"Are you blind?" Kira threw her arms out to indicate their surroundings. "Look around us, Selene. At where we're standing. You kidnapped me. Off my ship. During a rescue mission. A rescue mission aimed at saving Elena. You tell me what I should be thinking right now."
Selene sent Pallas a horrified look. "Tell me you didn't."
"She needed an extraction. I gave her one."
"I had a ship. A crew. Allies. How the fuck do you expect me to do anything now?"
Because the forty three sure as hell weren't going to help her. Kira had been down that road before. She'd be lucky if they stayed out of her way long enough for her to accomplish anything.
She'd be alone. Against a planet of her enemies. No back up. No plan. Nothing.
Buzzing filled the space. Like a thousand insects swarming together.
Sparks flickered from the spot where Pallas’s rift had deposited them earlier.
"That's impossible," Pallas snarled.
The air parted. A black slash opening as a figure leapt out of the void. He landed in a crouch.
"Graydon," Kira gasped.
Pallas stared at the emperor's Face with an expression Kira had never seen on her brother's face before. An emotion somewhere between repulsion and fascination.
"Pallas, how did this happen?" Selene asked, the intrusion leaving her unsettled.
She wasn't quite hostile. Yet. But Kira could see on her face what they were all thinking. That the forty three were not going to like this. Not one tiny bit.
At least, they’d blame Pallas this time.
Pallas shook his head, his expression locked down tight.
Kira stared at him in dawning realization. "You can't explain, can you? You don't know how he followed you."
How delightful. If she didn't already love Graydon, this would have changed her mind. Any man who could get the best of Pallas deserved her esteem. If only so she could worship at the altar of his greatness.
"It's not possible," Pallas hissed in a rare loss of control.
That was the thing about Pallas. As psychotic as he was, he never reacted from an emotional level. Everything he did came from cold, hard reason. And piss poor impulse management.
"He looks awful real to me," Kira observed as Graydon prowled toward her.
He looked her over, his gaze lingering on her split lip. The bruises already forming on her cheek and under her eye from the blows Pallas managed to land.
"You didn't actually think after that stunt in the palace that we wouldn't come up with countermeasures, did you?" Graydon taunted, his expression slightly murderous as he glanced at Pallas. "Naive."
Kira released a puff of air. Finally. Someone crazier than Pallas.
Jin would have loved this.
She aimed a resentful look at the J1N puttering around the ceiling. He'd been circling since their arrival, his 'eye' aimed at the ground.
Graydon glanced at Selene. "We meet again, Lady. It's good to see your condition has improved."
Selene dipped her chin in a respectful nod. "Thank you."
They each looked up at the man who'd appeared on the stair landing at some point during the chaos.
He was tall and lean with wire frame glasses that made him seem more harmless than he actually was. He looked like a scholar. Maybe a professor of some kind. The cut of his clothes did a good job of hiding the muscular physique that would have called that illusion into question.
"How is it that you both have more brawns than brains?" Alexander asked Pallas and Kira in a crisp voice.
"Fuck off," Pallas informed him, echoing Kira's sentiments exactly.
Alexander's expression tightened, his shoulders rising and falling as he fought for control.
"If you wouldn't mind releasing this," Graydon said to Selene, tapping the shield that held Kira captive.
Pallas sneered. "What's the matter? You can't handle something this simple?"
In a movement almost too fast for the eye to follow, he slashed a hand across Selene's ki shield. It collapsed, dissipating as Pallas stepped out of the cage.
"I could, but I didn’t want to be rude." Graydon bowed an inch in Selene's direction, his manner respectful but not subservient.
"You're acting childish," Selene informed Pallas.
He rolled his eyes, not responding as he stalked up the stairs. His path intersected with Alexander.
"Move," Pallas growled when the other didn't shift to allow him passage.
"There's plenty of room. Go around."
The two men faced off. Pallas on the step below. Alexander looking down at him with a superiority that would have made Kira want to smack him if she'd been in Pallas's place.