His face hardened. “I do, Basilia. Absolutely.”
… Unexpected.
The fierce burning in his green eyes was too intense. I shifted my gaze, rubbing my chest. He was drawn to me—but part of him had never wanted to accept that. It was the same for me. And that was true from the very first moment we met before the first blood exchange.
“My father heard of our third exchange after Fyrlia’s attack. He’d approved the second—believing, like me, that my fascination with you would end after the second thrall. The third exchange was an accident, of course, but now it’s clear we are true mates.”
“You keep saying true mates instead of mates. What does it mean?”
His breath deepened. It was his turn to fidget. “Any pair who complete all of the blood exchanges are considered mates. When certain symptoms appear, there’s a potential the couple are true mates. If these symptoms continue beyond the third exchange, their true compatibility is confirmed.”
For starters, we weren’t a couple.
“You gave me the extremely diluted version of what the exchanges meant,” I said. Then shook my head wearily. More omissions. Why am I surprised?
Kyros’s eyes narrowed. “Working off very old statistics, three in one thousand experience symptoms such as ours after the first exchange. In 76 percent of those cases, reports of singing blood disappeared completely after the second exchange. Of the remainder, 80 percent disappeared after the third. The odds were just over one in a thousand that we were true mates. I didn’t expect it would come to this.”
“Dare I ask what the symptoms of singing blood are?”
He arched a brow. “Mounting lust. A mindless thrall. Unexplainable calm and happiness in each other’s presence. The appearance of mating gifts. The urge to fuck and reproduce.”
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Who said anything about brats?
“A clan in the Middle East believes that Vissimo can have multiple true mates, but it would be impossible to discover more than one. Once true mates find each other and complete the exchanges, they will never long for another.”
This conversation was making me genuinely sick. Exhaling slowly, I grunted. “You’ve done your research.”
“With my father, yes.”
King Julius. “Right. You were saying he approved the second. I can assume that isn’t the case for the third. But it’s not like we intend to take it further, so he’s okay with that”—me—“right?”
Kyros’s expression was grave as he tapped a finger on the armrest. “My father wanted to compel you afterward. I spent the week after our third thrall convincing him not to place your mind in a cage.”
My heart rate tripled. “He did?”
“You’re afraid,” he said in a low voice. “You should be. My father is the most powerful Vissimo in the world. Six hundred years old and from the most prestigious bloodline in the world.”
The bloodline that Kyros was assumedly meant to propagate, even if he wasn’t sure whether he belonged to it.
And now his supposed true mate was human. That must gripe extra hard. “This isn’t just a shitshow for me.”
“I have found my true mate,” Kyros said softly. “Something I never anticipated, and something I haven’t treated with the proper respect thus far. My absence after the thrall and after your grandmother’s passing hurt you. My past lies have hurt you. I wish you to understand that I did want to see you and comfort you—it was my constant thought. I separated myself due to my father’s surveillance over my actions after the third thrall. I had to convince him that my urges were under control to prevent him compelling you.”
His disappearing act had hurt me.
Before the second blood exchange, things seemed to deepen between us, almost as though we’d come to a certain level of understanding despite everything.
This explanation was the closest thing to an apology that I’d get from the vampire—the word sorry probably wasn’t in Kyros’s vocabulary.
I thought of the needless fury I’d gone through, frustration filling me. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I would have played along.”
“If he compelled you, my father would have gleaned the truth from your mind.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Is that what happens when you guys drink my blood? You just know everything in my head?”
He tensed, his gaze settling on my throat for a beat. “We have to actively search for what we want. The success of that depends on the age and power of the Vissimo.”
Like reading a book? Weird.
“If I’m truthful, fear of what my father may do was not the only reason for distancing myself,” Kyros said, capturing my gaze. “I was unsettled by the development between us too.”
I leaned forward. “Unsettled how?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Furious that my enemies forced us into the third exchange and treated you like chattel. My true mate forced to crawl across the ground. I wasn’t able to protect you from their wrath. For a male Vissimo, whether they have a mate or a harem, their duty is to protect. The force of that failure hit me harder than I cared to admit.”
Lalitta had said as much—that Kyros couldn’t figure out how to be free of his bindings. King Julius had placed bindings on him, too, but Kyros locked another set into position all by himself.
“It’s not your job to protect me.” I frowned. Outdated.
He blurred to kneel before me. “It is my job, Basilia. As surely as it is yours to protect me.”
What was he saying? His emotions were all over the place. I held a hand to my head. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
Kyros took one of my hands in his. My hands were tiny in comparison. “It means that I have absolute belief in what our blood is showing us. Our blood sings. We are true mates.”
I stared at our hands and then his face. Shit just got real. “W-What?”
“My beauty,” he said, stroking my cheek with the back of his free hand. “None shall harm you again.”
My breath came fast. “I’m not sure we’re on the same page.”
Kyros leaned in.
A whine slipped between my teeth at his proximity.
“Can you fight this agony for the rest of your life?” he asked simply.
Gasping for air, I shuffled back on the bed.
He followed me on to the mattress.
I rested a hand on his chest. “Kyros, please stop. I’m overwhelmed and can’t think with you so close.”
A slow grin spread across his face. “I know.”
“You lied to trap me,” I stammered, shuffling back farther.
Kyros stalked closer, running his fingers up the inside of my ankle. “I did. You would have never agreed to the second exchange otherwise.”
“You bastard,” I ground out, drawing my feet under me so I could stand in the middle of the bed. “That wasn’t your choice to make.”
He rose to his knees and ran his hands up the outside of my stockinged thighs. “The thought of you disappearing or being in danger while I had no ability to track you was driving me to insanity. I cannot apologise for it.”
You don’t apologise for anything.
Lifting the right hem of my knitted dress above my hip, he gently bit the hollow between the bone and stomach. My knees shook, and Kyros seized the advantage, guiding me back down to the bed.