Chapter 25 Kiera #2
“No!” She ran to him just as the warriors closed in. But before she could wrap her arms around him, one of the Monstrum warriors caught her gently but firmly by the shoulders and moved her back.
“Please, female,” he said. “Do not interfere. This male is being taken for your own safety.”
“Don’t call me ‘female’!” she snapped, struggling in his grip. “You have no right to take him–his name is Brux, and he belongs here with me!”
The lead warrior’s expression hardened.
“He belongs before the Council. Now stand aside.”
Kiera saw Brux’s jaw tighten.
“Take your hands off my mate,” he growled, but still, he made no move to fight.
The warriors shackled him—not with chains, but with glowing restraint cuffs at his wrists. When Kiera saw that–saw him being led away in cuffs–something inside her broke.
“This is insane!” she cried. “He saved my life! You can’t just take him.”
Brux turned his head toward her as they led him toward the shuttle.
“Kiera,” he said, his voice low and urgent. “Don’t be afraid.”
“Afraid?” she choked out. “They’re taking you away!”
His eyes filled with sorrow.
“I will come back to you–I swear I’ll try.”
Then they were hustling him up into the shuttle.
Kiera made a desperate rush forward, but the same warrior caught her again and held her back. Not roughly, but firmly enough that she could do nothing but watch as the hatch sealed behind Brux with a final metallic clang. Then he let her go and climbed into the front.
They were taking her man and leaving her behind.
“No!” she shouted at the closed shuttle. “Brux!”
The engines rose to a roar as dust whipped around her in hot stinging gusts.
And then–as quickly as it had come–the shuttle lifted, turned, and disappeared into the sky.
Kiera stood there, stunned, staring up after it. Tears streaming down her face before she was even fully aware she’d started crying. She didn’t know until the sanctuary blurred around her.
She wiped furiously at her cheeks. How could the Monstrum do that–how could they just abduct the man she loved with no explanation?
Was Brux some kind of criminal? But no–he couldn’t be.
Not her sweet, kind Brux. He was so big and muscular he could have broken her in two with one hand, but he had never laid a finger on her.
He was gentle and wonderful and amazing and–
And then, through the raw misery of the awful situation, she felt it again—the brush at the edge of her mind like someone wanted to speak to her.
It must be Iyanna.
“Kiera? Kiera, are you there?” she heard her friend calling.
Kiera seized the connection like a drowning woman grabbing a rope.
“Iyanna!” she gasped. “Why did they take him? Why did the warriors take Brux? Did you send them?”
Iyanna’s distress came through at once, sharp and nearly frantic.
“Oh honey—are you okay? Did they hurt you?”
“No, they didn’t hurt me!” Kiera snapped, then immediately felt guilty because Iyanna was clearly worried. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m just—God, I’m upset. They just came and took him like he was some kind of criminal!”
There was a pause. Then Iyanna said carefully,
“Kiera, you have to understand–after I spoke to you, I told Dra’vik everything you told me. And it turns out that Buck–or Brux–is a kind of criminal.”
Kiera’s stomach dropped.
“What? What the hell are you talking about?” she demanded.
“It has to do with the kind of Monstrum he is,” Iyanna explained. “When I told Dra’vik you were living with a Lykan, he got extremely concerned. Kiera, unbonded Lykan males can be extremely dangerous. If they go feral they can kill everyone around them!”
Kiera stared numbly at the open sky where the shuttle had disappeared.
“That isn’t true,” she said fiercely. “That isn’t true about Brux.”
“Honey—”
“No!” Kiera snapped, filling her mental voice with desperate conviction. “I’ve been helping him control his primal side. He’s not some monster running loose! Even when he was fully a wolf he never hurt me. Never!”
Iyanna’s grief and worry pressed against her mind like a weight.
“The fear is that he could lose his mind completely and slaughter everyone around him,” she said softly.
“Dra’vik says that’s why Lykans weren’t allowed on the Mother Ship in the first place.
They were considered too dangerous–too unstable.
Brux is being taken before Commander Rarev and the Monstrum Council for stowing away… and for endangering a female.”
Kiera gave a broken laugh that was half sob.
“Endangering me? He’s done nothing but save me and help me and love me!”
“I'm so sorry,” Iyanna said, and now she really did sound as if she might cry. “I didn’t understand how much this would hurt you. I thought—I thought if he really was dangerous, I had to protect you.”
Kiera closed her eyes. For one awful second, she was just too upset to think at all. Then she said fiercely,
“I need to be there. I need to tell them they’re wrong. If he’s going on trial, I need to be there to speak for him.”
“Yes,” Iyanna said at once. “Yes, of course you do. I’ll come get you in a shuttle so you can speak for him at the trial.”
“I’ll be waiting,” Kiera sent back. “Hurry!”
“I will, honey–I’m sorry!”
The mental connection faded after that, leaving Kiera alone with the chiming trees and the open sky and the hollow, aching space where Brux should have been.
For a few moments she simply stood there…then she wandered back into the home-dome in a daze.
Should she change clothes? Put on something more formal? Something that would make her look respectable and serious before Commander Rarev and the Monstrum Council?
She opened her dresser drawer and stared at its contents without seeing them. Then she closed it again. No–she couldn’t think about clothes…couldn’t think about anything but getting to Brux and telling them they were wrong about him.
She left the home-dome and went back outside instead. The shuttle would be here soon–she hoped. She would wait on the landing pad and be ready the minute Iyanna swooped in.
Kiera stood in the bright afternoon light, arms wrapped around herself, scanning the sky for any sign of incoming transport. Her face still felt tight from crying and her chest hurt in that deep, bruised way grief sometimes settled in.
Come on, Iyanna, she thought fiercely. Hurry.
Then the wind shifted and with it came a familiar smell…B.O. and sour cream and onion chips.
Kiera stiffened. Not now! A visit from Higgs was the absolute last thing she needed in this moment of crisis!
She turned to tell him so in no uncertain terms…but just then a huge hand clamped a cloth over her face from behind.
The smell of B.O. and chips was replaced by something cloyingly sweet and chemical. It made her dizzy instantly.
Kiera thrashed in blind panic, clawing at the hand, trying to scream but nothing came out–her nose and mouth were completely covered.
“Hello there, girly—I told you you’d be sorry for disrespecting me,” a horribly familiar voice said.
Kiera tried to fight–tried to breathe shallowly, tried to twist free—but her limbs were already going weak… her thoughts blurring and slowing as the drug hit her all at once.
No, no, no—Brux–I have to get to Brux!
But even that urgent thought was fading. The last thing she saw was Had’lor Prime swimming huge and green—gold above her in the sky.
Then everything went dark.