Chapter 3
Kiera
Whatever was happening, everything had just escalated from bad to a level of bad she never knew existed.
The most beautiful man she'd ever seen had pulled her against him, holding her and stroking her hair while all around her, her friends, her brother and sister, everyone in the raiding party was screaming.
Kiera struggled, got herself partially free, enough to see that the only ones being actively harmed were Diane and Stu. Hard to feel much about that, she tried to think; they led these assholes to us.
But the next instant the horror crashed over her again. Whatever else they were, Diane and Stuart were human.
She twisted in the grip of the vampire holding her. He whispered something, like he meant to calm her, and simultaneously she smelled blood on his breath and something sweet, something that made her racing pulse try to calm itself.
Something that made her want to reach out to him, to stroke his chest, to touch him in ways she'd only ever touched –
NO!
This was pheromones. She'd heard about this, the Vampyren trick, the way they could lure humans, male and female, seeming like the most attractive, most desirable beings in the world.
Despite having already been struggling, she took him by surprise, twisted the way she'd been taught by her little brother before she went off to college.
Twisted, stomped, and that shouldn't have worked, why wouldn't the invaders wear some kind of steel toed boots or some other protective form of footwear?
But he visibly shuddered when she brought her foot down on his instep and she followed it with a straight shot to his crotch.
It missed, but the rebound of her fist allowed her an uppercut.
She caught his mouth, driving one of his own released fangs into his lip.
Dark, unnatural blood spurted. Kiera screamed, lurched away from him, and almost made it.
But there were others in the room and they'd already subdued her brother, who lay in a heap, looking winded but otherwise unharmed, and Katie, who knelt, tears pouring down her face.
Kiera wouldn't expect her to fight. Katie valued all life.
She was terrified of having to make a decision to kill in order to survive.
Another look around and she saw Will's friends on their faces, Vampyren leaning over them, one of them holding Dweeb Dave's head back at an awkward angle as Dave lay on his stomach, hands trussed behind him.
The traitors, the idiots, Diane and Stu were tied and down and she thought they were out. There was a thin trickle of blood from Stu's mouth and a vampire near him, sniffing, breathing heavily.
"Stop!"
That was the one who had held her. His voice sent a ripple through her and everything in her wanted to obey, to suck up the scent of flowers or whatever it was, to lay down and hope for the best, the best being that he would hold her again, would stroke her hair and –
"It's. Not. Real!" Kiera shouted and threw the wrench. Until it flew from her hand, she didn't even know she still held it.
He shouted as it caught him over one eye, gestured at the others. "Hold her! Don't hurt her! Run a scan. Is she viable?"
Kiera threw herself against the hands grabbing her arms but she might as well have been fighting solid iron. She didn't even have an inch of room to maneuver. Had everything she'd just accomplished only been because he wanted to see how far she could get?
She wouldn't let herself think that.
She stood panting, glaring, her chest heaving as one of the vampyren came closer, a handheld device out toward her. He lowered it to her belly and Kiera, repulsed, twisted and fought, spitting and hissing.
"Breeding stock," the one with the machine said.
Kiera spat on him.
He instantly moved in, one hand raised to strike her.
The one who had held her was behind him in an instant, a wicked looking blade held against her would-be attacker's throat. "Do it, and I'll gut you."
"You know what would happen to you, brother."
"I don't care. We respect strength, or are you too weak to remember that? So weak you can only attack a human female?"
The one who had come for her still stood with his arm only partially lowered, glaring at her. To his brother, then, she guessed, he said, "Which one can I have?"
"You're not entitled to any of them." His voice was cold and should have been final, but the other repeated himself this time adding, "I was wounded in the attack by these creatures."
One foot nudged Diane, who moaned. "I have been promised."
The one who had held her took a long breath, looking at Kiera, then looking past her.
when his gaze fell on William she almost broke from the hold of the Vampyren holding her.
He nodded, ever so slightly, to himself, not to the other vampires, and his gaze went past William. Past Katie. Past Amanda and Sarra.
To poor, dumb Dave.
"Take them out," the leader said.
"Please!" It burst from her.
His eyes met hers and she felt that shiver again. "There is only so much I can do," he said. There was no anger in his voice.
There was no mercy in it, either.
She was handcuffed and led with the others, the girls first, William and then Kevin next, and finally Diane and Stu, dragged unresisting.
Behind them all, Dave began to scream.