by Seth Eden
Loren himself hadn't gone with them. A few of his men, exhausted or sick or wanting to visit the crèche for a sure thing rather than hunting down a female on the streets came with him. He planned to visit the Council leader, make a report, or at least leave one with his aide. Unlikely the older Vampyren wouldn't be somewhere deep in the crèche with one or more of the females.
Make a report, and keep himself away from the crèche. Not tonight. There were reasons he wouldn't go there until the next day, and his claw-like nails left gouges in the skin of his palms with the thought of being so close and staying away.
That was the first reason.
The second was the wild hunger, the violence ringing high in his blood. He wouldn't go near her until he felt control again.
And if he cared that much, he shouldn't go near her again ever.
There was no room in a soldier, a warrior for such weakness.
When the building loomed in front of the armored car they were driving, he felt a sinking in his chest. However brutal they appeared to humans, their lives on their home world weren't so brutal. Hot, dry, dusty, like the rural desert dwellers on Earth, but the brutality here was something of the militaristic conquest born aspect.
The lights of the building beckoned to him. Until he'd been sent on the mission, he hadn't intended to walk away. Being a prince and holding advance rank in the military allowed him the right to ask for her. The Council member had been wrong to refuse him. At least she was safe in the crèche; that much Loren had been allowed.
The men with him took their leave on the steps, the handful of them heading in separate directions, though that changed the minute they got inside.
The admin building was a hive of activity. There was an alarm going off in the building, and armed guards were running toward the crèche.
His heart began to pump again, channeling his cold blood and the hot blood of his victim. He began to run, catching up fast with an armed guard.
"What's happening?"
The vampire started to snarl out something, looked over and saw who he was speaking to, and amended his reply. "Two of the breeders. There was a fight. Armed response, I think one was killed. The others are –'"
He didn't wait to hear what the rest of that sentence was. He ran harder and faster, took the stairs up and beat the elevator that was already closing its doors behind the other responders.
The crèche was lit with every light, crazy sounds and the alarm screaming and the sound of voices. Several females were crying and a Vampyren voice kept booming out to stop the racket, to stop.
Loren plunged through the doors into the crèche and stopped short. It's not about her, he kept telling himself as he ran. Why would it be?
Inescapable: he cared.
She stood inside the crèche, the first room of the floor, what had been a place for a desk and a woman to greet visitors when this had been a human business. Her left eye was swelling shut, her lip bleeding, her hair raked over her face which was wet with sweat and tears. Her hands had been bound behind her and her head hung but not so low he couldn't see her face. It flashed through his mind she was attempting to show compliance or humility when what she felt radiated from her so clearly to him: rage.
There were women all around her, crying, waving their hands, shouting things that no one was listening to, and there was blood on the floor and a body hastily covered the way humans did. He could see taffy colored hair spilling out and knew which of the girls it was, though he didn't remember her name. She was thin and dry seeming and she lied the way other women breathed. He didn't care that she was dead. It wasn't even a vampire response.
She wasn't worth worrying about.
Kiera. Kiera stood there, pretending repentance. That was what mattered.
He didn't say her name. He did a quick scan of everyone in the room and saw beyond doubt he had the most rank of anyone. Sending up a gratitude to the Universe as a whole that Sav was out on the hunt and not there with him, he shouted into the noise and confusion, ordering everyone to stop.
Stop speaking, stop crying, stop trying to get answers. Stop with the hurting of females who were too hysterical to answer.
Stop moving.
The room went quiet. Everyone there looked at him.
"What's happened here?"
Kiera was at the heart of it. That was easy to see. But she hadn't killed anyone. The dead girl had been a problem. He knew that.
The highest ranking soldier present started to speak at the same time as the old woman who acted as crèche matron. He let them both talk, waiting until he understood. Every word was worse. Kiera had been in a fight with the other girl and while she hadn't struck first, she'd hit the other girl repeatedly and now that female was dead and useless to the Vampyren.
That alone would have been enough. Whatever the women thought, they weren't simply dumped into the pregnancy and birthing areas. They were worth something to the vampires, they provided hope for a future with new generations.
Because Kiera hadn't backed down and because she hadn't backed drown from something ultimately useless, the other girl was dead.
"You need to see this." The old woman was at his elbow. He thought she might be all of four foot ten inches and he towered over her, even not being the tallest of the Vampyren. Her earnest eyes looked up at him. He'd always thought her a little stupid and maybe crafty but now he just saw her as old and scared. Old humans had very few uses other than food. She'd found her spot among the breeders because she'd once been a midwife.
Now she gave him the handheld device and he took it, already knowing it would show at least one of the two was pregnant.
Let it be Kiera. He could then keep them from punishing her severely. If it was Sydney, Kiera would be in a world of hurt.
For a second he didn't look away from the old woman's eyes. She had read the machine. Of course she had, otherwise she wouldn't have handed it to him. There was fear in her eyes, but not outright terror. She wasn't required to be with the women around the clock.
They were expected to act like humans.
Unfortunately, he thought, that was exactly what she had done.
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."
Kiera
Kiera paced the whole of the hour. They left her in the white room again, the holding cell. Certainly she was safe there, unless they were worried about her losing her mind. Then, not so much, she thought.
For the whole of the hour, which alternately dragged and raced by, she tried every angle and every height she could reach, trying for ce
ll reception. Either the very thing that made the room safe – no windows, padded walls – blocked cell calls or the building itself did. Since the Vampyren had come, dead zones were once again a thing.
No message to her friends or family. Nothing to distract herself with and only the horror of what Loren insisted on taking for her to anticipate.
Her pacing became faster until she was running back and forth across the room, diagonally to give herself the ultimate amount of steps and still it was only ten across and ten back.
"This is what insanity must feel like," she finally said aloud, at exactly the moment the door opened.
She was too grateful to be getting out of there to care about having been overheard. She rushed the door, not caring who was on the other side, and nearly ran down the matron. Marybeth put a hand on her arm.
"You may not want to be in quite such a hurry to get where you're headed."
Kiera opened her mouth, an automatic refusal of that sentiment on her lips. But she closed her mouth again.
"You're probably right. You've heard what happened?"
There was a look she'd never expected to see in the older woman's eyes. Sympathy. "I understand what happened. but you need to understand what you're racing in to see."
"It wouldn't matter," Kiera said. "I'd have to be there no matter what it was." You should be as well, she found herself thinking. If the matrons around here gave us anything to do or rules to follow, maybe Sydney would never have come after me.
But she didn't care enough about Marybeth to say it, and Marybeth witnessing would in no way mitigate it.
She just passed the other woman and ran.
They were gathered in an auditorium where the hotel had once held paid sessions by modern day gurus, speaking on TED Talk –like events, on getting your life together or selling in some new way, on eating right or working out or writing your life story or listening to theirs. Seats ringed a pit like a lecture hall at University, and down at the bottom, reflected onto a screen as well, instead of some boring professor doing a 101 level class: Loren.
