Born of Night (The League #1)(26)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

Kiara continued to listen to their bantering. She was amazed at how well they got along and was certain Nykyrian wouldn’t allow anyone else to treat him so lightly.

After a few minutes, Nykyrian excused himself and went to the main room.

“Is he really all right?” Kiara whispered to Syn.

Syn leaned over toward her. “Whispering does absolutely no good around him, he can hear from miles away. It’s one of those damnable Andarion traits.” He straightened up and continued talking in a normal tone. “He’s just sullen as a swollen gimfry. Ignore him.” He popped his knuckles. “So what trouble shall we get into?”

“I thought you had too much to do to be hanging out in this place.” Nykyrian’s voice traveled into the kitchen without his shouting.

Kiara raised her eyebrows, surprised he really could hear them.

Syn winked at her. “I do, but you’re completely bended if you think I’m leaving this sweet thing in your surly presence.”

Nykyrian said something else in that strange language he used with Syn.

Syn’s eyes widened before he shot from the kitchen.

CHAPTER 14

“Bredeh’s coming for her,” Nykyrian said in Ritadarion to Syn so that Kiara couldn’t understand what was going on . . . yet.

He glanced up as she joined them from the kitchen.

“Do you think he’ll bomb the building?”

Nykyrian shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s completely psycho and too hot after both of us. Either way, we’ve got to move her. Call her father on a secured line, tell him he has less than a half hour to get here and see her before we leave.”

Syn nodded and moved to comply.

Nykyrian beckoned Kiara to come to him.

She hesitated for a moment before walking forward.

Taking a stylus on his computer ledger, Nykyrian wrote his commands for her: We have reason to believe we’re being monitored. I need you to pack enough clothes for several days. We have to move quickly.

Her eyes widened as she read the note. “Oh God,” she whispered and ran from the room.

Kiara trembled in fear. Who was monitoring them? Was it this mysterious Aksel?

Or was it someone worse?

She opened her bedroom door and heard Syn arguing with her father over the telelink next to her bed. Through the view screen, she could see the worry on her father’s face as he glared at Syn. Cold, clammy sweat chilled her hands.

She stepped into range for the camera and interrupted his long list of what he intended to do to Syn. “Papa. Everything is fine. I trust them completely.”

“I don’t,” he snarled, eyeing Syn with a murderous glare. “And I don’t see why you have to take her someplace I don’t know about.”

“Then trust my instincts, please.” She placed a hand on Syn’s shoulder to prove her words.

Instead of calming her father, the gesture seemed to push his anger to full boil. “Don’t you dare move her until I get there, or you’ll wish to God you had stayed in whatever hole you crawled out from!” He cut the transmission.

“Geez,” Syn snorted. “What a grouch.”

“He’s just worried about me.”

Syn scratched the stubble on his cheek. “Yeah, well, the man needs a couple of drinks.”

Before Kiara could reply, Nykyrian leaned through the door and tossed Syn his blaster. “The attack’s already started.”

Kiara went cold.

Nykyrian stepped back as Syn ran to the front.

“I’m scared,” she whispered, half expecting to drop into a faint at any moment.

Nykyrian touched her arm reassuringly. “Don’t be. They’ve got to come through me and I’m no easy obstacle.”

“Yeah, but you’re wounded.”

“Won’t matter.” He held his blaster in his left hand and stretched his right hand out to her.

The fact that he would let her touch him surprised her and told her exactly how deadly a situation this was. Not that she’d doubted the severity of it in the least.

Without hesitation, she placed her icy hand into his large, gloved one.

He pulled her with him out into the hallway. They crouched together beside the bar. Nykyrian draped a poncho over her and placed the hood of it over her head. “It’ll protect you.” He surrounded her with warmth, her back against his chest. She could smell the clean scent of soap from his skin.

Syn hid behind the chair closest to the door while Nykyrian braided his hair to keep it out of his way. Kiara stared at the laser cutting through the door, remembering her brief time on board her kidnapper’s shuttle.

She swallowed her panic, telling herself Nykyrian was here this time and he would see her to safety. She believed in him.

As if he knew her thoughts, he rubbed a comforting hand down her arm. She stared at his left hand held out near her face and watched him click back the release of his blaster.

Waiting.

The hissing of the torch grew louder.

“When they come through, be prepared to run,” Nykyrian whispered to her, his warm breath stirring her hair and raising a chill on her cheek.

She nodded.

“Meet me at the rendezvous,” he shouted to Syn over the sound of her door splintering.

Kiara’s heart pounded in her ears, deafening her to all other sounds. The charred stench stuck in her throat and choked her. Fear restricted her vision and all she could focus on was the weakening door that separated them from the men who wanted to kill her.

Where was the building’s security? Her father’s? Had the men outside killed them already?

She prayed.

With a cloud of smoke and a loud triumphant shout, a group of men came through the door. Syn fired, killing the first two. He made a holy gesture to his lips and ran into the chaos of the hallway.

She couldn’t believe her eyes.

Was he insane?

The sound of insults, curses, laser fire, and blaster shots echoed.

Nykyrian wrapped his right arm around her waist like a safety belt, then pulled her to her feet. “Stay under the cloak.”

She trembled in fear, praying she wouldn’t trip and cost them their lives. Nykyrian held her against him, his body shielding her from the blasters’ fire. She stumbled against him as he led her into the smoke-infested hallway.

He fired his blaster. His arm tightened around her. In spite of her fear, she wanted to see what was happening.

“Don’t look,” Nykyrian said calmly before pulling her behind him. He spun around and fired at something behind them.

He led her down the corridor, away from the lift. Kicking open the stairwell, he scanned the stairs, then pushed her through the door. He pulled a device from his pocket and used it to seal the door closed behind them.

“Wait here, I need—”

“Don’t leave me!” Kiara locked her hands on his forearm as the horror of her mother’s death poured through her. “Please!”

Nykyrian’s throat tightened at the sound of fear in her trembling voice. Taking a deep breath, he took her hand and led her down the stairs and into the landing bay in the basement of the building.

Kiara’s entire body was shaking so badly that she was terrified of falling on her face. Nykyrian on the other hand looked as if he were just out for a stroll. “How can you be so calm?”

He shrugged and continued leading her behind the docked shuttles and parked transports. “Either we’ll make it, or they’ll kill us. If they kill us, they can’t torture us. It’s a win-win situation.”

She didn’t find that funny at all.

Then, she heard them. They were calling to each other as they swept the area, looking for her and Nykyrian.

Nykyrian covered her lips with his finger and motioned her into the shadows of the landing bay.

As the assassin several yards away moved on, out of range, Nykyrian removed his finger from her lips. “Listen,” he whispered in her ear, pulling her close enough so that the sound amps the assassins would be using wouldn’t pick up his voice. “I have to leave you alone. Just for a few minutes, I promise. I have to clear the sentries from my ship or we’ll never make it out of here, okay?”

She rubbed the chills on her arms. “I’m scared.”

“Don’t be.” He handed her a small blaster. “If I go down, Syn will be here in a matter of seconds. You won’t get hurt. I swear it.” He touched the comlink in his ear. “Syn? Location.”

Nykryian nodded in response to whatever answer Syn gave him. “Stay there. I’m about to do something you can’t be a part of.” Clicking it off, he reached his gloved hand out to cup her cheek with a tenderness he’d never shown her before. “Courage, mu Tara. They won’t take you today.”

Then he was gone.

Kiara crouched down behind the fighter, straining her ears to hear what was going on. Footsteps returned and she pressed herself deeper into the shadows. After a second, she found a hidden spot that allowed her to watch as Nykyrian flipped himself onto a transport.

Nykyrian took a second to tuck his coat into the clips that would keep it out of the way of his reaching for his weapons. He removed his earpiece and slid it into his front pocket. He couldn’t afford to have his hearing impaired in any way. With everything in place, he moved atop the ships as silent as the specter for which he’d been named.

From his hearing, he deduced there were roughly fifteen assassins in the bay. The most concerning for him were the two together by his ship and one roaming about to his left.

He ID’d the targets and his ship, then glanced back to where Kiara was hiding as he made the necessary mental calculations on time, distance, and how many he’d have to kill to get out of this alive.

Time to do business.

He rolled off the ship and came to a standing position between the two assassins.

One spun to face him, the man’s mouth falling open and moving spastically like a fish. The man gasped before bringing his weapon up. Nykyrian let fly the knife in his left hand, then spun about to catch the second assassin before the soldier could shoot him in the back. The throwing knives caught them both in the throat, piercing their necks completely and cutting off their windpipes which ensured they wouldn’t be able to call for help.

Nykyrian took a second to make sure they were both dead and then drained their blasters. He retrieved his knives, wiping them clean on the bodies before he swept forward with them in hand.

A chill raised the hair on the back of his neck.

“I’ve got your bitch, freak!”

Nykyrian clenched his teeth in frustration at a voice that had haunted him in his youth. It wasn’t Aksel.

It was worse.

His much more demented younger brother.

“Turn yourself over to Aksel, and I might let her go.”

“Yeah, right,” Nykyrian muttered, resetting his blaster for a stronger and smaller shot. “And I’m a one-legged dung dealer.”

Damn. How had Arast found her?

His hearing was not what it used to be.

Nykyrian skirted around the ships until he was where the idiot stood, his blaster aimed at Kiara’s head. Her face was a mask of complete terror, but her eyes were dry. That look tore through him and he hated the little son of a bitch for making her feel like that.

Arast jerked in a nervous circle as he looked around for Nykyrian. “Hybrid! You have one minute before I spray her brains all over the pavement.”

“Nykyrian, run!” Kiara shouted bravely.

That was almost enough to make him laugh.

He’d never run a day in his life and he damn sure wasn’t going to run from the maggot holding her.

Arast tightened his grip around her throat. “Another word, harita, and I’ll snap your neck.”

Kiara let loose a dry sob before she regained control of herself.

Nykyrian knew he had one chance and one chance only. “You want a piece of me, Ari?”

Arast spun around, looking for the direction it came from. “Where are you, hybrid?”

He moved before he answered that to keep Arast from pinpointing his location. “It’s not where I am that should concern you, brother. It’s where my knife is going to land if you don’t let her go and put your weapon down.”

“And let you shoot me?” Arast laughed sadistically. “I’m not stupid.”

“About as smart as my boots,” Nykyrian muttered, doubting his own intelligence for letting the imbecile get the drop on him.

“Send me your blaster or I’ll kill her right now!” Arast really was an idiot. Did he think a blaster was needed? Or that he only had one?

Damn, the money spent on Academy training had been seriously wasted on that piece of shit. No wonder The League had tossed his ass out.

Might as well humor the punk. Nykyrian slid his blaster across the floor. The hollow, piercing sound of metal against pavement grated against his sensitive ears.

Arast laughed in triumph.

Laugh it up, lardass. It’s one of the last sounds you’re going to make.

A wave of inevitability settled over him. Nykyrian had always known it would come to this one day. In all honesty, he was surprised it’d taken so long to get here.