Page 18 of Protected By the Alien Knight

“Annie, I know you want to protect your children, but this is a trap. You must see that.”

“I don’t care. I will die before letting that sick bastard harm my kids.”

“Annie, I can protect you, but not if we descend into a trap led by Kavil’s Radicals! We can notify—”

“Crux, you swore to protect me no matter what. And I’m going to get my kids, so unless you seek to forsake your sacred vows, you must accompany me and keep me safe. And I know I’d feel a hell of a lot better with you at my side.”

A flicker of trepidation stirs within me. Her estate will be swarming with Radicals by now. But one look into those blazing blue eyes extinguishes any thought of refusal. She’s entrusting me with her deepest light in this darkest moment.

But the brutal truth slices through the moment. She’s right—no matter the odds, no matter the risks, I’ll follow her lead without question or faltering, just like she said. My role is not to advise or debate, but to safeguard her path at any cost, including forfeiting my very existence if needed.

How could I have ever fooled myself into believing otherwise? This is the path of the truest Avenian Knights, one of absolute loyalty and single-minded focus. Questioning only leads to hesitation, and hesitation robbed me of Ambassador Moskal’s life all those years ago on Vulpexa. I will not allow history to repeat itself, not while even a single spark of Annie’s radiant inner fire remains to shield.

“Your will is my oath,” I murmur, pulling her into a fierce embrace. “No matter the intervening fires, I will cut a path straight to your children’s sides. This I vow on every spark remaining in my soul, Annie.”

She nods against my chest, hands fisting in the fabric of my tunic. “Thank you, Crux, thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

Grimly, I break the embrace and set a course to punch straight through the Silent Nebula—the most direct route to Venturis.

Then I turn to Annie, allowing the cold clarity of the twilight rapture to settle over me like a mantle of gundrian metal.

“Strap in, Annie. We’ll arrive within six standard hours.” My jaw clenches as I rev the engines to maximum burn.

I glance over at her, seeing that familiar resolve hardening her features despite the circumstances. Her fingers fly over her datapad, no doubt making moves to assist her family.

“They’ve underestimated how far I’m willing to go for my children,” she murmurs, more to herself than me.

With a subtle nod, I engage the hyperdrive sequence. The stars blur into streaks of luminescence as we hit catastrophic velocities, the gunship’s frame groaning in protest.

Venturis looms ahead—currently a sanctuary for the Radicals, but soon to become their judgment’s altar. Ahead lies the crucible where this hateful crusade will face its ultimate reckoning.

Because nothing will keep Annie from her children’s sides ever again.Not even the universe itself.

seven

Annie

The rhythmic crunch ofCrux’s boots against Venturis’ loamy soil is the only sound except for my own ragged breaths as we make our approach. We stashed the gunship in a sheltered rocky outcrop and proceeded on foot to skirt the manor’s outer defenses.

Thick, cloying fog clings to the hills in ghostly tendrils, blurring shapes until they loom from the gloom with startling abruptness. I instinctively drop into a crouch as one such shadow resolves into the unmistakable outline of a guard tower several hundred meters ahead.

Crux’s massive hand engulfs my shoulder, halting me from advancing further. His piercing amber eyes blaze from a face slashed with harsh planes and angles, lips peeled back ever so slightly from clenched teeth. Without a word, he draws one lethally curved khari’ak dagger and presses it into my trembling grasp.

I open my mouth to protest the need for an offensive weapon, but he shakes his head fractionally. Steeling myself with a steady breath, I curl my fingers around the knife’s worn leather grip until my knuckles whiten. Its edge seems to glint with an inner light, eager to taste blood.

Crux nods once in silent approval before signaling an advance. We stick to the denser underbrush as closely as possible, the manor’s sturdy outer walls steadily forming from the shadows ahead.

Just as my legs burn from the crouched exertion, Crux throws out an arm to halt me once more. “Two scouts,” he hisses under his breath.

Sure enough, two lumbering Huxarian shapes are silhouetted against the parapets scarcely twenty meters distant. I open my mouth—to issue a warning, perhaps, I’m not even sure—but Crux is already moving with the coiled lethality of a venomous predator, each motion carrying an undercurrent of controlled deadliness.

One heartbeat, he’s a statue at my side. The next, he’s simply... not there. Just a flicker of shadow and displaced air as he explodes into blurred motion.

The first Huxarian scout doesn’t even sense the threat before Crux’s arm lances out, palm striking with the entire weight of his momentum behind it. There’s a crunch of shattered bone and cartilage, then the guard slumps bonelessly to the ground. His companion snaps his head around at the noise just as Crux’s vambraced forearm crashes across his throat. I barely glimpse Crux’s taloned gloves before he slashes through the Huxarian’s throat in a blossom of viscera.

In the ringing silence that follows, Crux rises from a crouch, his breast heaving with controlled violence while emerald blood drips from his taloned gloves. His stare bores into me from across the short distance, almost as though drinking in the shockand sick validation warring across my features. This is not the first time he has had to unleash such lethal brutality up close. That much is abundantly clear.

My stomach churns at the sight of all the death, but I force the queasiness down as Crux returns to my side. He shoots me a measured look before jerking his chin ahead, toward the yawning blackness of an entry passage beneath the curtain wall.

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