Page 4 of Guardian's Destiny

A few weeks later, I met him again, right where he had requested us to be: at theWings and Tits. The place was just as crude as its name promised it to be. It was like every other downtrodden strip club on Earth I had ever been to, except the women were all winged, and the clientele was even sleezier than on Earth, given their… alien nature.

"Not a word about this to the Empress," Emperor Daryus warned me.

"My lips are sealed," I promised.

"That Arkhevari better have some intel," he ground out, and I was beginning to see some of his famous temper bleeding through. He hadn't been happy when I told him that I was certain that Zapharos was in all likelihood indeed an Arkhevari, and where we were supposed to meet.

It was a good place, though. Nobody even looked at us when we entered with our hoods drawn over our faces, followed by several Imperial soldiers, also with their hoods drawn. The proprietor waved us forward the moment we entered and led us toward a private room.

"Just a moment, let me check the room first," I said, leaving his title out, not wanting anybody to overhear us.

Inside I found Zapharos leaned forward on a chair, staring at a winged female gyrating up and down a pole. The way he hungrily stared at her reminded me more of the lust of a demon than the angel he looked like.

"You're late," he remarked without looking up.

"Well, we didn't exactly set a time," I replied, assessing the room. One-way windows allowed a view of the main room on the other side, without them being able to look in. There were no other doors, and the ceiling was dirty enough to prove that nobody had tampered with it.

"She's got to go." I nodded at the dancer.

"Sorry, sweets." Zapharos rose from his chair. Anger rushed through me because I thought he meant me. Instead, he held out his hand like the gentleman he most definitely was not and helped the dancer down. "You are a goddess," Zapharos remarked, petting her ass and riling my ire.

"Send him in, little errand girl," Zapharos demanded haughtily.

A sharp reply danced at the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed it down. Without a word, I retreated like the stripper, and Daryus went inside.

I hadn't expected this would be the last time I got to see the Arkhevari, but I had hoped for a much longer break before hearing his name again.

VRAAX

My target washard to miss. The bastard's aura was so dark that it nearly swallowed him whole. He sat facing the entrance to keep an eye on people coming in. The moment he saw me, he grabbed a hostage who had the misfortune of crossing his path right then. The young Hettita didn’t seem old enough to be in here, but she was, and now a blaster was pointed straight at her head.

She screamed.

Others scattered to the side, away from the spectacle unfolding in the bar.

"Drop your guns, or I'll kill her," Mwat, a Pronex and my target, threatened.

I glared at him coldly. "The only choice you have here is to die with her or without her. The moment you kill her, you will be dead."

It didn't take a genius to figure out his predicament or his next move. I dove to the side, upending a table as cover, right before he pointed the blaster at me and fired. I aimed low for his foot. Worst case scenario would be the Hettita would lose a toe or two, still preferable to losing her life.

With a howling curse, Mwat changed his weight to his one remaining foot, while the little Hettita proved herself to be braver than I thought. She made herself fall. Mwat didn't have the strength to keep her up while balancing on one leg. I saw him aiming the blaster at her and fired mine the moment her head passed his chest.

He crashed to the ground, and his full, dead weight landed on her. Pressing her down so hard that she didn't even have the breath to scream. In four long strides, I was at their side, pulling Mwat up by his horns as she clambered out from underneath him.

She shot a quick glare at me before she ran off into the arms of a group of Hettita who had stayed behind. It wasn't that I expected athank you, but why did she have to glare at me?

The bartender rose from behind the bar. With shaking hands, he pulled out a glass and filled it with liquid before handing it to me.

"Thanks." I swallowed the contents whole as they burned a path down my throat. I held the empty glass out for him, and he refilled it.

"What is going on here?" GTU soldiers arrived. Late, as usual.

"This man, Mwat, took a Hettita hostage, and I was forced to terminate him," I explained. They would see all that on the security cameras. There was no reason for me to explain that King Zyranus had hired the Ohrurs to find and terminate Mwat for kidnapping his sister. The bastard had managed to evade the GTU forces for years. That was only one of his many crimes.

"Why were you here, Space Guardian?" the GTU commander asked me.

I shrugged, "To get a drink, like everyone else here." To make my point, I emptied the second glass the bartender filled for me.I didn't owe these males any explanation, and they knew it. The termination was righteous, and they had no grounds to hold me.

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