Page 30 of Dark Rebel’s Reckoning (The Children Of The Gods #93)
30
KYRA
K yra 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 coffee and 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.
"Good morning," she said. "Did you have breakfast already?"
Arezoo turned to her and nodded. "We had cereal with milk. It was so good."
Kids.
Tomorrow, she would try to make them a healthier breakfast, not that she knew what that entailed. Hers usually was just a cup of coffee, and she didn't eat anything until lunch. Who had time to sit down for three meals a day?
Kyra had been lucky to get even one, and if she'd gotten hungry, she'd popped a can of beans open.
When the doorbell rang, Arezoo went to open the door, greeting Max with a bright smile.
Kyra's heart jumped at the sight of him. He was dressed in a sort of uniform, black cargo pants, and a black jacket over a black T-shirt, which made his blond hair stand out. He was so tall and broad, a man's man, and yet he had been so sweet last night.
He walked over to Kyra. "They are ready for us downstairs."
She swallowed, glancing at the girls. "Are you going to be okay by yourselves here? Jasmine and Ell-rom are next door, and so is Fenella. If you need anything, just go to the other penthouse across the foyer."
"We are okay," Arezoo said. "You can go."
"I'll be back in a couple of hours." Kyra assumed the interrogation wasn't going to take longer than that.
As she followed Max out of the penthouse and into the vestibule with its ornate mural on the ceiling and the huge flower arrangement on top of the round stone table in the middle, Kyra reflected on the different worlds contained in this one building, separated only by an elevator ride. Up here was the epitome of elegance and luxury, and down there was a dungeon.
She braced for what she was about to see.
Max pressed the button for the elevator and turned to her. "I'm afraid I have to disappoint you. The interrogation is going to be done with compulsion, not fists. Kian brought Toven with him, a god who is a very powerful compeller and can get immortals to talk. It's not as satisfying as doing it the old-fashioned way, but it's faster and more effective."
She smiled. "Can we beat him up after that just for fun?"
Max grinned. "Fates, woman. You saying things like that makes me fall in love with you deeper by the minute."
He was joking, of course, but the spark in his blue eyes and that sexy smile did things to her, proving that last night wasn't an aberration, some post-rescue gratitude response that had turned sexual.
She had been awakened, so to speak, and she was not going to fall asleep again.
The elevator doors slid open with a soft chime, and Kyra stepped inside, feeling a momentary tightness in her chest at the confined space. It wasn't quite claustrophobia—she'd slept in caves and dugouts during her time with the resistance—but she was heading underground, and it unsettled her.
Max leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. "Compulsion is fascinating to watch," he said, clearly trying to distract her. "They always try to fight it, and it's amusing to see their mouths open and close like fish out of water. Eventually, the bastards spill their guts as if they have been dying to confess their entire miserable lives."
"How does it work?" Her fingers closed around her amber pendant, drawing comfort from its familiar warmth.
"No one knows for sure. We know that it's a sound wave, but we haven't been able to isolate it." He tapped his earpieces. "These filter the compulsion. I have a pair for you as well." He dug into his pocket and handed her a small case.
"Are they the same as the ones the girls got?"
Max shook his head. "Theirs are not compulsion filtering. Just translating."
The elevator slowed to a stop, and as the doors opened, Kyra braced herself, half-expecting a medieval dungeon with stone walls and iron manacles. Instead, she was greeted by a surprisingly modern facility—polished concrete floors, gleaming metal doors, and bright LED lighting. It looked more like a high-security prison than the torture chamber that her imagination had conjured.
The hallway was wide, at least twelve feet across, and there were even reproductions of famous art pieces hanging on the walls. The panic she'd expected hadn't hit her yet, but that was because it was easy to imagine that there were rooms with windows behind the closed doors.
"Whose idea was the pictures?" She pointed at a reproduction of Van Gogh.
"Ingrid, the clan's interior designer. The dungeon is not always used to hold prisoners. At times, we've had people who needed to hide staying here, and we wanted to make the place look less like a dungeon and more like a secure hotel. Some of these cells are really nicely kitted out."
"I have to admit that it's much nicer than I expected." She released a breath. "I thought I would be walking past chains and cobwebs."
Max chuckled. "We save those for special occasions."
They passed by several metal doors that seemed more suitable for a bank safe than a holding facility, and there were security cameras mounted at regular intervals along the ceiling. "How many prisoners do you have down here?"
"Currently?" Max's expression darkened slightly. "Too many. A couple of Doomers and the rest are humans—members of trafficking rings, pedophiles, the worst kind of scum." He smiled. "I started to tell you about all the wonderful things that the clan does to save victims of trafficking and clean the world one dirtbag at a time, but I got distracted." He gave her a loaded look.
Thinking of the cameras that were no doubt also recording sound, Kyra felt a blush creeping up her cheeks. "Perhaps we shouldn't bring up things of this nature down here. Doesn't seem fitting."
Max nodded, but a sly smile danced on the corners of his lips. "You are right. My bad."
They reached an open door at the end of the corridor, and Max walked right in.
A handsome man with longish curly hair that didn't go well with the uniform he was wearing rose to his feet.
"This is Alfie," Max introduced him. "He took over for me when I was gone and is now my second-in-command." Max turned to her. "And this is Kyra."
Alfie offered her a warm smile and extended his hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Kyra."
Nodding, she shook his hand. "Same here."
"Is everyone there already?" Max asked.
Alfie nodded and then offered Kyra an apologetic smile. "Kian has decided to use the interrogation cell, which is connected to an observation room with a one-way mirror. He doesn't want the prisoner to see you during the interrogation."
Kyra suspected that Kian just wasn't comfortable with her being there, but he was the boss here, and he made the rules. She had no choice but to comply.