2. Kian

2

KIAN

" S orry I'm late." William rushed into the office with a large bag dangling from his fingers. "I had to wait for the earpieces to be tested. They were fresh off the assembly line."

Merlin cocked a brow. "You have an assembly line?"

"Of course." William pulled out a chair and sat down. "How do you think we put together all these gadgets you all love?"

The doctor shrugged. "I thought one person did everything from start to finish."

"It's less efficient that way." William reached into his bag. "But we do that when we're working on a one-of-a-kind like this beauty." He pulled out a device very similar to the wands used by airport security to scan individuals manually. "This portable tracker scanner is just as efficient as the big machines we used on the Kra-ell. I calibrated this one for the dimensions of the Anumatian trackers and their X-ray signature."

"When did you do that?" Merlin eyed the device suspiciously.

"Right after the gods arrived, they told us they were looking for the other Kra-ell pods. I figured that we may again find ourselves needing to look for these implanted trackers and may not have a CT machine available." He chuckled. "I didn't expect to have to put this wand to the test so soon."

Looking closely at the device William handed him, Merlin still seemed skeptical. "Won't the stasis chamber interfere with the device's readouts?"

William shook his head. "The wand is programmed to look for the specific trackers we found. It will ignore anything else, even if made from the same material."

Kian sighed. "Scanning them in the stasis chamber is not ideal, let alone performing any procedure on them if trackers are found. In their condition, that may prove fatal, but the trackers going live poses an existential risk not only to the clan but possibly to the entire population of Earth. It is not a risk I'm willing to take to save the twins."

He wasn't being paranoid or dramatic for effect. The Eternal King would not allow such a potential risk to his reign to continue.

For a long moment, no one spoke, and when the door opened and Anandur walked in with trays of coffee and bags of pastries, there was a collective sigh of relief.

"It's a madhouse down at the café," Anandur said as he put the trays on the conference table. "Wonder hopes the new human arriving in the village this afternoon will apply for a job. They need help desperately." He put down the paper bag and started pulling out wrapped pastries.

"Who is the human?" Merlin asked.

"She is from Igor's former compound," Anandur said. "You've probably seen her around during the cruise. The server with the blue hair and the piercings. She and Peter got close, and she asked to be transferred to the village."

Merlin's face split into a huge grin. "I know who you are talking about. Marina is lovely. I'm so glad that they are going to live here."

Kian had approved Marina's transfer because he believed the Fates must have brought her and Peter together for a reason, although he couldn't fathom what that reason might be.

Unions between immortals and humans were a prescription for heartache, and Kian knew that better than most.

In his youth, he had fallen in love with a mortal, married her against his mother's wishes, and had a daughter with her.

That story hadn't ended well, but maybe Peter's would.

Kian groaned. "I never expected so many humans to be living in the village."

"We don't have all that many," Bridget said. "Including the newcomer, there will be nine people in total."

Kian frowned. "Are you counting Karen's kids and Lisa in that?"

"No, of course not." Bridget tore a piece of her pastry and put it in her mouth.

"Then it's five more." Kian lifted his hand, fingers splayed. "That brings the total to fourteen."

Kian glanced at his watch. "We should head to the parking garage in a few minutes."

"Did they land yet?" Jade asked.

"No, but they are about to."

The time it took to get from the village to the keep was about the same as from the clan's airstrip to the keep, so as soon as the two planes carrying the Tibetan team and the stasis chambers landed, he and his group should head out.

Jade glanced at her watch. "Weren't they supposed to arrive almost an hour ago?"

Kian nodded. "They hit a bit of a snag on the way, something about avoiding turbulence, so they were delayed. But they should be landing at the airstrip any minute now. Okidu and Onidu are there to meet them and help transport the team, the equipment, and the stasis chambers to the keep."

"I remember when we revived Dalhu from stasis," Anandur said. "The dude was only entombed for a week, and he still looked like death warmed over when we opened the sarcophagus. I can't even imagine what state the twins are in." He shivered, but it was more of an act than an involuntary response.

Kian let out a soft chuckle. "You don't have to imagine. Just stroll down to the catacombs and look at the Doomers stashed away there. That should give you a pretty good idea."

None of the Doomers they had collected over the years had spent more than a couple of centuries in the clan catacombs, though, so they were probably in a much better state than the twins.

Up until recently, Annani had disallowed executing captured Doomers, and they had been forced to put them in stasis and take care of the bodies because of his mother's naive belief that someday they could be redeemed. But after what they discovered in Acapulco and the atrocities that the Doomers had the cartel commit, she had finally changed her mind.

Kian didn't know why it had taken her so long.

Doomers had been committing terrible atrocities throughout human history. But the truth was that it had been a long time since they had done something so evil, and his mother had probably thought that those days were over, never to return. It must have been a shock for her to realize that their cruelty and barbarism were still just as present.

"Wonder told me about what she looked like when she woke up from stasis after five thousand years," Anandur said. "She was a walking skeleton."

"I'm surprised she could walk at all," Bridget said.

Anandur puffed out his chest. "My Wonder is a warrior. She's unstoppable."

Bridget nodded. "She is, but don't forget that the twins have been in stasis for seven thousand years without the benefit of being able to absorb nutrients from the earth like Wonder could. They are probably much worse off."

Kian reached into his pocket, his fingers brushing against the smooth, metallic surface of the compulsion-filtering devices. "Should we test the new earpieces?" He looked at William. "I'm curious about the new Kra-ell translation feature."

"Sure." Jade pulled hers out. "I tested mine with Phinas, and they worked beautifully." She nodded at William. "These will save me a lot of time translating for everyone else and make wearing them less awkward." She turned to Kian. "We don't even need to tell the twins about the compulsion-filtering feature of the devices. They will assume we are wearing them for their translation capabilities alone."

Kian shook his head. "They will figure it out eventually, and then they will not trust us. I'd rather be upfront about it." He smiled coldly. "That way, they will know not to try anything. But we can wait until they get better before telling them."

His mind flashed back to Igor and the moment when the powerful Kra-ell had held him at his mercy, his will subsumed by the force of the pureblood's compulsion. If Jade hadn't been there, and if she hadn't acted with such decisiveness and courage, Kian shuddered to think what might have happened.

He shook off the disturbing memory and straightened his shoulders. "Even though it is unlikely that the twins will pose a threat to us in their current state, we need to take the necessary precautions and ensure our safety, which means never forgetting to wear the earpieces while around them." He looked pointedly at Jade. "But we must also remember that they are my mother's half-brother and sister and are most likely not our enemies. We should treat them with kindness, care, and vigilance."