My heart erupted into a flurry, and my legs folded. I sank onto the bed behind me, wide eyes locked on the furious Vissimo.
He took one look at me, cutting off the roar, and his anguish swept through me, leaving a heartsick ache in its path that belonged to both of us.
Why was this so damn hard? Why couldn’t he understand that I didn’t blame him for not saving me? I’d saved myself. He was furious that I’d made him powerless in the equation. I got it.
If the tables were turned, he’d have zero qualms locking me in a room to go save his family.
Kyros strode to the door, gripping the framing. It cracked under his hand, and his shoulders heaved as he said, “Do not leave this house.”
He wanted me here but didn’t want anything to do with me?
Kyros felt inadequate. Welcome to the fucking club. No one but Kyros could make himself feel worthy again, certainly not me. This was his battle.
And yet I hated witnessing such uncertainty in someone who’d walked this earth for so long. This bottomless, falling feeling was horrible. It was like he’d given up the right to our blood bond.
I sighed. “I’ll stay if you sit down and talk to me tomorrow morning instead of waiting until I fall asleep to leave for work. You’re one hundred and fifty years old, not thirty.”
Apparently the thirties were a hard time for Vissimo.
He didn’t turn. “You want to negotiate? Here’s a negotiation for you, Basilia. Stay in the house, and I won’t kill the Indebted who failed to protect you on the estate.”
I stopped moving. Stopped breathing. “You wouldn’t do that.”
Evie would be the first in the firing line. When I misled her, it was in the knowledge Kyros would never cross that line and hurt her because of my actions.
The vampire glanced over his shoulder, fangs lengthening. “Test me.”
I stood, staggering slightly with dizziness. “So, what? You’re trapping me here?”
“You can’t be trusted not to put yourself in danger. You’ll remain in my personal territory until that trust is earned again. Look at it however you want.”
He was there one moment and gone the next.
The door to his room slammed.
Sitting heavily, I stared at my hands. What the actual fuck?
I couldn’t be trusted to put my safety first? I only had one person whose needs I put above my own. Kyros had eight of them.
Yet guilt rose hard and fast.
You can’t be trusted.
Little did Kyros know just how true those words were. When I got back to the estate, I wouldn’t just be picking up where I left off with my grandmother’s legacy of winning Ingenium.
Nope.
Two weeks ago, I pretty much handed Clan Fyrlia everything they needed to win the game. Unless I put Clan Sundulus back in the game somehow, not only was my grandmother’s work and death for nothing, but most of Kyros’s family would be murdered. I couldn’t let either of those things happen. Equilibrium had to be restored.
So Kyros was right—yes—I couldn’t be trusted.
Just not for the reasons he thought.
2
I inched forward, peering over the cliff edge at the ocean crashing below. In the distance, to the left, the golden shores of Lyall Bay called.
My head spun and I closed my eyes, inching away. My ears were mostly healed according to Dr Olivia. Tests had confirmed permanent damage to the canal. I couldn’t hear a whisper at farther than fifty metres away. Considering human norms were a few metres, I wasn’t shattered over the disability, but the news devastated Kyros; one more punch to the stomach. I’d genuinely feared for Olivia’s life when she presented the results. Poor woman.
A safe distance from the drop, I opened my eyes again and settled into my senses practice. I worked to stretch each individually and then mute them one by one. I worked on operating two at once. Looking as far out to sea as possible, I did my best to block out the crashing noise of waves. Once I achieved that, I dialled each sense in the opposite direction, pulling in my vision to the grass by my feet while flaring my hearing to maximum despite the tender twinge of protest.
After repeating this for paired combinations of each sense, I returned to sight and sound, adding touch to the mix. Holding the sensation of wind on my skin at a medium, I proceeded to juggle the three around, dialling them up and down in turn.
I was a shit juggler.
Blowing out a breath, I walked to the house, aka my prison. The cabin fever was real. Kyros had cooled off from our talk three days ago though, so when he woke, I’d open the estate talk again.
I had to.
I’d ignored Tommy’s calls for the last week, texting her that I was with Kyros and couldn’t talk. She’d read between the lines, but I needed to see her with every fibre of my being. And I had so many freakin’ apologies to make—to the Indebted—that I didn’t know where to start.
I shat on a lot of friendships to save my most important one.
“Kyros! Wake up. We brought pizza.”
I wrenched to a halt, my eyes lifting to the house. His siblings were here. At least one. And generally they—
“Why are you still asleep?” another asked.
—moved in a pack.
Shit. Just what I needed.
Their brother wasn’t asleep, but maybe our talk could wait until tomorrow. It was my turn to avoid him—and his family who would soon be dead unless I could undo the damage I’d caused, and fast.
How long until they figured out the truth?
Maybe Fyrlia would tell them before that happened. King Mikael couldn’t wait to turn Kyros against me.
I managed a single step toward the hidden garden I found two days ago.
“Basi!”
A wincing glance confirmed Lalitta was waving at me from where she stood in the bay windows of the open kitchen-dining area.
Fuck my life.
“Oh, hey,” I said weakly, wobbling as I pivoted back to my initial route.
Neelan appeared next to his sister. Then Gerome and Dierdre.
I picked up Safina’s dry voice and Francesca’s higher whine.
“Darling,” Rory purred as soon as I walked through the patio door.
I grunted in reply, throwing myself on the couch next to Lionel—by far my top pick for most empathetic sibling. Lalitta was the sweetest person I’d ever met, but she didn’t pick up on low moods and her chatter always remained at high.
Lionel wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “What’s happening, babe?”
Shrugging, I mumbled, “Nothing much.”
“I don’t buy that for a second.” His voice was low though everyone could hear.
Maybe I shouldn’t have chosen Lionel to sit next to. He’d make me cry.
I cleared my throat, blinking rapidly. “Your brother hates me. But also won’t let me leave this house. I nearly died seventeen days ago while killing the man my best friend loves.”
Silence reigned.
Gerome whistled low.
“Yep.” I let my head thump back.
“Kyros won’t let you leave?” Safina asked, rounding the charcoal sofa.
The devil himself strode into the kitchen at that moment, wearing nothing but his sweatpants again. I forced back the surge of lust that told me jumping him was probably the best way to live my life for the end of time.