Page 47 of Dark Rebel's Reckoning

Kian shook his head. "They just got here, and they are still shaken from their ordeal. I'd rather get the answers from the Doomer than torment the women with questions that will bring them pain."

Toven nodded. "I agree. Anything else you want me to ask him?"

"The team brought back four human girls," Kian said, leaning back and stretching his legs. "I want to know if they were taken because he thought they were Dormants."

Toven's forehead wrinkled in thought. "Did you ask them about paranormal abilities?"

"No," Kian admitted. "I didn't for the same reason I didn't ask them anything else. I'd rather get it all out of him."

The SUV slowed as Anandur steered off the main road onto the driveway leading to the keep's underground garage.

Kian ran a hand over his face. "It's borderline amazing, and not in a good way, how many atrocities we've learned about in the last few weeks alone. I half-wish I could close my eyes and pretend the world is normal. That no one else is hunting Dormants, or trafficking people, or preying on children." He gave Toven a tight smile. "But you and I both know that ignorance isn't bliss. It just allows the monsters to run free."

As the SUV descended the spiraling ramp into the keep's lower underground levels, Kian felt a slight shift in pressure, a reminder that they were going deeper than any standard basement or parking garage.

Finally, the SUV rolled to a stop, and Anandur cut the engine.

Brundar opened his door first, stepping out swiftly to scan the area. There wouldn't be a threat in the clan's secure parking level, but the Guardian was always vigilant.

Besides, Kian had been attacked in this very garage by Igor and held at fang point, so there was that. Brundar had taken his failure to protect Kian almost as hard as Kian had taken having his blood sucked by that fiend.

He took a slow breath, then pushed the SUV door open and stepped onto the smooth concrete. The air held a chill and a musty smell that always lingered underground. He patted his coat pocket, confirming that his compulsion-filtering earpieces were on hand. He would need them once Toven got started.

Toven emerged beside him. "We're heading straight to the interrogation room, right?"

"Not right away. He's in stasis, so Anandur is going to soak him in water first to revive him. Then he's going to be mildly sedated, and only then will we go in. Kyra wants to be part of the interrogation, but she's going to be disappointed that we are using compulsion instead of letting Max beat the shit out of the monster. She was looking forward to that."

Toven arched a brow. "That doesn't sound like the traumatized victim you described."

"She is a strange combination of victim and warrior. She's been hurt badly, but she's not ready to roll over and play dead. She's ready to fight."

30

KYRA

Kyra had lain awake for hours in the too-comfortable bed in the too-big room. Ironically, she missed her tent and her narrow cot, and she missed her friends. But she reminded herself to count her blessings and focus on what she had gained and not what she'd left behind.

Having both was not possible, and the choice was obvious.

She wasn't going back.

She finally knew who she was and where she belonged. She was with her daughter, and she'd found a male she was actually interested in.

But this new normal, which was anything but, still felt too foreign to her.

Eventually, she had fallen asleep when the sky outside the large windows started to lighten.

A few hours of sleep were enough for her though, and after getting dressed, she padded to the kitchen to get some coffeeand found the girls already awake and watching television in the living room.

Cartoons.

They were watching a kid's show, as if to remind her that they were still children.

She needed to find them something to do other than veg in front of a screen. Heck, she needed to talk to them and see if she could help them, but the truth was that Kyra was better at fighting than she was at talking, and she'd rather go on a dangerous mission with a dagger in one hand and a handgun in the other than try to talk to these girls and offer them some solace.

She would probably do more harm than good, telling them that they needed to forget all the horrible things that were done to them and pick up a sword, so to speak. That was what she had done, and it had kept her mostly sane.

That was all she knew.

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