To Protect a Warrior

To Trust a Warrior

By Immortal Angel

Chapter One

Hannah beat her fist against the door one more time. “Let me out! I demand to speak to my father! You can’t imprison me this way!” She’d been in this holding cell for nearly an hour.
At least they’ve left me alone. What are they doing to Liam?

Finally, she heard a key in the lock. Dean Sufters opened the door and calmly walked in, her high heels clicking on the tile.

“He didn’t do it.” Hannah forced herself to keep her voice level. Even though she wanted nothing more than to scream in Dean Sufters’s face.

The older woman stared at her with concern she knew was feigned. And gestured for her to sit at the tiny interrogation table.Hannah took a seat, and Dean Sufters sat across from her, folding her hands on the table gracefully.

“Miss Stowe. There’s no need to worry about any of this. The Keltair is being questioned, that’s all.”

Hannah moved her chair back. The dean flinched at the horrible squealing sound as the metal chair scraped the white tile. Hannah stood and placed her hands on the table in front of her, leaning in. “He’s the reason I’m alive right now, so if I don’t get some answers, I’ll be calling my father. Fleet Admiral Stowe, remember? And I guarantee you don’t want me to do that.”

For the first time in this thirty-minute discussion, Dean Sufters looked nervous. She smoothed the sides of her short, perfectly sculpted hair in ananxious gesture. “Please, sit down. The whole academy is still in lockdown. Even if I wasn’t suspicious of the Keltair, he’d need to stay exactly where he is until it’s deemed safe.”

Her answer just wasn’t good enough.

“I want to remind you,” Hannah’s lip curled as she spoke. “The Keltairs aren’t our enemies anymore. And Liam’s presence here only helps to strengthen our alliance.So if—“

The dean stood up to match my height. “Little girl—” she started, her tone condescending.

Like hell Hannah was going to let her finish. “You’ve got two minutes to free Liam, then I contact my father.”

Her mouth snapped shut, even as she raised her chin.

They glared at each other for a long minute.

The dean’s assistant, Stevril, opened the door to our tiny questioning room and closed it behind him before speaking. “The Keltair ship has left the atmosphere and is being pursued in space. The whole of the Turonga’s fleet has taken to the skies, but there are no signs of other enemy ships. The emperor has degraded the threat levelfrom a code red to a code orange.”

And that’s when it hitHannah. Both the dean and the people of this planet thought they were facing an all-out war with the Keltairs again. Their extreme reaction suddenly made sense to her. If the warlike aliens had decided to break the treaty, and Turonga was simply the first planet in their path of destruction, the loss of life here would likely be immense. Earth had allowed their most prestigious Starflight Academy to be built here because it was considered so safe at the moment, but no one could guarantee they’dbe safe indefinitely from the wrath of such violent people.

“How much of the school was destroyed?” Hannah asked.

Stevril wrinkled his piglike nose, turning his gaze from Hannah back to the dean. “Shall I take the school out of lockdown?”

“Yes,” she answered, and then after a moment of hesitation, “What did they destroy?”

He looked at Hannah again with his arrogant stare, his dusty orange skin darkening with his changing mood.

Stupid Purtos. The creatures were organized and fiercely loyal, which is why they often assisted powerful people, but their lack of flexibility was a downfall. Hadn’t he picked up on the dean’s reaction to the young cadet? Did he have any idea that Hannah’s father could destroy his career and his life with one interplanetary call?

“This is
Fleet Admiral Stowe’s
daughter,” the dean explained slowly. “You may speak openly in front of her…because I’m sure she’ll know everything we do by the end of this.”

Hannah was far too satisfied by the raw panic that came over his wide face.

“Nothing was destroyed. I mean, the roof took a lot of damage, but they didn’t fire at anything else.”

The dean frowned, and Hannah’s own mind started to turn over what that might mean. “Then what was the point of all that? Was someone just trying to cause problems between our races again?”

Dean Sufters shook her head. “No. I don’t think so. They could’ve attacked the outside of the academy and risked much less.”

Hannah sat back down, rubbing her chin.
They just attacked the roof?How pointless…

“How many people knew you were on the roof tonight?” the dean asked, and their gazes met.

Hannah didn’t want to tell her that only Liam knew. The dean hardly needed more fuel to add to the fire of her racism. Especially when Hannah knew in her heart the sexy alien had nothing to do with any of this. He’d been on the roof, too. And he didn’t even know her real name.

“There’s security monitoring on nearly every inch of this place.” Hannah raised her brow. “Any person on your staff would’ve seen us going to the roof. And, if you weren’t careful with my identity, one of your untrustworthy staff members could’ve passed off the information.”

Her blue eyes widened, and Stevril’s orange face went a shade paler.

“We kept your real name off every document and file,” she asserted.

Hannah crossedher arms in front of her chest. “My father will want to investigate, just to be sure. I hope you understand. If this academy can’t keep such a small thing private, he’ll have to ask himself if he and the president might need to make some changes.”

She and Stevrilexchanged a panicked glance. The deep lines in her face looked even deeper as she leaned forward. “There’s no need for that. I will personally conduct a full investigation into this. You and your father don’t need to worry yourselves about it.”

Hannah stood again, looking down at them. “Perhaps. But first, take me to Liam Fallow. After such a traumatic event, and your failure to keep me safe here, I’ll need someone I trust to seek emotional comfort from.”

The dean hesitated.

“Or perhaps I’ll just seek that reassurance from my father. Although…the last time I was in danger from negligence, he fired an entire ship’s crew.”

Dean Sufters was on her feet in an instant. “I’ll take you there. Stevril, end the lockdown. Make an announcement that the threat is gone, but that all students should remain in their rooms until further notification.”

He gaveHannah one last frightened look, then headed out of the room.

The dean visibly swallowed, and Hannah saw the frustration burning not so subtly in her eyes.
It must cut through her like a Keltair blade to have some wealthy, powerful brat ordering her about like a servant.
Usually she was above using her father’s name to get what she wanted, but since witnessing their treatment of him on the roof, she was afraid of what they were doing to Liam. Being a student of an ambassador should’ve offered him protection from being tortured. But the prejudice against his race still ran deep among most humans.

“We’ll go,” the older woman said, very slowly, “but keep in mind that we only did what we had to do in order to protect the students of this academy.”

The air rushed out of Hannah’s lungs, and she grabbed the back of the chair. A Turongan constrictor snake seemed to squeeze her stomach. “What did you do to him?”

Chapter Two

Liam coughed, spitting blood onto the stark white floor tiles next to his face. He strained against the bindings that held his arms twisted behind him and the ones lashed around his legs. The metal cut further into his flesh before he gave up, dropping his cheek onto the floor.

Starflight Academy head of security, Rick, crouched down beside him, his mouth drawn into a stiff line. “I’m going to ask you one more time, Keltair, and then I’m going to stop playing nice.”

The man probably expected that eventually there would be a level of pain Liam would reach where he’d start babbling every secret in his heart. It was the height of ignorance. Liam wasn’t just a half human half Keltair with abnormally large strength and size.He was a man who had endured levels of pain unimaginable to even his own species.

This man couldn’t break him. No matter how hard he tried.“Tsk, tsk, tsk.” Rick lowered his mirrored glasses revealing the silver in his eyes.

Liam’s insides twisted. No wonder this man was so fast and so strong. The silver in his eyes revealed the nanobots running through his system, replacing muscles, bones, and whatever else they could, with metal. Rick wouldn’t break him. But from the sadistic gleam in the other man’s eyes, he would enjoy using every nanobot in his body to try.

“No more Mr. Gentle then.” Rick cracked his knuckles. “You Keltairs don’t want that, anyway.”

Liam began to worry that Rick actually meant to kill him.
And humans say Keltairs are brutal. I’m just a student.
He glanced toward the door.

Rick turned and followed his gaze. “No one’s coming to help you, traitor.” A second later, he struck out with his foot

The blow smashed into his face with the speed and power of a bullet. Liam’s head snapped back and his eyes saw stars.

Hot blood ran from the new wound on his cheek. He rolled to face the ceiling, gasping.

It’s just pain. Pain means nothing.

It’d already been an hour of this. He wondered how long it would be until the man tired. Until he realized that Liam knew nothing about the Keltair ship.

Even though he’d only asked him a handful of questions…

What if the goal wasn’t ever to get information from me?

The thought chilled him.
Who would question it if they killed the one “responsible” for the attack? His father?
There wouldn’t be anyone left willing to tell the truth.

Except maybe Hannah.

Hannah. The beautiful dark-haired beauty that haunted his mind and his dreams. Were they hurting her the same way they were hurting him?

He shivered. Finally the chill of the tile slid under his skin and into his blood.

Yes, they’d untied Hannah’s bindings and led her off like some kind of princess, but that didn’t mean they’d continue being so gentle with her when they realized she didn’t have any useful information.
Or that she was up there having a picnic with me.

Rick stood and drew back his leg.

Liam rolled, springing to his feet.

Rick laughed. “Going to make this interesting, huh? I knew you were only hiding that savage heart.”

The two men squared off. The head of security matched him in size, but Liam wondered if the nanobots had also given the older man actual skills in fighting along with strength and speed.

“Do we really need to do this?” Liam asked. “By now you have to know I wasn’t involved in any of this.”

“Oh, I never really cared whether you were in on it or not.” He gave a chilling smile as he reached into the pocket of his uniform. “I just think that the only good Keltair is a dead one.”

An electric shock device.
Liam growled and charged him, but it was too late.

Too fast for his eyes to follow, the man shot him.

Needles from metal grippers burrowed into the flesh of his chest and stomach in a dozen places, making it impossible to remove them. The pain was excruciating. Liam looked at himself in the mirrored glasses of his opponent. The reflection was that of a blood-splattered man with eyes widened with terror. Liam crumpled to his knees.

“Enjoy,” Rick muttered.

He turned a dial on the black device in his hands. Electricity raced through the cords in his chest.

Liam flew back, hitting the ground. It was like being struck by lightning. He smelled smoke. Tasted smoke. The world was a bright flash of light. His body twitched and shook uncontrollably. And it didn’t stop.

After everything I’ve been through, is this really how I’m going to die?

“What the hell is going on?”

Hannah’s frantic voice came to him as if from far away.

“Give me that, you son of a Turongan swine!”

The electricity stopped.

“Get out! You’ll be lucky to be alive when my father finishes with you!”

A gentle hand cradled his cheek, even as he twitched and shook with residual contortions. “Shh. Liam, I’ve got you now.”