For The Honor
Elizabeth Knight
Chapter 14
"We've been considering your request, Kyle, and we've come to a conclusion." White Fang said from the front of the long table. The entrance flap opened, and a cat-man scampered over to him. "It would seem that we have company, gentlemen. I suggest that we continue this later, and greet our unwelcome arrivals."
Everyone stood up, and made their way out of the council room. Kyle could hear the saiyans down below and watched as a familiar face stepped forward out of the crowd. "Trunks! How nice to see you again."
"I've come for my sister and my mate, Kyle. If I have to I'll burn this place to the ground just like you did to my city." came Trunks reply.
The man had a lot of spunk, Kyle had to admit. Too bad it wouldn't be of any good use to him here. His mate indeed. Did Kyle ever have a surprise for him. He laughed, "Your mate? Who might that be? I wasn't even aware you'd taken one."
As Trunks scowled down at him, Kyle climbed down to the ground to face his most formidable foe. Second most formidable. Vegeta beat him out at the moment considering what he had the power to take from Kyle. As he approached, Trunks eyed him angrily.
"Where's my sister?" he demanded.
"Don't worry. She's safe." Kyle smiled at the aggravated saiyan.
There was a pause before he ask his next question. Kyle had to give the man credit for swallowing his pride enough to ask, "And Zantha?"
There was a wealth of hidden emotion in his voice that Kyle found slightly comforting considering Zantha's choice of mate. It was good this saiyan loved her even if he had too much pride to admit it. "Fine. She's healing well considering all the damage done to her from your father. So, you've really come for my sister and my mate. How ironic, don't you think?"
Kyle watched Vegeta's scowling face as he lunged forward only to be pulled back by RepSarah's target. Trunks stepped forward in front of his father. "I'm not playing with you, Kyle. If you've hurt my sister I'll kill you."
Kyle jumped back as Trunks drew his sword. Several other cat-men behind Kyle drew their weapons as well. This was not looking good. He just hoped he could cool things down before Bra spoke up. He knew she wasn't far away, listening. "Easy my new brother. Bra would be very upset with me if I were forced to kill you. Besides your only angry because I've claimed what's mine and you've yet to capture your run away song bird."
"My sister isn't yours! I will bring her home." Trunks promised charging at Kyle.
"Trunks, no!" Bra screamed as she watched her brother fly at Kyle with his sword ready to strike her lover down. She watched him stop and look up at her, relief flooding his face.
"Are you alright, Bra?"
"Of corse! I'm a saiyan too, ya know." She replied saucily.
"Where's Zantha?"
Where's Zantha? As if she was going to tell him after she gave Zantha the option to choose. That would definitely be betraying the other woman who was no less than her new sister- in-law. Bra crossed her arms and took up a defiant stance that spoke volumes to her family. She wasn't budging. Bra jumped slightly as she heard an unfamiliar voice speaking next to her.
"She's not here. Kyle, as much as we wish we could repay your services by granting you your request to keep your mate here among us, we have to send her back. Our people's lives can't be put in danger because of her."
Bra's mouth dropped as she looked down at a stunned Kyle. She couldn't see his eyes, but she knew well the angry fire that must have leapt up in them. Kyle would look at this like a gauntlet being tossed in front of him. His voice was harsh and biting as he ask, "Did you ask her what she wanted?"
"What she want's is irrelevant, Kyle. If they're demanding her return, she has to go back. This ruling is non-negotiable." Tears stung Bra's eyes as she watched Kyle flinch from the unexpected blow sent his way.
"What about my sister?" Kyle ask the one-eyed ware-wolf.
"Zantha is ours. She's a heroine to these people, and I doubt they'd take kindly to anyone trying to force her to return to a place that treated her so cruelly."
"And what it I refuse to leave with out her." Trunks ask bravely.
"It would be unreasonable to start a fight over her now. She's gone." the wolf replied.
"Is this true, Kyle?" Kyle nodded his head to the saiyan, who looked just as shocked and upset as did now.
"Let's go!" Goku commanded the men from the back of the crowd. The saiyan's began backing out of the clearing slowly. Kyle reached out for Vegeta as he turned to go. Vegeta slug around and glared at Kyle.
"I'll fight you for the honor of your daughter's vow to be my mate." Kyle told him determinedly. Vegeta cocked an eyebrow and looked at him skeptically before seeming to come to a conclusion. Kyle waited impatiently for his answer and was relieved when he nodded his head in agreement. Those cat-men around them stepped back to make room for the two.
"It will give me great pleasure to tear you limb from limb for what you've done to my daughter, cat-man. I won't be merciful in the end."
"I don't believe you were ever a man of mercy, Vegeta. Even to your own children."
"If that were so, your sister would be really dead by now and you'd be burring the pieces I left behind as scraps." Vegeta snarled. The two men circled one another as they watched for a chance to strike a fatality.
"Waaaaaiiiiiiiitttt!! Wait a minute! Stop!" Bra's wailing voice carried over the cries of the blood thursty on lookers. "Wait!"
The two competitors stopped to look at her running down the center of the crowd as they parted to make way for her. Bra's heart was thundering in her chest as she made her way closer to the two men so loved so dearly. It took all her strength to scream to them before they began their slaughter of one another. She'd climb down as soon as she'd seen Kyle reach for her father. She already knew his desire.
"Stay back, Bra!" her father ordered. Ignoring him, she continued forward. Two cat-men grabbed her to keep her out of the circle.
"Kyle! You promised!" her broken voice crumbled, and Kyle looked up at her. He didn't want to give in to her request she knew, but he'd better. She watched the indecisive emotions play across his handsome face before he took several steps back away from her father. Vegeta looked at him curiously as Bra made her way to his side.
Bra grabbed his face and brought it down to her own. She wasn't ashamed of her choice, and she wouldn't let her father think anything but the truth of the situation. "Come to me, sueke. Soon. I'll be waiting for you."
Bra let his face go and backed away toward her father. Kyle's eyes never left her own as she took several steps away. He took a step forward, but raised a hand ever so slightly to halt him from his task. Not paying attention, she tripped as Vegeta's steel grip on her arm slug her around to face him before he drug her out of the small village. Bra glanced back over her shoulder to Kyle, who was now being restrained. His eyes were full of misery that her heart echoed with it's every beat.
Vegeta drug her several meters before letting her go and storming to the front of the crowd. She walked several more feet then turned around only to run smack dab into the middle of Trunks wide chest. "Where do you think your going?"
"No where so it seems. I don't suppose you'd let me go and talk father into not coming back after me?" Bra knew it was a long shot, but she had to know. After all, her brother should be the most sympathetic to her wishes at the moment.
"Not on your life." he answered.
"It may very well be." she muttered under her breath as she turned back around to keep going in the wrong direction from home.
"So what's that?" Goten ask, coming up from behind them. Bra looked down at the dark green stone she'd been absently caressing.
"It's Kyle's stone charm. It's meant to protect whomever wears it. It has the symbol for his name on it, so that it shows ownership. Something like a wedding ring. All natives have stone charms." Bra informed them.
"Vegeta isn't going to like that." he said, stating the obvious. "So your really his mate then?" He ask coming up a little closer.
Against her will, a mischievous smile crept it's way across her sad face. "Can't you smell, Goten?"
"We can smell just fine." her brother grumbled next to her. Bra was completely unprepared for the attack Trunks launched at her.
"What are you doing?" she ask, trying to fight him off. "Don't touch that it's mine!!"
"Hold still, I just want to look at it." he ordered pulling out a long chain with a similar red stone on it. It was marvelous.
"Where did you get that? I've never seen it before." she said, quieting down a bit.
"Zantha gave it to me the day I pulled the arrow from her shoulder." He was quiet for a moment before he declared, "I'm going back!"
"Wait!" she called after him. "She's not there!"
"Maybe not, but I bet you my new brother-in-law knows where she's at."
"He doesn't know. RepSarah and Zantha thought it would be better if no one knew." she informed him.
"RepSarah?" Goten ask. "I better come with you Trunks." Goten sped off after him, leaving a confounded Bra behind them.