Page 33 of Dark Rebel’s Reckoning (The Children Of The Gods #93)

33

MAX

M ax held on to Kyra's sweaty hand, wishing he could do more for her. Her father was lucky to be dead, because if he were still alive, Max would have made it his mission to find him and make him pay for what he had done to his daughter.

The Doomer would also pay for what he had done and for insulting her on top of that, and Max didn't care if he was tried for insubordination after beating the scumbag to a pulp, but he wasn't planning on asking anyone's permission to do it.

"How did you know that she turned immortal because of you?" Toven asked.

The Doomer smiled for the first time since the interrogation had started.

"I put two and two together. Regrettably, Kyra escaped before I realized what had happened. I saw the footage from the surveillance cameras, and I knew that I hadn't given her any drugs that could have made her that strong. Naturally, drugs were the explanation I gave the bewildered doctors of the institution, and they had no choice but to accept it. I've been searching for her ever since, and then when I finally found her, you showed up out of nowhere. What were you looking for?"

"You are not the one asking the questions," Kian said. "We are. What about Fenella?"

Toven had to repeat the question since Kian's commanding voice wasn't enough to compel the Doomer to answer.

"That was another fortunate chance encounter. I took it as a sign from Mortdh that I should father immortal sons of my own, and then Kyra came right to me, after I'd looked for her for over two decades, to the facility I was using for my project, and I knew that I'd read the signs correctly. That was what Mortdh wanted me to do, and he sent two immortal females to me to become the mothers of my immortal sons."

Kyra's hand tightened around Max's. "What if I'm pregnant?"

"You're not."

"How can you be sure? Jasmine told me that immortal females ovulate on demand."

He turned to her and cupped her cheek. "Conception is rare, and it happens with the right partner. The monster on the other side of the glass is not that."

She let out a breath. "I hope you are right, and I hope that's true for Fenella as well. She doesn't deserve to carry the devil's spawn."

Max couldn't agree more.

"Why did you keep them sedated?" Kian asked.

This time Toven didn't need to repeat the question.

The Doomer shifted in his chair as much as the restraints allowed. "I injected them with every fertility drug I could get my hands on. I assumed that they were on some sort of contraceptives, so I found what could be given to counteract them, but neither conceived. I remembered Mortdh's teachings about the wickedness of women, and how they need to submit to breed, so I roughed them up a little. Nothing too excessive, just enough to show them who was in charge."

"I'm going to kill him," Max hissed. "I'm going to tear him apart with my fangs until there's nothing left of him to regenerate. Or maybe I will allow him to regenerate so I can do that all over again."

Tears glistened in Kyra's eyes as she turned to him. "That's what he did to Fenella and me. He beat us up and by morning we were as good as new. He thought it was great fun."

In the other room, silence stretched like hot tar over the interrogators. Kian's eyes were glowing, and Max was sure his fangs were fully elongated by now, but the Doomer was too fried to realize that. He was still smiling like a fiend, happy with how smart he had been.

"What about the four human girls?" Toven asked in a surprisingly even tone. "Why did you capture them?"

"A stroke of genius." The Doomer straightened his shoulders as much as the chains allowed. "Regrettably, it only occurred to me recently that I knew where to find Kyra's relatives, and that if she turned immortal from my bite, perhaps some of them would too."

Kyra gasped. "The girls are my family?"

Max squeezed her hand, suddenly worried that one of them or more could be pregnant, even though the chances of that were negligible. Immortal males' fertility was as low as the fertility of immortal females, but the idiot didn't know that.

Bridget was arriving later in the afternoon, and she would conduct all the necessary testing. Hopefully, she'd confirm that none of the females were pregnant.

"Smart, right?" the Doomer continued. "The more the better. I could have started a breeding program of my own and created my own army of immortal warriors."

"How are the girls related to Kyra?" Toven asked.

"Three are the daughters of one sister and one is the daughter of another. Kyra doesn't have any brothers, but she has four younger sisters." An evil grin spread over his face. "I snatched them because they were all together, but there is more where they came from. I hope my men got their hands on the next crop, including the mothers and the children. The boys might be turned into soldiers and the girls can become my breeders. The mothers are old and not as pleasing to look at as the young ones, but they might still be fertile. I realized that the more of them I have, the faster I can grow my immortal army."

Had the idiot forgotten the situation he was in? He was never leaving this underground and never getting his hands on those women, but his buddies were another story.

The team had to go back and rescue the rest of Kyra's family.