Chapter 8 #2
They were already breaking, Kiera thought, and her heart as well. But all she said was, "And the other thing?" Hoping she hadn't just heard both.
"Be careful of the other girls in here. This is like being thrown into a beauty pageant with no way out and the crown doesn't mean scholarship and it doesn't mean money.
"The crown means, you get to live."
A girl named Lily took her to one of the offices decked out with beds.
"We sleep four to an office," she said, and plopped down on one of the beds that was sprinkled with stuffed animals.
She had long, almost white blond hair, done up in ponytails, a sweet face and enormous boobs that were somehow perky even under the t-shirt she wore. "It's friendlier."
"And safer?" Kiera asked but Lily shook her head.
"There's no safe here. Most of them are – " She started like she meant to say something comforting and gave up. "Actually, a lot of them are mean. Some on purpose and some because they're just so fucking big." She cut side eyes at Kiera. "You know what I mean? It hurts even if they try not to."
Kiera nodded. "Who else is in this room? Are they nice?"
"Kind of. There's Michelle, she's tall and has dark hair and the tattoo of a butterfly on her neck.
And there's Davida, she's African American and could probably hold her own against a vampire, but she's scared.
" She took a breath and looked thoughtful for a second. "I'm scared of the vampires, too."
Probably anyone who said they weren't afraid of the Vampyren was either lying or psychotic, but Kiera didn't say that. She didn't say anything. She just pointed at one of the two beds that looked open and when Lily nodded, chose it. "How do things work here?"
Lily's eyes opened very wide for a second, making Kiera blink, then she blushed hard and said, "You're not asking how – " and trailed off.
"No. I know that how. But the Vampyren – do they come in and take a number? Is there a room where you go? Or does everyone just – " Because surely there was more civilized behavior than that.
Lily didn't back up her hope, though. "Depends on the Vamp. Some just go for it, but most girls will leave the room." She sat down on the bed with her hands under her thighs, then squirmed around instead and reached for a stuffed panda.
"Most?" Kiera asked.
"I'd warn you who to avoid," Lily said. "But it would take too long. Probably humans will have taken the planet back before I finished."
Kiera considered that. She hadn't known that many bitchy females in her life but that didn't mean they didn't exist and this was a situation where anyone would want to watch her own back and look out for her and hers first.
So instead she said, "You think we're going to get the planet back?" and got a funny look from Lily.
"Of course so. Don't you?"
She didn't know. But the thought was out of her head before the dinner hour was called. They fixed their own, a list of chores up on the white board in the kitchen area and Kiera's name at the bottom, there for cleaning the bathrooms.
She'd forgotten how much fun it was to be the new girl.
She opted to clean them before dinner, and to shower, which meant she ate with wet hair, already back in the clothes she'd been wearing. There must be access to other clothes. She'd learn all that sort of thing later.
She ate with Lily, Michelle and Davida, trying to adjust to the idea of having roommates again for the first time since college.
After dinner, Davida went off for dish chores and Michelle went off to watch some show she wanted to see, though Kiera saw her blocked before she got to their room, a broad, scarred Vampyren appearing and taking her hand. She seemed to go willingly.
Kiera went into one of the common areas, wondering if there were books anywhere and if her phone would have enough reception to try and reach her family.
After the invaders came, cells became largely good for holding down piles of paper or throwing at people or using as a timepiece. Otherwise, they were useless.
Before she dug her phone out of her jeans pocket, an angry voice said from across the room, "Hey! Room's taken."
Surprised, Kiera looked around. A group of girls sat in a huddle near a fireplace that looked cheery despite clearly being the kind that's turned on and off with a switch.
Four of them looked at her with varying degrees of dislike, despite being strangers, but the fifth glared at her with definite ill-will.
No doubt she was the one who had shouted at Kiera.
Can't say I wasn't warned. But this wasn't looking out for one's self. This was hostility for the sake of it, the kind of thing she'd hoped not to deal with when high school had finally ended.
Kiera held her phone up. "Just wanted to see if I get reception in here. Do you know – "
But the girl was out of her seat and across the room in a flash. Built like a fireplug, she had impressive muscle and about a yard of long weirdly caramel colored hair, but she came to Kiera's chin.
That made her no less threatening.
One finger poking into Kiera's face, she said, "I. Didn't. Ask You. Why." Every word came out with a kind of East Coast accent. "Didn't" was clipped, somehow managing to miss the second "D." "Ask" came out "ast."
The girl came off as one of the psycho types Kiera had been thinking of. "Chill," she said, holding up both hands as she started to back out. "I can do this somewhere else."
Only the other girl chased her, the four behind her chorusing, "Sydney, she's not worth your time!"
Sydney apparently thought she was. She flashed across the room and pinned Kiera to the wall with one hand on her throat before Kiera fully grasped just how stupid the situation was growing.
When fact caught up to her, about the time her back slammed into a framed inspirational business poster tacked to the wall, she brought both hands up to break Sydney's grip.
And didn't have to. Because something lifted Sydney off her and threw her like a ragdoll to crash down on the sofa, a tangle of limbs, unhurt but shocked.
Kiera blinked up into Loren's face. "What happened?"
"Are you all right?"
She started to nod, because Sydney hadn't ever gotten a good grip on her throat, but a rush of want filled her that was absurd and meaningless. It was all she could do not to reach out for him at the same time something in her cringed away because if he was here –
If he was here in the crèche, with her, did that mean - ?
And, oh, god, she wanted him right then, it made no sense, but it was the first time in so long someone had needed to take care of her.
She'd come all over girly, her heart pounding, her breath shallow, and still he was watching her, looking deadly and worried at the same time.
"She didn't hurt me."
"I can kill her for that," he said, his skin suffusing with a pale lavender, probably the color of anger on the pale Vampyren.
"For what she did to you. You're the chosen of a –" He broke off without finishing whatever he'd been starting to say and turned to look for the girl, who had already scuttled off the couch.
Kiera reached forward instinctively and put a hand on his forearm.
"Please. Don't."
Not seeing Sydney, he turned back and looked at her curiously. "She attacked you." The anger was burning in him. First he'd been refused his request to have Kiera to himself and now this.
"Yes, she did," she said fast. She didn't have time to hit the delicate points. She just said, "She's scared, like the rest of us. If you hurt her, you'll make it worse for me. She'll come after me when you're not here."
"Then I'll – "
"You'll nothing. Please." Because that You'll nothing hadn't quite come out like she meant it to.
With a final look around the rapidly emptying common room, he turned his gaze back to hers.
His eyes were full of something else now. Not anger. Want. There was no way it could be more than breeding that he wanted. They didn't know each other. She wasn't the mate he'd left behind. He wasn't Aaron or anyone she'd ever had feelings for.
But when he held out a hand to her, she took it, not breaking eye contact as she let him lead her to one of the rooms down adjacent halls, away from the sleeping quarters of the girls.
Using a key, he unlocked it, ushered her in, and closed and locked it behind them.
That made her slightly claustrophobic, but when she turned and saw his eyes, her fear, stupidly, vanished.
"Come here."
His voice was husky, barely more than a whisper, but she moved to him without hesitation, reached up to put both hands on his chest, the way she'd been wanting to do for too long now, she found herself thinking, and asked without intending to, "Are you using pheromones on me?"
As far as she could tell, he answered her honestly. "I am not. What you feel, you feel. You don't have to fight it or be embarrassed by it."
I hope not.
She did not expect him to move gently. The Vampyren were anything but gentle.
They were warriors and killers and conquerors.
From those who had gone rogue, those who joined up with humans or talked to them in bars, she knew that the females were such warriors and so bloodlust-crazy they often killed their mates after breeding.
Which was one of the reasons the males propagated the line by using human females or females of any species they could breed with on whatever planets they took. When the men of the planet were forced to go with Vampyren females, they not only died, the children were routinely considered food stock.
The idea in the past had made her shudder. Now it only flitted through her mind, meaningless information. Kiera had never considered having children. Probably she had another twenty years to make the decision, or she had until the invaders came.
The idea of having a half-breed alien child terrified her. The idea of being bred by beings that would allow the mother to die as so much chattel that had done its duty and was now unnecessary terrified her.