot best. How is it you don’t feel safe?”
Irritation crackled within me. “I feel safe from them.”
His face blanked, and I turned my face away.
“This wasn’t part of the deal,” I mumbled. “I want to go to the beach.”
“Tell me,” the Vissimo above me demanded.
I shoved at his rock-hard stomach, glaring up at him. “I don’t feel safe from you, Kyros. How can you possibly feel confused over that? Do I need to spell out that I don’t trust you after everything you’ve done to me? Now get off me before I knee you in your damn vampire balls!”
His mouth covered mine.
Bliss.
A low moan left me. Or was it his?
Heat, want, desperation, relief, betrayal.
His feelings were my own. Mine his. Telling them apart when we both felt so strongly was impossible. A hissing sigh escaped my lips, and I opened my mouth to him, hands seeking purchase on his tight tee.
“That fucking bathing suit,” he said hoarsely.
“More,” I pleaded.
His tongue battled with mine as his hands roamed. My hands? Fuck, it wasn’t just his emotion plus mine. The effect was exponential. I was at exploding point from sensory overload.
A knowing heat, a languidness built within me—the feeling of us meeting equivalent to multiple sets of hands roaming over me, stroking and nibbling.
“Kyros,” I panted, eyes wide.
Fear coursed between us. Not all of it mine.
He dipped his head to my neck, cursing.
The vampire leaned forward, grinding his thigh into me, and my head thudded back onto the headrest. My knees clamped either side of his leg, hands reaching to yank him closer and position him exactly where I wanted. But there wasn’t enough space. I was hovering on some kind of ecstasy. One I may never recover from. One that would consume me forever.
Breath catching, I circled my hips, pulling his toffee hair to force his face back to mine. With each passing second, it was harder to be afraid of coming undone.
“It’s not enough,” I said with a bite, a primal desperation filling me. I wanted to be consumed.
Kyros lifted his head.
Gleaming fangs.
I froze.
He dropped his head again, heaving with ragged breaths. “I want to drink from you,” he said, pain screwing his expression. “We need to stop or I’ll force the fourth exchange on you.”
Right now, I needed almost zero convincing, but another second of clarity brought back our surroundings. “Uh, yeah. A restaurant filled with people probably isn’t the best place for that.”
Three giggling teens were staring at us from a park bench.
Oops.
“You’d let me?” Kyros moaned as his fangs retracted back into his gums.
I watched in fascination. “Not in my right mind, no. Now, absolutely.”
“Fuck,” he hissed, hands curling to fists either side of my head. “That’s not helping.”
His phone vibrated in the console.
I glanced at him, but Kyros wasn’t home right now. I fished for his phone.
“Yello?” I asked, pressing the cool device to my ear.
“She’s with him. She just answered.”
I pulled the phone away to read the screen.
“Gerome? What do you want?”
Snickers trailed down the line, and I glanced at Kyros as he pried off my body and returned to the driver’s seat.
“Are all of you there?” I sighed.
“Shh, she can hear you.”
Sometimes I found it hard to believe Kyros’s siblings were older than seven. Except Safina. She was legit badass.
“Is my brother there?” Gerome asked.
I eyed the vampire next to me.
Nodding, Kyros extended his hand.
A ball of excitement formed in my gut. The fourth blood exchange would be easier than I’d thought. The same thing just had to happen in the right setting—his tower.
“What?” he snapped.
Couldn’t blame him. I felt seriously unsatisfied too. I straightened on my seat and twitched my cover-up back into place over my boobs, fidgeting against the agonising ache between my legs.
Just what I needed.
I exhaled, fidgeting again. Ten seconds. That was all it’d take to get me there in this state.
“Please tell Father I’ll attend him soon. I met up with Miss Le Spyre on a business matter,” Kyros said.
Uh, what?
“To ask her to give the staff human lessons again, of course,” he replied. “We were just finishing, tell him—”
Kyros’s expression smoothed. “Father.”
Shit.
“Yes. A business meeting.” Kyros pressed his lips together. “Yes, Father. Of course. We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
My eyes widened. We?
No.
No fucking way!
Kyros disconnected and looked at me.
I scowled bloody murder, folding my arms. “I’m not going.”
His face hardened. “Fucking Neelan told them where I was.”
“Your parents?”
Kyros turned on the car. “Correct.”
I faced forward. “Drop me off before you go there.”
“That’s not how it works, Basilia. My father ordered us to attend him.”
“He doesn’t own me,” I shot back, real fear spearing me. I had far too many secrets for a meeting with King Julius.
Kyros reversed, sending sand and gravel flying. “In our laws, he does. You’re under my blood compulsion and I’m part of his clan. You are his. Until the fourth exchange when our laws officially recognise us as courting. Only then do I have more rights to what can and cannot be done to you.”
I couldn’t stop my suspicion at his words.
“It’s the truth, Basilia,” he snapped.
“Don’t get snippy at me,” I retorted. “I don’t have to believe anything you say.”
I’d extracted details from Fernando on what the next three blood exchanges entailed, but I should speak to Laurel in greater depth about Vissimo laws surrounding the exchange process. I wouldn’t put it past Kyros to lie just so I’d run into the fourth exchange to be safe from his father.
Though that suited me, too, as long as there weren’t any nasty surprises—which there had been so far at every turn.
Kyros ignored me as he navigated the car onto the highway leading farther away from Bluff City. “I’m going to kill Neelan.”
Yeah, he could get in line.
I was yet to spend time with the brawny vampire, but Neelan seemed like he had a chip on his shoulder and a serious rebellious streak. Kyros’s siblings were all alphas, but Neelan gave me the most unstable vibe of the lot.
I didn’t envy him the malice in Kyros’s voice though. That promised pain.
“You owe me big time at this point.” I picked up the argument from a new angle. “Drop me at the estate and go yourself. I have zero desire to spend the day with your family or meet your parents. And I am so deadly fucking serious about that.”
He clenched the wheel. “You think this i
s what I had in mind when I asked you to spend the day with me?”
My reply was calm. “I have no way of knowing, Kyros. Silly me for believing the beach gimmick, I suppose. Should’ve stayed at the damn estate.”
Kyros didn’t answer, but I listened in on his frustration and disappointment. And fear.
Which was totally reassuring.
I’d seen a live stream of King Julius rolling the dice, and he was one scary motherfucker.
“You must come, Basilia. As much as I wish it otherwise,” he said, jaw clenching. “I can’t defy a direct order from my king.”
From his father.
I whacked the car door. “Why does he want me there? This is so messed up!”
I was in serious shit.
“Because he explicitly told me not to pursue you further after our third blood exchange.”
“So you decided to take me to the beach and lunch on your day off that you usually spend with your family? Are you daft?”
He shot me an irritated look. “I have no idea how Neelan found out. But we met for business. You turned down my offer for human lessons again.”
This was ridiculous. “Sure. What about if he decides to search my mind for the truth?”
Kyros’s grip tightened 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.
“Hey, Germ? Can I borrow your shirt?”
“I don’t like that nickname.”
“But it suits you so much,” I replied, hand out for his shirt. “What about Prince Germ?”
Rory and Neelan strode in through the west archway.
Neelan blurred to me. “You need a shirt? I’d be happy to lend you mine.”
His hazel eyes gleamed with challenge, and then I was certain. He hadn’t just opened his mouth to blab about me and Kyros. This whole thing was his turn to fuck with me. The siblings were playing a game with their eldest brother, and they’d decided to toy with me to get to Kyros.
Neelan had endangered my life.
I met his blue gaze. “You’ve gone too far, Neelan.”
His almond-shaped eyes flickered.
“You knew that already,” I added softly. “Give me your shirt.”
His black brows snapped together, and I smiled sweetly at him.
Rory stepped around his brother, drawing me into his arms. “Darling, why cover up? You look absolutely ravishing. It drives the imagination wild. Why, I could just bend you over and slide back that little bit of white material. Imagine the view.”
“Imagine my fist down your throat, Rory,” I answered.
“I’ve thought of nothing but our clandestine night together. Our secret dance,” he purred in my ear.
I dodged under his arm. “You mean in the brief moments you’re not thinking about yourself?”
Gerome grinned.
“Darling, there’s only you. Rory Senrite and Basilia Le Spyre. I can see the headlines now.”
Oh, brother. He was fucking persistent. I couldn’t help laughing.
Neelan’s gym singlet smacked into my face.
I peeled it off, sniffing. “Yuck, did you work out in this thing?”
“It’s my natural musk.”
“Gross,” I muttered.
Beggars couldn’t be choosers. I shrugged it on and stared down. “Why do guys wear tops that show their nipples? I just don’t understand it—do you think females enjoy the peep show? Because we don’t. It’s the burlesque show no one wanted tickets to. I mean, sure, show some lat and pec, but keep the nipples under wraps unless your entire top is off or you’re capable of breastfeeding.”
Neelan glowered.
“Does my criticism of your fashion choices hurt your little ol’ feelings?”
“You talk too much. Too freely. My brother needs to take you in hand.”
Wish he would.
Damn… Potentially still hot and bothered by our car frenzy.
“Miss Le Spyre, might I escort you to my father?”
I spotted Lionel halfway up the stairs on the opposite end of the courtyard. I couldn’t see the top of the steps—which was pretty imposing. Really imposing. Was King Julius crushing a big-ass throne between his buttocks at the top?
“Lionel.” I greeted the only sane brother. “Of course you can.”
He smiled and held out an arm. I took it as though I wasn’t dressed in two scraps of material and a stinking gym singlet.
“How are you today?” he inquired.
My heart rocketed higher with each upward step. I cut him a wry glance. “It started off great and has steadily worsened.”
“I hope I’m not part of the problem?”
Oh, he was. And an absolute charmer. “I reserve judgement until you try to make my life a living hell as well.”
“Who said I was planning anything?”
Uh-huh.
We reached the top, and I drew in a long breath, trying to settle my heartbeat. I peered back the way we came, jolting at the sight of the other siblings standing in a row across the top stair behind us.
Safina spoke, “You haven’t judged Lionel yet. What’s your judgement of me?”
I replied without thinking. “Badass bitch.”
“Me?” Lalitta asked, cheeks pinkening.
“The sweetest person to ever live.”
“What about me?” Rory asked.
I lifted a shoulder. “Bit bland.”
The siblings broke into loud laughter.
“Bland? Take it back,” he demanded.
“Nope.”
Cocking an ear, Lionel directed me forward. I turned back to glimpse the rest of Kyros’s siblings falling into two lines behind me in order from eldest to youngest. Had they seen The Sound of Music because they were emulating it to perfection? Which meant King Julius was the scary-as-fuck Mr Von Trapp.
Vampire Debt: Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers Book 2) Page 17
