Chapter 14
Kiera
Sydney had been pregnant.
Kiera sat in the single room where there was nothing, no chair, no desk, no bed, no futon, no bathroom, no water. No Loren.
Nothing.
She sat and considered that of all the girls she might have thought would get pregnant first, stupid as the speculation was, she'd have expected maybe Lily, fragile and quiet and willing to please, or one of the other sets of friends, a girl named Francis who clearly wanted a baby of any species.
Sydney. Of course she had been pregnant. All by herself in the white room, she laughed. Got the last word in, didn't you, bitch?
The fight should have reduced itself down to something so insignificant she couldn't imagine the circumstances that had caused it now it had resulted in something so monumental.
But the passage of time had changed nothing. Sydney had forced the issue. She had determined to make Kiera's life a misery for no other reason than that's what she had chosen to do. Simple, irrefutable truth.
Kiera fought back because that was in her nature and truth be told, that was part of why Syd picked on her. Because she couldn't just let things go.
And Loren. He was another part. She hadn't asked for him to choose her. She received no preferential treatment.
Sydney had cared anyway. Because it wasn't Sydney getting the attention.
Kiera pulled her legs up to her and wrapped her arms around her calves, resting her head on her knees. They wouldn't kill her. Not when she had been bought by the Vampyren prince.
But they would punish her. There was undoubtedly nothing he could do about that and she shook with fear at the idea.
When they came for her, she couldn't stand up.
All her muscles had tightened up until she felt like she was stuck with her arms around her knees, her head down.
She didn't even look up at the snarled commands, just stayed there until they advanced into the room, two of them, both female for some reason of protocol she supposed.
Vampyren females shared no solidarity with their human counterparts.
They hauled her to her feet by her elbows and Kiera found both that she could after all unfold, and that her legs under no circumstances would hold her.
She leaned heavily against the guards who dragged her out into the main part of the building, past the eyes of those who ached for her and those who were happy she was going to get what was coming to her.
All I wanted to do was keep my family safe.
All she'd really wanted to do, just about a year ago, was rent a place with Aaron and have a life.
Then the world had ended and now, this grimy, snow-blown morning, the world was ending all over again.
Loren was in the Council chambers. He didn't move when she was brought in, only looked at her in the way she supposed divorced him from the whole mess.
Not that she blamed him. But it hurt to know that the thing she had thought might be starting between them could be derailed without even a word spoken.
Of course he'd have gotten reports of what happened, but whose and how well versed in lie?
Tears stung her eyes. He hadn't even come to see what she had to say.
I'll never see Will or Kate again. I'll never find out if Dad makes it through the leukemia.
This is going to kill my mother.
And at the base of everything, Why? What had Sydney gained? Or had she always been suicidal? Death by cop.
No. Death by Kiera.
She didn't even smile at the thought.
"This is the girl?" The Council leader barely glanced at her.
Kiera felt like taking off her shoes and heaving them at him.
Now was probably not the time to insist he actually look at her.
"This is Kiera," Loren said. He hadn't looked at her either, but his voice was firm. "She's mine."
The Council leader looked up tiredly. "I believe I ordered her placed in the crèche."
Tightly, Loren said, "She was. That's where she was when the incident occurred."
She breathed out. This was proceeding like a court case except she'd been warned by everyone she'd encountered in the last few minutes that she wouldn't get to speak. Just as well. Her voice would have trembled and she didn't know what she'd have said anyway.
She hadn't killed Sydney. She'd just stood up for herself. If they didn't want the girls doing that, then maybe they should post some rules or hire some guards.
Or stop this barbaric practice.
Her nails dug into her palms. More than anything, she wanted to go home. Even leaving Loren behind. He might say he wasn't using chemical signatures on her, but she'd know for sure if she could just go home.
The whole thing took maybe five minutes. She had her phone – no one had searched her or harmed her, only dragged her here from where she'd been in the white room, which she guessed was close as they had to a holding cell.
Her phone hadn't worked in the cell. She'd tried. And if it worked here, she wasn't stupid enough to take it from her pocket and try to find out.
Now the Council made a determination. It had taken nothing more than a few seconds of talk between three of the Vampyren, none of whom looked any older than Loren. Long-lived or not, she wished they at least looked like old wise judges or something.
Hysterical laughter wanted to break out from inside her. Like somehow this was all an elaborate joke, maybe not only the stuff with Sydney but all the stuff with Loren and back to when the Vampyren showed up in the first place.
All just a joke. Or a hallucination.
She missed something there, because there was a pause and they were looking at her and the guards, the two striking, tall, lean and muscled Vampyren women, were coming for her.
Loren had gone pale and now he scrambled to his feet. "No!" He roared the single word and the Council leader, already gracefully getting to his feet to leave the room, stopped and looked at him, both surprised by the outburst and apparently not surprised at all by the sentiment.
"You'd be willing to take her place?" The cold, smug voice. Condescension and contempt dripped from that voice.
Suddenly it didn't seem like a joke. Suddenly it seemed like something purposeful, something set into motion, if not all of it from Sydney on down, then at least this insane kangaroo court because things didn't just happen this way and the vampires on the council had no love lost for Loren, they'd already refused him taking her solely as his and now this?
What had he just volunteered to do? Whatever it was, it had to be awful or he wouldn't have done it.
"NO!" She shouted it herself, her voice breaking on the single syllable. "Whatever it is, this is about me! You don't –" Take my place. Get yourself killed. Die for me.
Because that wasn't who they were. And because she couldn't bear it, stupid as that was. And because he didn't have that right.
And because somebody else out there might need him. He wasn't the same as the rest of them. Because even now what she'd heard was seeping into her consciousness, the sentence passed she'd managed not to hear, and she wavered on her feet, tipsy and faint from the impact.
The Council leader, after only seconds of consultation with the others, had ordered her whipped until she lost consciousness.
Her eyes met Loren and she felt nausea rise. She didn't have the strength to fight for him, didn't have the courage to insist this be done to her instead of to him.
But he was brave and she couldn't let someone else take her place. No one should be punished for what had happened, no one but Sydney and she was fucking dead, for fuck's sake –
She saw their faces twist in contempt and realized she'd been shouting all of this aloud and if their intent all along had been to beat Loren and not her – or Loren and her, but she thought she'd only be a bonus – then she had just played deliberately and directly into their hands.
Oh, god, Loren, I am so sorry.
The Council members stopped. Only a handful had even bothered to come to the impromptu session, clearly trusting the leader to act on their behalf.
"She has stated her case quite eloquently, I believe," the leader said, the smug bastard not even deigning to look at her, even now. He began to sweep from the room and Loren stepped up, cold and loud and unhurried.
"You turn your back on a Vampyren prince?"
His icy words stopped them in their tracks.
All three of them turned back to face him. One of the members spoke, stepping past the leader to face Loren. "This is a strange thing to fight for."
Kiera stood near enough to see his hands were shaking, to see the divots in his palms where he had squeezed his fists tight. "Honor is a strange thing to fight for? We are conquerors and this is our world. Do we let the conquered be the ones with honor?"
"Please." But she said it so softly no one heard her.
How could she bear this? They could run. They could leave this place. He was a prince. No one of the guards would bar his way. They could go to her parents house. They wouldn't understand at first but it was her, they'd let her in, they'd trust her judgment until they met him and knew him and –
"One hour," the Council leader said. "You have one hour to prepare."
Loren raised his chin, facing them down. When they cleared the council chamber she expected him to react or to turn to her at the very least.
Instead, he said through gritted teeth, "Take her and hold her safe."
The women advanced on her again and Kiera took a step closer to him. "I want to be there."
Loren gave a strange, strangled laugh. "Oh, you will be. They'll make certain of that."