Page 64 of Alien Assassin's Heir

CHAPTER 18

KRAJ

The exec dies without a sound.

His lips twitch once, a faint grimace, and then his body slumps back into the leather chair, eyes staring at nothing. The half-empty crystal glass still rests between his fingers, the deep red of the port wine gleaming under the dining room lights. My claws twitch as I reach forward and pluck it from his hand before it falls.

The scent of the wine lingers—sweet, spiced with cinnamon and clove, faint metallic notes clinging to the rim where the nanites swarmed in silence. No flash. No noise. Just death, quiet and efficient.

I set the glass down on the polished table, my reflection rippling across its surface. My heart doesn’t pound. My hands don’t shake. I am too practiced at this.

Too practiced, and too damned tired.

The servers won’t find him until morning, when the door fails to open at his voice. By then, the nanites will have eaten enough of his tissues to mimic an Alliance biotech signature. His own people will bury him with honors while cursing the Alliance for his death.

The perfect frame.

And I hate myself for how easily I made it happen.

By the timeI’m back in Wildwood, the taste of ash coats my tongue, though I haven’t smoked in weeks. The outpost is quiet, shadows long across the road as night bleeds into early morning. I can still feel the weight of the vial in my hand, the tiny writhing swarm I uncorked into his glass, the moment I chose once again to be what they made me.

Targen’s voice crackles in over the secure line in my ear, thick with smug triumph.

“We’ll push the Combine into choosing sides. This will turn the tide in the sector. You did good, Kraj.”

My jaw aches with the force of my silence.

Good.

If good means snuffing out a man’s life like he was never more than a pawn. If good means laying another lie across Luna’s shoulders. If good means burying myself deeper in the same filth I swore I’d leave behind.

I cut the transmission without a word. The comm clicks off, leaving me alone with the sound of my own breathing.

I walk.Past the shuttered cantina, past the darkened shops, past the checkpoint where two sleepy guards nod without bothering to question me. My boots crunch against gravel as I head toward the cliffs at the edge of Wildwood.

The wind bites sharp tonight, carrying the scent of iron from the canyon walls. I step to the edge and look down into the yawning dark. Shadows stretch for miles, broken by the faint glimmer of water catching moonlight far below.

I spread my hands, flexing my claws until they ache. My chest tightens, heavy as if Arkosh’s whole gravity has decided to press me into the earth.

I tell myself it was for Luna. For Solie. For the fragile life I want to build with them. That this one last kill was the price of freedom, the last stain before I can walk away.

But even as the thought forms, I feel the hollowness inside it.

I’m lying.

To her. To myself.

The truth is simpler. I killed him because Targen told me to. Because after all these years, I still dance on his strings. Because no matter how many promises I make, no matter how many nights I spend whispering in Luna’s hair, I haven’t changed.

The wind whips at my coat, stinging my eyes with grit. I stand there, staring into the abyss, wishing it would take me. Wishing I could fall far enough that everything—the Coalition, the war, the lies—would just scatter to dust.

But I can’t get it off my mind.

Luna’s smile when she thought I wasn’t looking. Solie’s laughter, bright as starlight, when she called me a superhero for the claws I’ve always hidden in shame.

And the weight on my chest shifts. It doesn’t lighten. But it sharpens into something else.

Resolve.