Chapter 34 Areana
AREANA
Downtown Los Angeles was an urban center that Areana had only experienced through watching movies, and even those hadn't fully prepared her for the reality of it.
She pressed her face closer to the SUV's window, craning her neck to look up at the impossibly tall buildings that seemed to scrape the sky.
Glass and steel towers rose on all sides, their surfaces reflecting the afternoon sun in blinding flashes. Cars filled the streets, so many cars that it boggled the mind. Strangely, though, there were almost no pedestrians. The sidewalks were mostly empty.
"Where are all the people?" she asked Jacki, who was sitting on the other side of Darius's car seat.
"No one walks in L.A.," Jacki said. "Everyone drives. It's too big, and the distances are too great to traverse on foot."
"I see." Areana kept watching the buildings outside the car window. "It is an enormous city. We've been driving for over two hours, and most of it was through an urban landscape."
"It's several cities combined," Carol said from the back row. "Not just Los Angeles, but it's one big urban sprawl."
As the ambulance in front of them slowed and turned into the driveway of one of the buildings, Kalugal followed.
"Is this it?" Areana asked. "The clan's keep?"
"Yes," Lokan answered from the front seat.
"Before Kian decided to build the village, most of the clan members lived here.
A fortress in the middle of the human world.
Kian was a big believer in hiding in plain sight, but he wanted something better than steel and glass for his people.
He wanted a place where children could play outdoors and not fear for their lives. "
"Who lives here now?" Areana tried to imagine hundreds of immortals living in a single building, hidden among millions of humans.
It was actually a smart strategy as long as the immortals kept a low profile and didn't stand out in any way.
"Most of the apartments are rented out to humans," Carol said from the back seat.
"The clan only retains the top three floors, the penthouse level, and the two floors beneath it, but the high-rise is only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
Most of the keep's facilities are located underground and span the entire block, not just under this one building. "
"What's down there?" Areana asked.
"Classrooms," Kalugal said, navigating the SUV behind the ambulance. "Training facilities, a gym, a clinic, a pool, a theater…a dungeon."
Areana shivered. That was where she and Navuh would be staying, in the dungeon.
Anandur had told her that they had a small cell apartment there that was comfortable enough for a couple.
He'd even told her about Amanda and her mate staying there for a while.
Lokan and Carol stayed there too, so it couldn't be too bad.
"There's also the crypt," Kalugal said. "That's where the clan puts captured Doomers after they are put in stasis. It's also where their dead rest."
Another chill ran down Areana's spine.
That was where Navuh might end up if he didn't survive or if Kian decided that he was too dangerous to let live.
Stasis was not death, but he would be as good as dead to her, and she didn't know if she would survive that.
They had been truelove mates for thousands of years.
A bond like that was impossible to break, even in death.
Even in stasis.
She would have to follow him there.
Annani had promised to keep Navuh alive, but she hadn't specified for how long. Hadn't promised that alive meant anything more than technically not dead.
Areana pressed a hand to her chest, trying to calm her racing heart.
The SUV followed the ambulance down a spiraling ramp that led deeper and deeper underground. They passed level after level of parking, for the building's human residents, no doubt. But they kept descending until they reached what appeared to be the bottom level.
This one was different. A heavy gate blocked the entrance to the parking area, but as the ambulance stopped in front of it, it slid open, allowing both vehicles through.
Kalugal parked, and Areana was out of the SUV before he turned off the engine. She rushed toward the ambulance where Julian and the nurse were unloading Navuh's gurney.
His chest rose and fell, aided by the breathing tube down his throat. He looked so vulnerable, stripped of all the power and presence that made him who he was.
Hildegard opened a door labeled as Maintenance, and she and Julian maneuvered the gurney through.
Her family followed through the same door, and when the entire group was in, Julian locked the door behind them. "We are heading to the clinic."
"We'll wait for you in the penthouse," Kalugal said. "Annani is already there, so try to wrap things up here quickly." He glanced at the gurney and the prone figure on it, and his lips twisted in a grimace. "You don't need to stay by his side. He doesn't even register your presence."
Areana turned to look at him. "Don't you want to escort him to the clinic?"
Kalugal's jaw tightened. "No. I don't."
"Kalugal—"
"I don't want Darius near him. I don't want him to be frightened."
Navuh looked scary with all the tubes and wires attached to him, and his sickly pallor. Kalugal was right about that, but she had a feeling that wasn't the reason he didn't want little Darius anywhere near his grandfather.
She nodded. "I understand. I'll meet you at the penthouse in a few minutes."
They separated at the elevators, her sons and their families heading up toward the penthouse levels, while Areana followed the medical staff toward the clinic.
The elevator descended rather than rose, carrying her deeper underground.
When the doors opened, she stepped into a utilitarian corridor that was designed for function without giving much thought to aesthetics.
Concrete walls, fluorescent lighting, and cameras mounted at regular intervals.
Someone had tried to soften the look by hanging art reproductions at even intervals, and it helped a little, but the place still looked stark.
A tall man and a short woman were waiting for them further down the corridor, and as they neared their destination, she recognized Kian from the video call Anandur arranged for her and Annani on the submarine.
Given the white coat the redheaded woman was wearing over casual clothes, she was the doctor.
"Areana." Kian smiled and stepped forward to greet her.
"Kian." She accepted his brief embrace. "Thank you for allowing this, and for everything else. I'm forever in your debt."
"Nonsense. I'll accept nothing but love from you. We are family, and we take care of each other."
It was such a nice thing to say that Areana felt tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. "You have my love and my gratitude, nephew of mine." She stretched on her toes and kissed his cheek.
He looked a little uncomfortable with the display of affection, but he recovered quickly. "Let me introduce Doctor Bridget."
The redhead stepped forward with a warm smile. "Lady Areana. I am glad to see you free at last and reunited with your family."
Another punch to the gut, every word a tent-pole of her new reality.
Free at last.
Reunited with her family.
Behind them, Julian cleared his throat. "Can we continue with the pleasantries later? I have a patient in critical condition waiting to be admitted."
Kian's gaze shifted to the gurney where Navuh lay, giving him a brief, perfunctory glance, but that split second was enough for Areana to see the derision and disgust Kian felt toward him.
Her stomach twisted. She shouldn't expect mercy for Navuh from Kian. From any of them. The only reason Navuh was still alive was that Annani had commanded it.
"Mother is anxiously waiting for you upstairs." Kian returned his attention to her. "You should go."
"I want to see the clinic first," Areana said. "See where he'll be kept."
Kian studied her for a moment, then nodded. "We've installed a new security system, which is why I wanted to meet you here and show you how it works."
He looked up at a camera that was mounted on top of the door and lifted his hand.
The door opened automatically, or someone had opened it remotely, and it swung out, revealing a chamber barely large enough to house the gurney and two people standing next to it.
Another door waited on the opposite wall.
"Both doors cannot be opened simultaneously," Kian said.
"They're operated remotely by guards monitoring the security cameras.
Even if someone manages to sneak past one door by following someone who's entering or exiting, they'll only be trapped in the chamber. The guards won't open the second door."
"And if they take whoever is with them in the chamber hostage?" Areana asked.
"The chamber will be flooded with gas that will knock out whoever is inside."
"The clinic was small to start with," Julian muttered under his breath. "Now it's even smaller."
"It couldn't be helped," Kian said, though his tone suggested he agreed with Julian's complaint.
Areana glanced at Navuh's unconscious form again, at the breathing tube and the IV lines and the monitors tracking his vital signs. If he woke up right now, she doubted he could lift his arm, let alone try to escape.
The elaborate security felt like overkill for a male who couldn't breathe on his own.
"We'll only keep him sedated as long as it's medically necessary," Kian continued. "When it's safe to revive him, we'll fit him with special ankle and wrist cuffs that will prevent him from trying anything."
"How?" Areana asked, though she wasn't sure she wanted to know.
"I'll explain later. Right now, we need to get him inside." Kian motioned for Julian and the nurse to go ahead.
Julian positioned himself at the head of the gurney while Bridget and Hildegard flanked it, and together they maneuvered Navuh and all his attached equipment through the doorway.
It was a tight fit, but the chamber was designed to accommodate a gurney loaded with medical equipment and the personnel wheeling it.
"We'll wait here until they're through," Kian said as the inner door closed, sealing the medical staff and Navuh inside the chamber.
Areana stood beside her nephew, staring at that closed door, and an awkward silence stretched between them.
"You remind me of Khiann," she said, needing to break the oppressive quiet. "You have his coloring and his bearing. Well, his hair was a little darker, but it was just as wavy."
Kian nodded. "So I've been told."
"You must be a great consolation to your mother. Having you must have helped ease the pain of losing Khiann."
Kian nodded but said nothing, his gaze fixed on the chamber door. Once again, the silence stretched between them, heavy and awkward, and Areana wished she hadn't said anything.
She might have said the wrong thing. Or the right thing at the wrong time. She couldn't tell anymore. Everything in this new world felt like walking through a minefield.
The outer door finally hissed open again, revealing the empty chamber. The medical staff had successfully moved Navuh to the other side.
"After you," Kian said, gesturing for her to enter.
Areana stepped into the small space, and Kian followed. The door sealed behind them with a hiss and a click, and for a moment, they were trapped there together.
Aunt and nephew who had just met and were still learning how to behave around each other.
Then the inner door opened, and they stepped into the clinic proper.
Julian hadn't exaggerated when he'd said it was small, but it looked clean and modern, with state-of-the-art equipment visible in the two patient rooms branching off the main area.
Navuh had been wheeled into one of them, and the mother and son doctor team was working on his intake.
"We'll take good care of him," Bridget said. "You can leave, knowing that he's in capable hands."
"Thank you," Areana whispered, but didn't budge from her spot in the waiting room, looking into the room where her mate was still alive only thanks to a bunch of machines.
"You should go rest now," Bridget said, more firmly this time. "Let us do our job. There's nothing you can do for him at this moment, and you look wrung out."
She was exhausted. Bone-deep, soul-crushing exhausted. But the thought of leaving Navuh here, alone among strangers who viewed him as an enemy...
"I'll just say goodbye." She walked into the room before anyone could stop her.
She didn't add that she had to do it because she was afraid he would die before she returned to him.
Voicing the possibility might bring it about.
She took his hand, the hand that had held hers for centuries, that had touched her with such tenderness despite all the cruelty she knew he was capable of.
"I love you," she whispered. "And where you go, I follow. So, if you love me, you will fight tooth and nail to stay alive because if you die, I'll be right behind you so we can be together beyond the veil."