Page 19 of Protected By the Alien Knight

“We go now, while the path is clear,” he rumbles, voice low so as not to carry over the stonework. “Stay on my heel and be ready to kill when I say. No hesitation.”

Yet all I can do is stand in shock. The brutal scene, so strange, so unsettling, it steals my breath. I’m an ambassador used to cutthroat negations, but this brings that concept to a terrifying reality! “Crux... This is... a lot to take in,” I mutter.

His gaze bores into me with scorching intensity. “Understand, Annie. I do what must be done to save your children. Now is not the time for timid hearts and misplaced doubts but for bold justice and divine retribution.”

My chest is heaving with equal parts terror and adrenaline as I hold his searing stare. There’s no room for niceties or platitudes any longer. If Alice and Max are to be rescued, I may indeed have to cross lines I can never un-tread. All I can do is nod mutely, the weight of his words cementing in my bones.

Crux holds my stare for one more eternal heartbeat, then pivots to take point. With a dagger clutched in a white-knuckled grip, I force my rubbery knees to follow where his shadow falls, steeling myself for whatever new horrors lie waiting over this darkened threshold.

For my children’s lives, there is no brutality I won’t endure, no oath too sacred to shatter. The screams and chaos to come almost feel like the universe setting the balance back to rights.

We find the old service passage that leads directly inside my home. The passage winds deeper than I recall, and it’s asthough the shadows are pressing in from all sides with each tortuous twist. Every rattling breath feels deafeningly loud in the claustrophobic confines as we advance with excruciating slowness, my dagger clutched in a sweat-slicked grip.

Up ahead, the darkness finally gives way to a sickly reddish-purple glow spilling around a corner. Crux raises a clenched fist, signaling me to freeze as he peers around the edge with camouflage-mottled lenses forming a thin copper visor across his eyes.

His jaw clenches once, twice, sensing potential threats. Then he draws back and mouths two words that slosh like ice water through my veins: the kitchens.

Of course. The old servants’ preparation area in the manor’s belly, a relic from less egalitarian times. But the Radicals must have taken it over as a makeshift staging ground, the heavy stone walls and isolated location perfect for keeping Alice and Max contained.

I shudder, recalling Crux’s insistence during his brief security assessment tour before I departed for Orion that he meticulously study every nook and cranny of my ancestral home, no matter how seemingly benign or disused. At the time, I’d rolled my eyes at such paranoid fastidiousness. But thank the Maker I allowed Crux to indulge his protective instincts.

He motions me forward, placing one large hand on my lower back to guide me to the corner. Through the burning opening, I can just see the reinforced glass barrier of the old cold storage room, where a horrifying scene is unfolding.

Five armed Huxarian Radicals prowl the outer ring of the sprawling kitchen and dining area, their plasma rifles swinging in languid arcs as they scan the shadows with beady, reptilian eyes. Two more guards stand at rigid attention just inside the storage pen itself, bringing their tally up to the half-dozen or so Crux alluded to.

But they’re not alone. My breath catches in my throat at the scene taking place in the kitchen.

There, bound side by side on the cracked tile floor, are Alice and Max. Ropes bite cruelly into their wrists and ankles, their arms wrenched behind them at agonizing angles that must be causing excruciating pain. Yet through their ashen, sweat-streaked faces, they still radiate stubborn defiance, terrified gazes locked on the monstrous figure looming over them.

I recognize this as the Huxarian leader from the com call; presumably he is the bloodthirsty ringleader of these radical rogues. He towers above my children like a malevolent, scaly specter, his hulking frame at odds with the sleek and lethal plasma rifle clenched in one massive fist. He leans down, so close to their faces, as he sneers something too low for me to make out.

Then, with a lazy, contemptuous flick of his claws, he backhands Alice’s cheek with a sickening crack, an angry welt instantly blooming across her delicate features. She cries out, eyelids fluttering, but Max just grits his teeth and holds his twin sister’s stricken gaze with an intensity that would melt neutron stars.

White-hot anger blazes through me with such lancing intensity that I nearly give away our concealed position right then with an anguished cry. It’s only Crux’s restraining hand pressing into the material of my jacket that keeps me in check, even as that loathsome monster casually abuses my beloved children for petty amusement.

Crux leans in, his lips brushing the curve of my ear as his arm coils around my waist. “This is it, my starlight. Our final battle, together.”

His smoldering gaze bores into mine with scorching intensity. “If I don’t make it... know that you have been the light of my battered soul.”

Then his mouth is on mine in a searing, desperate kiss that steals the breath from my lungs. I clutch at him wildly, trying to imprint every caress, every swell of muscle and bone, into my memory. Because he’s right—this very well could be the end for us.

When he finally pulls back, I can’t speak past the tightness in my throat. So I simply nod, allowing the shining defiance in his tangerine eyes to bolster my own resolve.

With one last lingering caress of his calloused thumb over my cheekbone, Crux fades back into the shadows, sliding lithely into the kitchen’s inky recesses. In the gloom, I’m afforded one final glimpse of his powerful form igniting in azure plasma before the bluish lines of his plasma blade shroud him in eldritch light.

Everything seems to slow to a nightmarish crawl as the plan unfolds. Through the hyper-clarity of my adrenaline-flooded state, I watch Crux initiate a flurry of blinding holodrones, their feinting flashes pulling the Radicals’ attention in every direction at once.

When the first guard spins toward an illusory movement, Crux simply... materializes behind him like a vengeful spirit. His plasma blade shears through the Huxarian’s rifle in a blinding sweep, then reverses in a savage arc that cleaves through his scaly throat in a blossom of steaming emerald viscera.

The alien’s agonized scream barely has time to escape his lipless jaws before Crux whirls again, one booted heel crushing his ruined windpipe into splintered ruin. By the time the first body has finished crumpling, my knight is already shifting his plasma blade to sear a path of devastation across two more Radicals’ chests, emerald ichor vaporizing from the gruesome exit wounds.

A guard directly in my line of sight simply implodes in a fist-sized spray of pulped organs as Crux’s blade punches through his back like a meteoric spearpoint.

I have to force myself to tear my gaze away from the widening vortex of Crux’s brutally efficient onslaught, focusing instead on reaching Alice and Max undetected before the remaining Radicals can regroup.

The Huxarian Leader has his back turned toward the entry corridor where I’m concealed. All his focus is narrowed on bellowing orders toward his disintegrating perimeter guards. Alice and Max are bound tightly on the cracked tiled floor, eyes wide with fright yet locked on the exits, searching desperately for any chance of escape.

They haven’t spotted me yet, but that window is rapidly closing as Crux’s formidable distraction continues drawing the leader’s furious attention. I can’t hesitate a second longer.

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