"I knew I should have detonated that ship," her father growled beside her.
Horrified, Kiara gaped at him, then ran from the room. Her feet carried her into the heat of the bay as she shook from the emotions tearing at her. The scorching blaze stung her nose with its pungent odor and made her eyes water. She coughed, searching the wreckage with desperate eyes. Pieces of Nykyrian's ship were scattered everywhere. For a moment, she thought she would collapse.
There was nothing left whole. Nothing. Kiara fell to her knees, gripping the edge of the wall until her hand was numb. Pain racked her soul and she wanted to die. This couldn't be real. It wasn't supposed to end this way!
Her gaze drifted over the scattered pieces, the fire-bots, the flames, down the bay to the opening. Kiara blinked. It couldn't be.
A glimmer of hope sprouted as she saw Nykyrian lying at the opening of the bay. He was alive! Finding strength from an unknown source, she ran to him.
"Oh God!" she gasped, standing over his body. Kiara sank to her knees by his side, afraid to touch him. He lay on his back, perfectly still. His helmet was cracked and blistered.
Kiara reached a trembling hand out to touch the gaping wound in his side. Nykyrian's chest didn't appear to be moving at all. There was so much blood. Her lips twitched as panicked terror engulfed her.
Hauk knelt on the opposite side. He didn't look at her while he unfastened the lines securing Nykyrian's helmet to his uniform. When he removed it, her world tilted.
"No!" she cried, seeing the bluish tinge to Nykyrian's skin. She grasped his cold hand which had somehow come free of its glove, to her breast and wiped the blood from Nykyrian's icy cheek.
A medical unit surrounded them, forcing Kiara away. In a daze, she staggered back, her mind too overwhelmed by grief and pain to think.
Hauk began shouting, but his words were unintelligible to her, as was everything happening around her. A fog clouded her hearing, her sight, and for a moment, she wondered if this was what death felt like.
Suddenly, her father was there, holding her.
For some reason, her tears stopped and a strange lucidity invaded her grief as she watched the m edics rip open Nykyrian's uniform and attach a series of machines to him.
It was like watching actors in a play moving to a script she didn't know the ending to.
None of it seemed real.
Kiara looked at her father. "You should call his parents and tell them," she said in a hollow voice. "Emperor Aros and Princess Cairistiona. Please tell them. I ... I don't think I can."
By the look on her father's face, Kiara knew he thought she had gone mad. Maybe she had.
"Please call them," she said again. "I have to go with him." Her heart shattering into tiny pieces, Kiara entered the medical unit and went with them to the hospital.
Sixteen
Kiara sat in the waiting room of the hospital staring out the window. Nykyrian had been in surgery for over six hours, and as each new second ticked by, Kiara felt her hopes diminish with it.
Thia lay asleep in her lap, tears still nestled in her closed lashes. Telling the little girl about her mother's death and about the father she'd only met once, had been one of the hardest things Kiara had ever done.
She sighed, looking around the room. Jayne sat across from her, along with Caillen and Darling. Hauk just paced the hallway, saying nothing.
Nykyrian's parents were huddled with her father at the other end of the room. They were a somber group and Kiara couldn't help but wonder what Nykyrian would say if he could see them.
She held her left hand up before her, letting the dawning rays of the sun play across the red griata stones. She would give up everything she owned and ever aspired to if she could have Nykyrian back with her. She didn't even care if he were crippled, just as long as she had him.
Kiara drew a trembling breath. She held Thia close as a balm against her grief, and smoothed the ruffled blond curls off her little, chubby cheeks.
The doors opened at the end of the waiting room.
She looked up expecting to see the doctor, shocked to see Rachol entering the waiting room with a gorgeous redheaded woman. Caillen got up and stopped the redhead before she reached her. Rachol cam e straight to Kiara and knelt at her feet.
"How are you doing?" he asked, concern etched into his face as he gave her hand a comforting squeeze.
"Not very well," she answered, tears coursing down her cheeks.
His lips trembled. "I'm so sorry. I should have been there. I could've stopped him."
Kiara touched his cheek with a gentle caress. She knew Rachol ached as much as she did. "You know better, Rachol. Nykyrian's far too stubborn to have listened to you. I have a feeling if you were there, you'd be lying in the operating room next to him."
Rachol nodded, his lips in a tense line. "I guess you're right."
The redhead came forward hesitantly. "Rachol," she spoke in a soft, lilting accent. "I'm not very good with hospitals. Are you going to be all right?"