walked demurely along, surrounded by her hulking marine escort.
Kyato saw her, a smile erupting across his face. He took two steps toward her before stopping, as though he sensed something was wrong. Her marines fell back behind her as Kira walked up to Kyato, stopping two paces from him, eyes cast to the ground. He looked down at her; head cocked to one side, then the other. Kira looked up at him for a few seconds, hope, fear and shame crossing her face before she dropped her gaze to the ground once more.
“What’s happening? I thought he’d be happy to see her?” Donna whispered.
“Shh,” Ed said.
As if on some unspoken command Kira pulled at the catches on her coverall and slipped it off her shoulders, letting it fall around her ankles. There was a lot of clearing of throats and red-faced checking of watches from the gathered officers and dignitaries, and the marines tactfully tried to avert their gazes as Kira stood naked before Kyato.
Marko gasped a sharp intake of breath. “Jen, look!” he said.
She nodded. “I know, I see it,” she replied as though her mouth was full of poison. Kira’s belly was flat; she was no longer carrying a child.
Kyato knew it too. He looked at her strangely, walked around her once before lightly touching her tummy. He knelt down, placing his ear against her abdomen, brows drawing together in confusion.
Through all this, Kira stood stock-still, letting her mate examine her. Several tears that looked like watered down quicksilver wound their way down each cheek.
“What’s he doing, Mommy?” Ninah asked.
“He’s noticed that Kira’s baby is gone,” Felicity said sadly.
Kyato straightened and looked at Kira, his eyes wide in obvious question. Where was his child? She looked up at him, her lips quivered for a few seconds, then her knees gave out and she fell in a heap at his feet, crying and clutching at his legs. They could see her little hands clenching tightly, desperately, at the material of his coverall in futile anguish. It broke the Blairs’ hearts.
That was enough for Jennifer Hatfield. She crossed to Carlisle in a few quick strides as the others looked about slightly bewildered. “Where’s the child you son of a bitch, what have you done with the child?” she snarled, planting herself right in his face. Carlisle stared at her mutely as if she were an offending speck of dirt on his tie. Several of the marine guards raised their weapons slightly, indicating that Carlisle had better consider answering the question.
“She miscarried,” he said flatly.
“You’re fucking lying!” she grated.
He shook his head. “It happened just after we got her, it’s all on tape if you care to see it?” He smiled nastily at her.
Jennifer stared at him with a feeling of hatred so intense it bordered on insanity. Never before had she been so totally consumed by anger. She brought her hand up and slapped him across the face so hard, it sounded like the retort of a gunshot. Her wrist would be sore for the better part of a week following that hit, but the pain was the furthest thing from her mind right now. She flung herself at him and his smug expression, shouting obscenities and raking at his face with her nails. She would gladly have clawed his eyes out had Marko and one of the marines not restrained her.
Marko led her over to the other group where she seethed in silence, still breathing heavily from her exertions.
“What will he do?” Ed asked.
“We don’t know,” Marko answered. “We know hardly anything about them with regard to this sort of thing, but we know they’re far more instinctual than we are. Who knows how he’ll react to her losing his child?”.
Kyato continued to stand inanimate, staring down at Kira who was still crying in a heap at his feet.
“It’s not fair!” Donna said, “It’s not her fault!”
“We know that, but who knows how Kyato thinks? He probably doesn’t know the difference between ourselves and Carlisle’s tac team. He might blame Kira for approaching our camp in the first place, and so involving humans in their lives, and thus costing the life of his child,” Jennifer said. “We just don’t know enough about how they think.”
As they watched, relief swept over them as Kyato knelt down and put his arms around Kira, holding her close. He gently stroked her hair and pressed his face up against hers. Slowly her crying ebbed away and she looked at him with a timidly hopeful gaze, staring out from red puffy eyes. He smiled at her sadly, and hesitantly, she returned it.
Jennifer and Marko sighed loudly again in relief.
“Was there really that much of a chance that he’d reject her?” Ed asked.
“It was certainly a possibility,” Jennifer said.
Kyato stood and gently lifted Kira to her feet. He led her by the hand over to the Blairs, where she stood shyly behind him as he silently showed her to them in an obvious introduction. They smiled at her and she tentatively returned it. Kyato nodded at Ed and Felicity, a gesture they’d come to understand as thank you, and then he turned to Donna. He smiled and with his eyes locked on hers, reached up and pulled a mature flight feather from his left wing, wincing slightly as one would when plucking a hair from their head, then handed it to her.
“Thank you,” she whispered and nodded upon taking it.
“We’ve never seen this before,” Marko whispered in awe. “I’d say it’s a very important gesture though, I’d be honored.”
“I am,” Donna said through a throat drawn tight with emotion.
Kyato moved to Ninah and knelt down before her. She swallowed. “Please don’t go away,” she said, tears winding down her cheeks. Kyato cocked his head slightly then reached out a finger to gently wipe the tears away. He smiled then reached up and pulled a feather from his other wing and gave it to her. Ninah took it then threw her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly, and after a second he put his strong arms around her and returned it.
Kyato stood and nodded at Jennifer and Marko also, though he didn’t approach them. Neither did Kira, despite their earlier interactions. Apparently she’d now decided to follow her mate’s lead with regard to dealing with humans.
Slowly he led her away from the group, the marines fanning out to give them room and let them know they were under no duress. Like Kira he too shucked off his coverall, his torso was still bandaged. Seeing this, Kira looked at him with some alarm and delicately touched it. Kyato just looked at her sadly.
When he’d led her about a hundred meters away he turned and stared back at them. They waved and he returned it, then with the sun starting to dip toward the horizon he leapt into flight, Kira beside him, and together they disappeared into the distance.
When they’d gone Carlisle gritted his teeth and turned to leave, his group following behind him. “Did the female swallow the locator?” he asked flatly when they were out of earshot.
“The little bitch kept finding it in her food and spitting it out,” his command second said, and Carlisle turned an irritated and concerned stare on the man. How? The bloody thing was tiny!
“Oh, don’t worry, we eventually got it down her throat, with a little added persuasion of course.” The man smiled with no humor, only malice, and Carlisle shuddered to think what they’d done to her to get her to swallow it.
“Good. Well, we’ll wait a couple of weeks for all this shit to die down, then we’ll simply move in and take the pair of them. This time there will be no one to get in the way.” As he walked on toward the buildings a small smile crept across his face.
30
A full desert moon undulated gently on the surface of the canyon rock pool as Kyato came gently down to land on the little beach beside it, and after a second Kira fluttered in to land close to him. She looked around nervously scanning the darkness, Jennifer’s hairbrush clutched in one little hand.
“Sir, you were right, they’re here,” the black clad sergeant, crouching in the rocks, whispered into his pick up.
“Good, proceed with capture sergeant,” Carlisle’s voice soun
ded in his earphone.
“Yes, sir.” As silent as demons, the ten man tac team began to stir from their hiding places around and above the pool, bringing tranquilizers and net guns to bear on their unwary prey. Before any of them could fire, Kyato went and lifted a large rock, then knelt and withdrew something from beneath it, a small cylinder about the size of a pen. It glowed faintly in his hand. He brought it back to the edge of the pool and touched it to the water’s surface. Suddenly the water violently exploded out of the pool as though someone had dropped a gigantic invisible bowling ball into its center. The water splashed fifty meters up the canyon walls, its spray totally soaking the soldiers hiding around the pool’s edges, half blinding those not wearing night vision goggles.
Something rose silently out of the now turbulent pool, about the length and width of a large truck but only a couple of meters high at its thickest. It looked like two spearheads joined together butt to butt, forming a slender wasp’s waist effect in the craft’s center. It glowed brightly with white iridescence, causing those soldiers wearing image intensifiers over their eyes to rip them off, flash blinded. No details could be discerned on the surface, which seemed to shimmer like oil on water, only without the colors.
A small opening appeared on one side of the middle section, slightly darker than the surrounding hull. No ladder descended, but then why would it? Kira flew up and ducked
Fallen Angel Page 27
