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15

KYRA

" I 'm sorry that you trekked back to the compound for nothing," Max said to Kyra as they made their way to where the vans were waiting, hidden in a shallow ravine about half a mile from the compound.

She cast him a mock glare. "No, you're not. You're very happy that I missed all the fighting."

"Guilty," he admitted, taking her hand. "But not for the reason you think."

"Oh, yeah?" She lifted a brow. "So, you didn't want me to stay safe while you fought all the bad guys on your own?"

"Of course, I wanted that, but I also didn't want you to see me turn savage."

Her eyes softened. "I know how it gets in the heat of the battle. I wouldn't have held it against you."

He shook his head. "You don't understand. It's not just me doing what needs to be done. I relish doing it. A monster stirs to life inside me, and it's eager to tear Doomers and other evildoers limb from limb."

Kyra considered that for a moment. "I get that. I don't turn into a total savage, or rather, I didn't, but that's only because I didn't know that Doomers regenerate from most injuries. I was sure that I killed them." She shivered. "I feel guilty for not finishing them off."

He squeezed her hand. "You had no way of knowing."

She nodded. "Because of the Doomers I left to regenerate, my people were not safe in Tahav. I'm glad that they moved to a different location."

As they crested the ridge, she could see that only two vans remained, the one with her family on board having left minutes ago.

"I'm also glad that Yasmin and her kids are on their way to the safe house." She looked at Max. "I feel like a big weight was lifted off me." She chuckled. "The truth is that I didn't believe you and Yamanu, along with Jade and half her team, could take on an entire compound of Doomers."

"Thankfully, they were not all Doomers," Max said as he opened the passenger door for her. "Most were Revolutionary Guard soldiers, and Yamanu took care of them with his blanket thralling. We only had to dispatch the Doomers."

He walked around the vehicle, his eyes scanning their surroundings before he slid into the driver's seat .

"Evil and eviler," Kyra murmured. "There is always a bigger fish."

He chuckled. "You have no idea."

"Really?" She tilted her head. "Then please enlighten me."

"It's a long story, and it has to do with the gods who created intelligent species all over the galaxy." He turned the engine on and started the slow and bumpy ride to the nearest road. "The ruler of the home planet of the gods is called the Eternal King, and he's the biggest fish of them all. The Doomers, with their delusional leader, are not even fleas to him. They are not even specks of dust."

Kyra sensed that there was an enormous story there, but right now, she couldn't concentrate on tales about alien gods and their galactic empire or whatever else the story was about. Her mind was on Yasmin and her children and their devastation over losing their father.

She'd seen enough children orphaned by the regime who had somehow found their way into her rebel camp. She'd given them purpose and helped channel their grief and anger toward taking revenge on the enemy and freeing as many of their people as they could, but none of them had ever become whole again.

They were forever broken.

As they reached a paved road, Max shifted gears and accelerated away from the compound, following a route they had mapped earlier that would avoid main roads and checkpoints.

In the rearview mirror, Kyra could see in the distance the compound burning brightly against the night sky, a beacon of destruction that would soon draw attention from the authorities.

"They'll think it's a terrorist attack," she said. "Or maybe an internal power struggle." She turned to the window.

With the adrenaline of combat wearing off, a melancholy settled in. "Yasmin's oldest boy asked about his father," she said quietly. "I had to tell him that he didn't make it."

Max tightened his grip on the steering wheel. "There's no good way to tell a child their parent is gone. But at least he has his mother and his siblings. Their future would have been a living hell if the Doomers had shipped them to the island, which they would have done now that Durhad is no longer around. They wouldn't have known what else to do with them."

If Yasmin was still fertile, she would have been sent to the Doomers breeding program, and so would her daughters. The sons would have been taken to the Doomers training program and turned immortal.

Max was right to call it a living hell.

"Nevertheless, they lost their father today, and I don't know how to make it better for them. When orphaned teenagers found their way to my rebel camp, we trained them to fight and take revenge on those who'd murdered their parents." She turned to look at Max. "Is that what I should do with my nieces and nephews? At what age can immortals join the Guardian Force?"

They hadn't had time to discuss all the intricacies of life in the immortals' village, and Kyra realized that she wouldn't even know how to answer her sisters' questions.

Max smiled. "Eighteen, but that's not the only path available to them. There are many paths that can lead to healing."