“I can feel your uncertainty around me,” he answered after a beat.
I hit the steering wheel, pushing down on the accelerator. “I only feel that way because you’re acting like a caveman who didn’t spear a pig for dinner!”
“Slow down.”
In reply, I wrenched down on the wheel to circle us around, gauging the distance between us and the cliff edge. “What if I could give you proof that I trust you with my life?”
Kyros whipped his head to me. “You can’t.”
My heart spluttered uselessly in my chest. I gripped the wheel, firming my resolve on the fucking craziness I was about to unleash.
“I can. In the boot. There’s a bag.”
He stared at me. “No there’s not.”
I groaned. “Because you look there all the freakin’ time? Check the damned boot.”
Massive vampire in an itty-bitty space? He lowered his seat back and wrangled his way onto the back seat.
As soon as he pulled the seat down and stretched into the trunk, I planted my foot, wrenching the wheel to the right. His startled snarl was lost to the roar of the engine as we hurtled toward the cliff ledge.
Closer.
“Basilia!”
Closer.
His hand closed around my seat belt.
The engine whined as the ground disappeared and I gasped as we glided straight in thin air.
The nose tipped, and a scream lodged in my throat as we plummeted down to the ocean.
Kyros ripped my seat belt off. Moving me too quickly for me to fathom up and down.
Metal screamed. Light poured in. My new senses were overloaded. Shot.
I couldn’t take it anymore—though I’d created this.
Terror forced my scream. “Kyros!”
His arms were around me. Wind rushed past as we catapulted to who knew what, and yet still his soft words were audible in my ear.
“I have you.”
He did.
So why was I afraid?
The calm spreading through me wasn’t mine but worked all the same. My head cleared, and I was able to focus on the cobalt blue rushing up to meet us.
Kyros curled around me, covering my ears an instant before we crashed through the surface.
Water closed over us.
Forever passed as we forged a path through the depths. When our downward movement stopped, Kyros kicked upward with me in tow.
Just as my chest began to tighten, we broke the surface.
The vampire whirled me to face him.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” he hissed, water dripping from his toffee hair.
He hadn’t touched me in weeks, and as his words floated away, we both gasped at the electrical contact.
The current underneath my skin exploded.
I panted for air, wiping water from my eyes to better see him. Call it adrenaline, call it the blood bond, or call it something else entirely—throwing myself at Kyros, I looped my arms around his neck and pressed my lips to his.
His moan was immediate.
Saltwater seasoned our kiss as our tongues moved together, our union working both of us to a frenzy. I burned with the need to draw him closer, to tie him to me by whatever means possible.
To never exist as separate from him again.
I bobbed under the surface without warning. Surfacing, I coughed for air.
Kyros joined me above water a second later, glancing around in confusion.
“Did you just forget we were in the ocean and you had to swim?” I asked, breathing hard as I treaded water.
His lips twitched as the dreamy haze left his eyes. “You have that effect on me, vixen.”
Vixen.
My bottom lip must have trembled because as Kyros drew me against him once more, he stroked it with his thumb.
“I’m sorry, my beauty,” he said over the crashing of the waves.
A handful of words made me realise just how much his distance had hurt. “I missed you. Are you back for good?”
His reply was dry as he turned around. “You proved your point. Destroying my favourite car in the process.”
“That was collateral for your little move with the keys yesterday.”
“Fair enough. Hold onto my neck.”
As soon as I did, Kyros swam for the cliff face.
“But?” I asked him.
“But you are not Vissimo. And I am not human. I need to figure out how I fit as your mate, seeing as you won’t accept me acting like a caveman who didn’t spear a pig for dinner.”
His amusement embraced me and if it was a tangible thing, I would have hugged it and never let go. Kyros was happy, and I just felt so right. So centred and sure.
“No, I won’t,” I mumbled. “I promise to figure out the same. For y—” I grimaced as we reached the bottom of the cliffs.
“What?” He tried to glance back.
We were exchanging wedding vows. What the hell was wrong with me? I’d forgotten everything.
I shook my head. “Uhm, nothing. Just grossly unprepared for the emotional content of this conversation.”
That didn’t amuse him one bit.
“You drove a car off a cliff, and this conversation worries you?”
Make that a big fat yes with a side of fries. Not answering, I linked my legs around his waist and adjusted my grip.
Kyros started up the one-hundred-metre drop, and I didn’t give it more than a passing thought. I really did trust him to protect me. As it turned out, knowing that and proving it to myself were different things.
Why did I have the feeling I’d just crossed a line that I couldn’t erase?
“Kyros. Basilia. Your dinner is getting cold!”
I craned my head to see Queen Titania peering over the ledge. She waved, beaming.
How did this become my normal?
Because it did feel normal to me now. This absolute insanity where vampires were real and I drove cars off cliffs to prove a point.
I rested my head against Kyros’s back. “I’m hungry. Let’s go feed me.”
A growl filled his chest as his powerful arms and legs worked to move us to the top. “Kyros spear pig.”
Ugh.
I’d never hear the end of that.
4
It took another two days to return to the estate under the not-so-ideal negotiated conditions of my release.
I’d needed time after Kyros came around to decide my plan of attack for Tommy and the Indebted. Plus, things felt so right with him after the car thing, and I truly hadn’t wanted to leave his company.
In the end, the danger of that spurred me home more than anything.
My duty to my grandmother’s memory and her friends came first. Always. I’d known my feelings would get tangled as we continued to exchange blood, but I had to keep that from interfering with my strategy.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath as Fred pulled into the estate.
This was going to be a shit of a day.
One I’d brought on myself.
Tommy was out the massive front doors of the main house before I’d opened my car door.
“Good luck, Miss Le Spyre,” Fred said.
Fred.
Although he’d known the truth of what happened that night, I still felt like I owed him an apology too. Yet he’d take that as a mortal offense.
“Thank you so much, Fred,” I whispered, reaching forward to squeeze his shoulder.
Tommy ripped open my door and nearly dragged me out.