Protected by the Alien Knight: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance by Lara Roth

Author:Lara Roth [Roth, Lara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2024-06-14T00:00:00+00:00

seven

Annie

The rhythmic crunch of Crux’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 shock and 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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