Her father froze, confusion in his eyes over what he should do.
Kiara struggled fiercely against Nykyrian's hold until she saw the blood covering her upper body. Cold dread and fear consumed her. Her baby!
"I've been shot?" she gasped, unable to comprehend why she didn't feel more pain.
Nykyrian lifted her up off the floor, tossed her over his shoulder and sprinted down the hallway. More shots were fired at them. In stunned disbelief at what was happening, Kiara remained silent, praying her wound wouldn't endanger her baby.
Out of nowhere, Hauk appeared, firing his blaster. "I've got you covered," he shouted to Nykyrian. "Get her out of here."
Kiara felt Nykyrian hesitate for only a second before he opened the stairwell and ran down it as fast as he could with her slum ped over him.
She squirmed, trying to get free. "Let go of me!" she shouted at last.
He paid no attention to her. Nykyrian finally put her down next to his ship, but his right hand stayed firmly on her arm while he holstered his blaster with his left.
Kiara fought against him, striking out at his arm with all her might. "I'm not going with you."
"Like hell you're not," he snapped, pulling her up against him so she couldn't hit him anymore. "Aksel's men have this place surrounded. Their mission is to capture you!"
"You're lying! There's no contract on me. I'm safe!"
The venomous look in his eyes chilled her. "It's me he's after and you're the bait he's going to use to lure me with."
Her blood left her cheeks. For a m oment she thought he might be lying, but the cold seriousness of his face warned her of the truth. Numbed, she allowed him to push her up into his fighter and speed them away from Gouran.
"Where are you taking me?" she whispered, trying to staunch the blood coursing down her arm. "I need a doctor."
His rough hands ripped her dress away from the wound on her shoulder. "It's a flesh wound," he said, pulling a piece of cloth out from under their seat. "Hold this on it. It'll stop bleeding before we get home."
Kiara's lips trembled. He was angry, proof of it was in his hardened voice as he talked.
What had she done to him? She was the one with the right to be mad!
"I want to go home to Gouran," she insisted.
His hand tightened around his shifter. "You can't."
Kiara didn't bother arguing with him. She knew she'd get back home no m atter what.
She wasn't about to stay with him, not after he had abandoned her!
It took forever to get to his house. The hostile silence wore on her nerves, but Kiara knew breaking it would be even worse than bearing it.
Nykyrian led the way into the house. He didn't bother looking at her, or helping her with her wound. Kiara clenched her teeth in aggravation. She stood in the doorway between the bay and his house, her legs caressed by the lorinas.
Without looking at her, Nykyrian opened a closet in the kitchen and retrieved a medical bag. "Here," he said, pulling out antiseptic and a white cloth. He placed them on the table before heading up the stairs.
Kiara moved forward into the room, her body numb from everything that had happened to her.
Nykyrian paused in the doorway of his bedroom and turned to face her. Not a single emotion was portrayed from any pore of his body to signal her what was going through his mind. "You are to sleep in the viewing room," he said absently, then closed the door behind him with a loud thud.
Kiara gripped the bottle of antiseptic, wanting to throw it at his head. How dare he treat her this way! Fuming, she quickly set about tending her wound, all the while cursing the man upstairs.
It didn't take her long to clean the wound and bandage it. Nykyrian had been right, it wasn't much more than a scratch. With a heated glare at the dark walls upstairs, she made her way to the viewing room.
She paused in the doorway, seeing one of her gowns on the pulled-out bed. Even in anger, he watched out for her. Kiara's throat tightened. It would be so easy to rush upstairs and pound on the door until he opened it, but she couldn't.
God how she wanted him, burned for him . But he didn't care for her. If he did, he would never have allowed her to go through all those weeks of misery thinking he was dead. If only she knew what to do, what to say. Tears coursed down her cheeks as she sat on the edge of the bed, praying for some miracle that would smooth out the tattered edges of her life.
*