Page 154 of Death Game: Supernatural Battle

Weird.

She kissed my cheeks, pinching them slightly—Dame Burke wasthataunt—before marching off.

My oldies had come in like a tidal wave. They disappeared in the same way. Not acknowledging the vampires further, they left.

I held Vladymir’s gaze. He nodded and signalled. Thirty leather-clad Vissimo peeled away from the masses and followed my grandmother’s friends.

Fred lingered.

I shot him a look and he visibly wilted. The action gave me pause.

We’d all fought our battles. My oldies had to put aside a generation of injustice to be the bigger people. Kyros had to trust me. I had to trust myself.

And Fred?

He’d had to disobey a Le Spyre.

Striding to my butler, I wrapped my arms around his middle. “Thank you, Fred.”

He was as stiff as a board, and I listened to his thumping heart until he relaxed and placed his arms around me. “Please forgive me for the breach in your trust, Miss Le Spyre.”

I squeezed his arm and looked up at him. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

He bowed. “Then unless you require something else, I’ll be waiting in the car, miss.”

The butler strode out to the symphony of processing papers and the renewed surge of tapping on calculators.

I’d already run the numbers on the Bluff City assets belonging to my oldies.

For my grandmother, I’d restored the game.

For my grandmother, they’d just won it.

Maybe I should have catalogued Mikael, Trenit, and Tynan’s defeat, and watched the moment they realised their lives were forfeit.

But I’d done this for revengeandlove. Right now, love had taken over everything else.

Kyros was focused on me from where he loomed in front of the vampires from Clan Leith, witness to the thoughts running through my mind. The same sense of wonder filling my mind was rampant in his.

Well, kind of. The wonder was mixed in between thoughts of me in bed and how beautiful and strong I looked.

Not thatmythoughts were innocent.

Walking to him, I dared to place my hand on the centre of his chest again. Gathering my determination, I thought.I want you, Kyros. You know I do.

Good. Because my father technically just sold me to you.

My lips twitched, but I let my seriousness take hold again. The win is yours. Ingenium will end.

If Fyrlia decided to battle to the bitter end, it could take months to years depending on how steeply the odds were stacked against them after the input from my oldies.

I stared at my hand on his chest, wanting to relent to the temptation of the seventh exchange with nearly everything I had.

Except one thing.

The same thing that had always stood between us.

Kyros, if you want me after everything that has happened between us, then come to me without games. Ingenium will always be a memory and a lesson to hold close. But only you and I will continue on.