Page 54 of Dark Rebel's Reckoning

"I should contact my friends," Kyra said. "Ask them to be on the lookout for more strange guards arriving with women and girls."

Max shook his head. "They won't be able to deal with Doomers. Don't risk additional lives. We will get your family."

Once the information had been collected, or at least everything that the Doomer remembered, which was just the neighborhood her sisters lived in, Kian crossed his arms over his chest. "You took Kyra's pendant. Any particular reason other than to add insult to injury?"

Kyra's fingers instinctively went to the stone. Whatever the dark fiend had tried to do with her pendant would have failed because the stone reacted only to her.

The prisoner shifted, looking uncomfortable. "I wanted to study it."

That was what bothered him the most? He'd talked about torturing and violating women as if it was nothing, had not reacted to the reminder that his buddies were dead, but he was discomforted by her stone?

"What did you discover?" Toven asked.

"The inscriptions didn't make any sense, and I compared it to every script known to humans that was posted on the internet. Other than that, I didn't have time to test it properly."

Relief washed over Kyra. She didn't want anyone to examine her pendant, neither friend nor foe.

"One final question," Toven said. "Is there anything else about your research, your methods, or the Brotherhood's plans that's notable?"

As the Doomer tried to resist the compulsion again, his eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped on the chair, remaining upright only because of the chains holding him up.

"It seems that we are done for now." Kian pushed to his feet. "Sedate him and put him back in his cell."

Alfie moved forward with a syringe, injecting a dose of something into Durhad's arm.

Kyra removed her headphones, feeling numb and excited at the same time, which shouldn't be possible, but here she was. She had more family than she'd ever imagined having, but the girls upstairs had suffered because of her and she needed to let them know that.

It was going to be a hard conversation.

Also, she had sisters, and more nieces and nephews who were in danger and needed to be rescued.

Her legs felt surprisingly steady despite the emotional weight of everything she'd just heard. "I need to tell Jasmine," she said. "These girls are her cousins."

"And they are all Dormants." Max hung his headphones back on the hook and took hers to hang them up as well. "Which means that we get to tell them the entire story and that they get to move into the village."

35

KIAN

Kian waited for Alfie and Rupert to carry the unconscious prisoner out of the cell before rising to his feet and following them out.

Toven and the brothers joined him in the hallway, where Kyra and Max were waiting for them.

He didn't miss that Kyra's hand was clasped in Max's and that she'd pulled it out as soon as she saw him walking toward them. Did she think he had a problem with her having a relationship with the Guardian?

He should say something about Syssi having a hunch about the two of them, but this wasn't the time or place. Even he knew that.

"I suggest we go to my office to talk about what we just learned."

"The one in the penthouse?" Kyra asked hopefully.

"No, that one I haven't used since moving to the village. It's just a small home office that is not suitable for meetings. My old office in the keep is two floors up. Just a short elevator ride."

Kyra looked disappointed, but she nodded.

"Would you like us to get refreshments from the lobby café, boss?" Anandur asked.

"Good idea." Kian nodded. "Coffee for everyone?" At the collective murmurs of assent, he added, "And whatever pastries or sandwiches they have available."

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