Death Game: Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers Book 3)

by Kelly St Clare

  Then I went back for round two, pushing him closer to the edge.

  “Enough,” he panted.

  Ignoring him, I took as much of him in my mouth as possible. His deep groan was music to my ears for the split second before I was flipped onto my back.

  I winked up at him.

  “Disobedient,” my vampire purred, his eyes burning green. “You give me orders but ignore mine.”

  “You don’t want me to finish what I started?” I asked, tilting my head.

  His smile faded and his hot menace made my entire lower half clench.

  “I wouldn’t say that, vixen.” Leaning down, he kissed me, prying my lips apart with his tongue.

  I sighed, savouring the warm sensation of his mouth and lips.

  He pulled back and knelt on the ground, positioning his head between my legs. Oh, god. A low cry fell from my lips, drawn from my very soul, as he applied a hard and slow pressure with the flat of his tongue. My toes curled to cramping point, and I arched upward, hands clutching my face.

  “Fucking goddess,” he said raggedly.

  He did the same thing again, and I rode the wave of pleasure, using his face as he set a steady pace. My body rose and fell in crests. My hips jerked and his lips curved against me, unrelenting with the constant pressure and speed.

  He knew I wanted more.

  It didn’t matter though.

  The cloud-like awareness took over. White-hot bliss was around the corner, and the finality of how this would end only pushed me higher. My body slackened as languidness took over—my toes unfurled, numbness crept over my mind, my body was rendered powerless against the intensity of his masterful mouth.

  “Fuck,” Kyros hissed, his massive hands tightening on my thighs. “I can feel you coming.”

  His words hardly reached me. The bomb detonated. I imploded, everything within me drawing into a tiny point before pleasure catapulted outward.

  Kyros pinned my legs wide open as I came apart with the force of my orgasm. My choked gasp turned to a scream as his fangs entered the inside of my thigh.

  “Ky—” I cried out.

  His growl was savage. He pulled blood from my femoral artery, and I froze as the ecstasy somehow surged higher, transporting me into territory I would never return to.

  Or so I thought.

  His finger slid inside me, working in and out. I shouted, bucking against the arm pinning me down.

  Rapture.

  Bliss.

  It couldn’t end.

  I didn’t want it to end. A whimper left my lips.

  The vampire licked my leg, before pulling me up to my knees, his finger still hooked inside me.

  My body shook with the force of aftershocks. Ripping snarls filled his chest and the room, but I felt nothing but an inferno of desire. He slid his finger free of me and rose to stand, so my face was level with his hips. Holding my heavy gaze, the vampire bit his wrist.

  My heart thundered as he brought his wrist to the middle of his chest.

  Thick blood trickled down his torso, and I didn’t give my actions a second thought. My tongue was ready to intercept the stream. I sucked and swallowed, making sure not to miss a single drop as I cleaned his rigid abdomen to the soundtrack of his growls and groans.

  I craned to reach higher, pulling myself up using his arms to lap at the trail of red coating his centre line. I wanted it all.

  Higher.

  A soft whine slipped from my lips as I suckled all the way to his wrist.

  I snatched at his arm, greedily latching my mouth around the wound to draw as hard as possible as the insatiable fire of the thrall bore down on me.

  I wanted to be consumed.

  Kyros spun me in his arms, my mouth still clamped around his wrist.

  His blood. The feel of his hardness against my back. It was too much and not enough.

  His lust slammed into me, and he hooked one of my legs with his free arm. Reaching down, I rose on tiptoe and positioned him at my entrance before slowly sinking down.

  We both sighed, a brief pause in the desperate, pulsing chaos.

  Then the fire rose to a desperate inferno.

  In a blur, Kyros hooked my other leg, my knees bent over his forearms. Arching, I looped my hands behind his neck as he spread me wide in front of his tower window.

  “Mine,” his low voice rumbled in my ear.

  I twisted my head and claimed his mouth. My eyes surely blazed brighter than his. I tried to move my hips again as he pulled out so only his tip was inside me.

  It was useless.

  I was at his mercy.

  My vampire enjoyed that, but he was waiting for something.

  “Mine,” I growled back.

  Kyros shoved into me.

  15

  My feet hooked around his ass as I helped his slow thrusts into me.

  Our gazes were locked. Nearly nose to nose, sweat slickened our bodies. We existed alone in bliss, and there wasn’t any hurry.

  My vampire’s pulses were almost lazy, and I smiled sleepily up at him.

  “Mine,” he whispered, trailing his nose from my jaw to temple.

  I gripped his forearms as our bodies tightened and we crested a wave that was one of thousands.

  This wouldn’t end.

  Our world would always be shared pleasure, equal pleasure, double the joy for experiencing it myself and through him.

  “Ky,” I breathed, my blinks slow and heavy.

  “Mate.”

  He stayed inside me, rolling us to the side. My mouth was tender, and so his kiss was whisper soft.

  Kyros tilted my chin, and I frowned at him, shivering as the fire surrounding me edged away.

  I blinked at the loss of it, exhaling shakily with my sudden terror.

  “There’s nothing to fear, my beauty. The thrall is ending,” he said, kissing my forehead.

  The thrall?

  I frowned as the last of the mindless fire drained away. Pushing up, I peered around us.

  I gasped.

  Oh my god. The thrall!

  “Is there anything left?” he rasped, not budging his focus from my face.

  I glanced down. We were on top of blankets on the floor. “The sofa. Thank you.”

  Kyros snorted.

  My jaw dropped as I glanced around. Because I remembered everything this time.

  Every. Single. Thing.

  What was I supposed to say after three days of mind-blowing sex with a vampire? “I didn’t black out.”

  He eyed me. “You didn’t?”

  I shook my head. Sex in the shower, on the dresser, the bed, the walls, the kitchen bench, and the mirror. It was all there. “How am I still standing?”

  “You’re not,” he drawled.

  Someone was feeling proud of himself.

  Honestly? He should.

  He brushed his thumb along my collarbone, eliciting a sigh. “You heal faster now, and I helped you a few times, if you recall.”

  Blood flooded my cheeks. “I recall.”

  “Thought you might.”

  I shifted, and my eyes widened. “You’re still inside me!”

  Kyros peered down. “So I am.”

  I choked on a laugh.

  He pulled free, and I did my best not to acknowledge the mounting heat in my cheeks as he did. We’d never done this part before—the immediately after sex part.

  He cradled me in his arms, holding me tight.

  “I don’t want to stand in case I can’t,” I admitted after a few minutes.

  “I’m not sure I can manage it either.”

  “Wait, you’re saying I wore your ass out?”

  “I already knew you were creative, vixen. That quality extends to the bedroom.”

  Grunting, he got to his feet with me in tow and weaved toward the bathroom.

  Kyros really couldn’t walk. My body shook as he leaned against the tiled wall in the shower and slid to the ground.

  “Would you rather walk?” he asked, setting me on the tiles
beside him. We’d broken the shower partition and the mirror. Damn.

  I reached up and turned the shower on in answer.

  Tried to.

  My jaw dropped as the handle came away in my hand. “Shit. I broke the shower.”

  Kyros grinned. “Well, we’re fucked because I can’t walk any farther.” He took the black handle from me and fitted it overhead, twisting. Water poured out, and when it warmed, I slithered on my belly under the jet.

  “Oh my god, you need to feel this,” I said, laying there as the water pounded down on my aching body. This is why I didn’t do exercise other than swimming. Exercise came with consequences.

  Kyros gripped my ankles and pulled himself beside me.

  “That feels incredible,” the vampire murmured, his eyes weary.

  “Would it be bad to nap here?”

  The graphite tiles felt like a cloud. My limbs were so heavy. I needed to sleep for a week. Because of sex.

  He mumbled, “Waste of water.”

  “Mmm,” I murmured.

  Fingertips grazed my cheekbones. The sensation lulled me, and my body relaxed.

  I was powerless to open my eyes.

  “I love you, Basilia Le Spyre,” Kyros whispered.

  With the last of my conscious effort, I rested my hand against his chest and smiled.

  “Bitch, get up.”

  “Better have my money,” I snapped from sleep’s hold.

  Tommy snorted. “Bitch better have my money? I actually get that one.”

  No. Only Kyros got my delirious waking-up talk.

  I squinted over my shoulder. “Dayzit?”

  “Friday morning. 8:00 a.m. You slept for eighteen hours.”

  No shit.

  My last memory was of stumbling into the house after Queen Titania dropped me off because she was the only other person who knew the code to Kyros’s lair. Everything between the end of the thrall and now was a hazy blur. “Whoa.”

  Tommy’s hand rested on my chest. I peered down and only twigged when she clawed her hand.

  The scratches were gone.

  Tommy threw off the bedspread.

  Yep, my knees were healed too.

  She held up a hand, wiggling her five fingers. I nodded after a beat, realising what she was asking. And this time, Kyros and I exchange more than blood and sex. What we’d shared was so much more.

  Fuck.

  My body was begging me to go back to sleep, eighteen-hour slumber notwithstanding. But Tommy was here, and apparently, five days had passed since the fashion show.

  “Office,” I croaked.

  “I was given instructions to make sure you read this.”

  I took the note from her, squinting.

  Remember you may be a little faster and stronger, true mate of my eldest son.

  - Queen Titania

  I blew out a breath. “You read it?”

  Tommy’s eyes were wide as she nodded.

  That’s my girl.

  Recalling Kyros’s words to exert myself less, I pretended my body was wading through mud as I sat and then stood.

  That felt too slow.

  I pretended I was moving through water instead of mud as I walked between the bed and door. “How did I go?”

  Tommy squeaked, “Jerky.”

  Crap.

  Picking somewhere in the middle, I reached for the door handles.

  “Better,” she murmured, sounding faint.

  Focusing on my arms, I imagined the force needed to move a feather and pulled. The doors opened halfway. What’s heavier than a feather?

  I imagined gripping a stick and pulled again. The doors crashed against the walls either side.

  “Oops,” I said as Tommy gasped.

  I’ll work on that.

  Clinging to the watery-mud sensation, I walked through the house beside a very quiet Tommy. As soon as we reached the office, she shut the door and ran for the noise-cancelling button.

  She turned to me. “Holy fuck. You’re a vampire.”

  I held my hands apart and wriggled the fingers of one. “Human.” Then I wriggled the fingers of my other hand before slicing through the middle.

  “You’re somewhere between?” she said, circling me. “Faster and stronger. Anything else?”

  I didn’t know how to tell her about the changes after the last thrall, so she had no idea my senses were better now, unless Kyros said something. Thinking of Dumbo, I touched my ears. Then thinking about when I’d next get to the spa for a facial, I touched my eyes, nose, mouth, and skin in turn. “Senses.”

  “Is this normal?” Tommy asked in a strangled voice.

  I dipped my head.

  Her breath came fast. Giving her a moment, I walked to the desk at a hopefully normal pace and picked up each of the objects in turn, trying to find the right level for my strength.

  Kyros would have some tips.

  At the thought of him, my stomach swooped, and fierce longing swept through me. Lust was there, but this wasn’t the same.

  Where was he right now? What was he doing? A quick check told me he was asleep. I wanted to be next to him, hugging his back, breathing him in.

  Which wasn’t good. At all.

  What was I thinking? I should have spent the thrall with his sisters.

  Shaking my head, I faced Tommy.

  “You’ll be better able to protect yourself,” she whispered, and her face firmed. “Good.”

  My confusion over her presence here was strong enough to edge between my longing and despair. “Tom, I love that you’re here again. And Kyros told me what he showed you. It’s just… I need you to explain what’s going on in your head because I never expected to see you again after our last conversation.”

  I perched on the desk as she sprawled on the chaise.

  “Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath as she rolled onto her back. “Here’s the list. I loved Theodore—or the person I thought he was. I’ve never let myself feel that much for a person. Then once I had, he was gone and you were here. I couldn’t blame him, and I couldn’t accept he was a Vissimo or that he’d lied. My mind went into overload. I could see that you were having trouble telling me what you needed to, but I couldn’t listen to the words coming out of your mouth. I didn’t even blame you. I blamed Kyros. Through you, he’d killed Theodore.”

  She swung up to sitting. “Kyros found me and showed me the video. He made me watch it three times. After that, I chose to watch it a fourth time so the truth sank in.” Tommy dropped her head into her hands. “Basi, how can you forgive me after that? Kyros told me that you walked right into the hands of the triplets, making sure he couldn’t follow you. They placed a bomb around your neck. Fuck, you must have been terrified out of your mind.”

  Lifting her head, she looked at me. “You did that to save my life. Then you came back to tell me my boyfriend was a psychopath so I could move on. And I slapped you around the face for it.”

  “I deserved it, Tom,” I told her. “I failed to protect you when I brought you into this mess. You were depending on me, and I should have insisted on meeting Theodore. Looking back, it was so obvious. It’s just that he was in your life before I knew about any of this. Which is zero excuse, really.”

  Her face slackened. “That’s ridiculous. That’s… no.”

  Yes.

  “How are you doing?” I asked softly. “He still broke your heart. You nearly died from whatever he gave you.”

  Tommy peered up at the ceiling, blinking several times. “I’ve wondered whether it’s better or worse that Theodore wasn’t who or what I thought. He’d be dead now, but at least I’d be able to mourn the love we shared. I feel like because the person I loved was a lie, my grief is a lie too. Like I have no right to feel the way I do.”

  I crossed at human pace to join her on the chaise, very carefully wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Can’t you grieve the lies though? Even if you find it hard to mourn the man you loved?”

  She wiped her face, sniffing hard. “I’m
not sure how I have tears left. I wish they’d stop. I’m so angry at him.”

  “He paid for what he did to you and my grandmother.”

  Fresh tears squeezed from her eyes. “Kyros told me about Agatha too. The three of them stressed her heart until it gave out. Fucking sick monsters.”

  Sadness over my grandmother didn’t always weigh heavy, but today her words hit me hard. “Yes, they did. So there are two more to kill.”

  “They must be pissed about their brother.”

  “I’d say so. Especially when one of them pressed the remote button that set off the bomb.”

  A cruel smile unfurled across her face, then her vulnerability snapped back into place. “I’m not sure it was always Theodore I spent time with, Basil.”

  I stilled.

  “I think they took turns,” she whispered.

  Letting her go in case I accidentally hurt her, I said, “You’re sure?”

  “He’d act strangely sometimes. I thought he was tired or stressed about work. There were moments when he couldn’t recall something we’d discussed the day before.”

  I brought her into this world, and she’d been used by three guys. Raped.

  “Tom,” I said, my voice breaking. “I am so sorry for bringing you into this. I should have been stronger and kept pushing you away. I’m just so fucking sorry.”

  She cut off my babbling apology. “You said yourself that Theodore approached me before you knew about vampires. Your position in the tower—the mating thing with Kyros—drove him to hurt me in that specific way, perhaps. But he—they—were always going to use and hurt me in some way. You had nothing to do with how they treated me, apart from being my friend. And that’s not a burden you’re allowed to take on.”

  Being the poor friend of a rich woman had consequences that Tommy occasionally struggled with, but it never should have led to this. But maybe I shouldn’t blame myself entirely for the actions of a supernatural race I hadn’t known existed until recently.

  I rubbed my nose. “I hate when you’re logical. Let me feel like shit.”

  “Whatever. That’s a cop-out. You just had three days of sex that turned you into superwoman. I’m miserable. Your mission is to pretend the shit out of happiness, so I can continue to wallow.”

  I snorted. “Pretend the shit out of happiness. What have you been watching?”