Dhampirs of Sgiach

24. Kieran

Darkness. Heat. Kieran curled in on himself and felt a tug in his arm, but the hot stone beneath him felt wonderful against his skin. So much better than that cold white room. He opened his eyes. Wherever he was, it was dark, and no light penetrated that darkness. The stone had an odd color to it that told Kieran that much. He was always color-blind in complete darkness.

It's like when I was sick, he thought to himself as sleep claimed him once more.

The scent of coffee and the beep of a machine woke Kieran up. His body ached and he was stiff. He groaned and lifted his hand to press his palm to his forehead. He stopped midmotion when he felt the painful tug of an IV. Kieran opened his eyes to a dimly lit hospital room. The flickering light of a candle was the only source of light in the room. From the label, it was also the source of the scent as well.

Kieran frowned at that.

“Finally awake?”

Kieran turned to look at Detective Reynolds. The detective was sitting in one of those uncomfortable hospital chairs, one ankle on his knee. He held a magazine in one hand with a finger marking his place.

“Where am I?” Kieran had to try twice before he could get the words out.

Detective Reynolds stood from his chair and set the magazine down before he walked over to the bed. He poured water into a plastic cup with a bendy straw and held it as Kieran drank greedily. “The hospital. Doctors almost lost you a couple of times before the Furian doctors arrived. You kept having seizures every time they tried to work on you under the lights.”

“Seizures? Is that why there’s only a candle in here?”

“Yeah. Coffee scented because Kage insisted it would comfort you.”

“Kage! Echo!” Kieran struggled to sit up but Reynolds pressed a palm to his chest. At the same time, he used his other hand to turn Kieran’s head.

On the small sofa in the room were Kage and Echo, curled up together as they slept peacefully. In the candlelight, Kieran could see the healing bruises and cuts on Echo and the sickly pallor to Kage’s skin.

“They have refused to leave the room…” Reynolds said.

“He hasn’t fed?” Kieran said as the pair stirred on the couch.

“No, he hasn’t.”

Kieran looked at the woman’s voice as a woman of middling years walked into the room. He winced at the pure white of her doctor’s coat, but his eyes were instantly drawn to her amber eyes and flaming red hair. Dr. Sorcha smiled warmly at Kieran as she walked over to the bed.

“I gave those two a sedative an hour ago so they could get some sleep,” she explained as she used her stethoscope to check Kieran’s heart and lungs. When she pulled a small penlight from her pocket, the one doctors normally used to check someone’s eyes, she shone it on the exposed skin of Kieran’s arm.

Kieran hissed and flinched away from that tiny light. Pain had blossomed where the light touched him, but when he looked down at his arm, the fair skin was untouched. “That hurt…”

“Pain. No seizure. It seems you’ll be able to go into artificial light again eventually,” Dr. Sorcha said with a smile.

Kieran frowned at his arm and then looked at the candle. “What about sunlight?”

“It didn’t have the same effect that the artificial lights had. You were in a coma for almost three weeks and sunlight only made you fidget like you were having nightmares. Once you eat, I’ll check the light sensitivity again.” She leaned forward with a small flame on the tip of her finger like a candle so she could look into his eyes. “Your eyes seem fine. How is your vision?”

“Fine.”

Dr. Sorcha nodded with a smile as she did a few more tests before she left Kieran and the detective.

“Was it the rats killing the dhampirs?” Kieran asked once she was gone.

“Why do you ask that?” Reynolds asked, startled.

“I don’t remember much, except that they gave me their blood.”

“Hmmm…” Reynolds looked thoughtful. “Would make sense… But no, their deaths were unrelated to your kidnapping. Same with Mr. Henderson’s death. The DNA collected with the rape kit you made sure Kage got after you took him into your care popped hot in our systems.”

Reynolds frowned as if he had tasted something vile before he continued. “Detective John Wilson. His DNA also turned up on the two newest bodies in the river and when a necromancer was brought in to call the spirits of the dhampirs, they all described him. That, along with some other evidence, points to him.” The detective pinched the bridge of his nose. He hadn’t noticed Kieran flinch at the mention of a necromancer.

“And Steve?” Kieran asked.

“Owed the wrong wereanimals money. The women of the pack had been delighted you had gotten Echo out of there before an enforcer came knocking. When the news came that the Third Prince of the werebear Sleuth had been kidnapped, they tried to convince the males to help. When they refused, the women rebelled. Delivered the actual murderer to us and exposed a rat in our department. Since they had tried to frame you for murder, we had to give them to the werebears…” Reynolds trailed off and suddenly looked older and more tired.

“Who was it?” Kieran asked softly.

“My partner.”

Kieran remembered Reynolds’s partner. The man had seemed overly confident that Kieran was guilty. Then he remembered Lacey the day he was taken. “I’m sorry.”

“You take a kid under your wing and hope for the best. He made his own choices.” Reynolds didn’t sound like he really believed what he was saying.

“And… Lacey?” Kieran asked softly.

“In our custody.”

Kieran looked at the door. His parents and brothers were there, with takeout bags from his favorite wing place. Tears welled up in his eyes and he reached out for them. “Mommy…” he whimpered out in a voice he barely recognized.

His mother rushed forward. The slap to his cheek sounded loud in the room and Kieran barely had time to process the sting before his mother crushed him in a hug. “Don’t you EVER scare me like that again! And keep it in your damn pants!” she half sobbed, half yelled at him as they both clung to each other.

The damn had broken and everything Kieran had been holding back came rushing out of him. His anger, hurt, and fear poured out of him as he clung to his mother and cried like he had when his biological mother died and left him alone on the streets. He didn’t notice when Reynolds left the room or when Kage and Echo woke up and crawled into the bed with him and his mother. Only when it was all out of him, and he was curled up in the warmth of his family, did he finally feel safe.

Erin smiled through her tears as her husband handed her a napkin and she wiped Kieran’s face like he was a child again. “You’re covered in snot now,” she fussed. Once he was clean, she moved on to Kage and Echo. “All of you are.”

Kieran ended up squished between Echo and Kage with no elbow room as he tore into his hot wings. His mother sat at the foot of the bed with a hand on his leg and his father and brothers crowded in on chairs. He didn’t care though. He wanted the touch and closeness. It helped him push away the memory of that room.

“The only thing missing is a cup of coffee,” he said with a smile.

“Only you would want to drink coffee with hot wings,” Rand said with an eye roll but produced a coffee to-go cup.

Kieran grinned and sipped the coffee. They had even added a little bit of cocoa and ignis pepper oil into it. Bitter and spicy. Just the way he liked it.

When he was done eating, he fidgeted as he listened to his family talk about what had happened. Lacey had been tried and convicted of conspiracy against the Sleuth and kidnapping of the Third Prince. The wererats had been either killed or chased out of Exagora. Alpha Martin had managed to escape, and the Sleuth had put out a bounty on him. Same with the werewolves.

“What’s this?” Kieran asked as his mother handed him a folded paper. Most of the words were medical jargon that made no sense to him. He did recognize his name. And Lacey’s. Positive match?

“At the sentencing, Lacey begged for mercy and claimed she was pregnant with your child…”

Kieran’s heart stopped and their voices trailed away to silence as he read those words over and over again. Pregnancy confirmed… Positive match… My child…