She started to move when more blaster fire darted between her and Janae. Though it was friendly. Or protective.
Stron fired on them.
Both women dropped to the ground, and the Kantenan attackers leaped over them, engaging Stron. Stron's armor, wrapped around him like a latticework, seemed to almost undulate as he moved.
Adryel couldn’t take her eyes off him as he fought. His body moved with a lethal elegance that both terrified her and exhilarated her, knowing that he was fighting for them.
For her.
She couldn’t remember the last time someone risked so much for her.
One of the attackers flipped in the air, away from Stron, but almost landed on Janae. Adryel let out a scream, and Janae moved out of the way.
And the other one remembered that Adryel was there.
He charged her.
Adryel froze, staring at the large red alien with his horns.
How did she get out of?—
15
STRON
The attacker's hand closed in Adryel's hair, and Stron was already moving.
"Adryel, no!" Janae cried out and charged forward, and for one split second the blaster swung away from Adryel and toward Janae instead.
Stop. Every warrior instinct he had screamed at him to fire, but Janae was in the line — and then Adryel drove her fist into the attacker's leg, and the three of them went down together in a tangle of limbs.
He kept moving. Closing the distance.
Adryel rolled clear. Janae started to scramble away.
The attacker's hand shot out and caught her shoulder, and the blaster came up against her neck.
Janae screamed.
Everything narrowed.
He tracked the movement — Khalzin's weapon already spinning through the air, Adryel's hand closing around a decorative rock from the path, all of them converging on the same fraction of a second.
Stron fired.
The clatter of metal against metal rang out across the platform, and then the last of the attackers hit the ground and everything went still. Even the wind dropped. Even the animals fell silent.
Stron's eyes found Adryel.
She was standing. Hands shaking. Staring at the bodies on the ground with an expression he recognized — not fear, exactly. Something older than fear. Something that had been waiting for a moment like this to surface.
He didn't think. He just said her name.
"Little Dots."
Softly. Barely over the wind that was beginning to pick up again around them.
She turned.
