The Alphas
The jungle burned. Blue-white plasma fire devoured the wet canopy, vaporized the air, and turned fleshy ferns to ash. Jules burst through the cave’s waterfall. Ice-cold spray slammed into her face, washing away sweat and grime for a split second before the battlefield’s toxic heat hit her.
Her bare feet sank into blood-soaked mud.
She clawed at her torn shirt. The clearing no longer existed.
The ground was a gaping crater, littered with shattered exoskeletons, burning drone wreckage, and shredded bodies.
Harsh halogen light from downed searchlights flickered through clouds of smoke, casting grotesque shadows across the inferno.
At the center of the chaos, two Alpha Warlords collided.
Raze was a walking tank. The matte-black titanium alloy was scratched, a hole gaping in his left shoulder, hydraulic fluid spraying out. But the Syndicate Warlord wasn’t thinking about retreat. He swung the war hammer. The neon-blue energy field hummed at a frequency Jules felt in her teeth.
Kore wore no armor. Dark skin stretched over muscles that stood out like steel cables under the strain. His black mane was matted with swamp muck and blood.
Raze rammed his boot into the mud and swung the hammer in a flat, murderous arc toward Kore’s ribs.
Kore didn’t block. He dodged at the last possible instant.
His scaled tail whipped against the ground, launching his body upward like a coiled spring.
The hammer slammed into the mud and discharged its plasma energy.
The shockwave knocked Jules off her feet.
She hit the ground hard on her back, the pressure wave driving the air from her lungs. Swamp muck rained down.
Kore was already counterattacking. Still airborne, his hands shot forward. Ten curved claws dug into Raze’s chest plate. Tearing metal shrieked through the night. Sparks flew. Kore used his momentum, shoving Raze backward and ripping his claws downward in one savage motion.
The titanium alloy burst. The claws punched through the armor and sliced into gray, scarred flesh. Raze roared—not in pain, but pure rage. Black, scalding blood sprayed from the wound, hissing against the hammer’s carbon surface and vaporizing with a biting iron stench.
The Warlord jerked his armored forearm up and rammed it into Kore’s jaw. Bone cracked. Kore’s head snapped to the side, blood spraying from his mouth, but he didn’t let go. He bared his fangs, wrenched his jaw back into place with a grinding pop, and spat the blood directly onto Raze’s visor.
Jules braced herself on her forearms. Breathing came hard. The scent of Kore’s arousal still clung to her thighs, mixing with the stench of destruction and rage. Both men were locked together, driven by naked, murderous hatred that made the air boil.
Raze growled, activated the servomotors in his leg armor, and drove Kore back with mechanically enhanced force. “You die in the dirt, beast!” he roared.
He lifted the war hammer with both hands. The neon-blue energy field howled. The charge cycle shot into the red. Raze wound up for a vertical strike.
Kore didn’t dodge. He tensed his thighs, dug his boots into the mud, and lowered his center of gravity. His jaw dropped open, focused on the only unprotected spot on Raze’s body: the gray carotid artery.
The hammer fell. Kore pushed off.
A loud crash in the undergrowth cut through the deadly silence. Soot-blackened ferns at the clearing’s edge tore apart.
Jinx broke from the jungle. Her combat gear hung in tatters, melted remnants of Syndicate shackles dangling from her wrists.
She’d fought through Raze’s own lines. Her face was caked with mud and ash, a gash bleeding at her temple, but her eyes were ice-cold.
Completely focused on the Syndicate Warlord who had held her captive—and whom she now forced to obey.
She held a plasma revolver in a two-handed grip, muzzle trained on the colliding Warlords. Jinx opened her mouth. A sharp command cut across the clearing.
“Raze, HALT!”
The word struck like a physical barrier. His name. Spoken by her.
The voice hit Raze’s nervous system like a short circuit. The Warlord hesitated for a split second. The hammer’s momentum faltered. Raze’s gaze flickered from Kore’s throat to the woman at the clearing’s edge.
Kore thrust into the gap, ramming his body under the falling hammer. His left hand struck Raze’s forearm and deflected the weapon’s shaft. The blue energy field crashed into Kore’s own shoulder. Flesh burned, dark blood vaporized instantly, but Kore didn’t flinch.
He used the forward momentum. His right hand shot for Raze’s throat. The pitch-black claws dug into the gap between chest armor and jaw. With crushing force, Kore drove the Warlord down.
Raze lost his balance. His boots slipped in the mud. Kore threw his entire weight onto him, wrenching him backward and slamming the enemy into the swamp floor with a deafening crash. The war hammer slipped from Raze’s fingers. Kore’s thick claws closed relentlessly around the gray throat.
Jules snapped out of her paralysis. Adrenaline burned in her veins. She pushed herself up from the mud and rushed forward, straight into the epicenter of the fight.
Kore’s claws dug deeper into the tough, gray flesh.
The razor-sharp tips pierced the skin. Dark blood seeped from Raze’s throat and dripped onto the damaged chest plate.
The Syndicate Warlord arched upward. The servomotors of his exoskeleton howled at a shrill, overloaded pitch, but Kore’s raw mass held him pinned.
Kore wrenched his jaw open. White fangs flashed in the flickering searchlight. He plunged down, going for the killing bite on the throat.