The Invasion
The first shot missed Kore's flesh. The blue-white plasma projectile slammed into the rock face directly above the entrance.
The force tore the stone apart. A crash drowned out the waterfall. The ground shook, hurling Jules into the air and slamming her back down into the furs. Dust, sharp stone fragments, and hot ash rained from the ceiling onto her bare shoulders.
The air burned. The chemical stench of vaporized stone and ionized plasma ate its way into the darkness of her niche. Jules pressed her palms over her ears and opened her mouth wide to equalize the pressure. Her heart hammered against her ribs in a racing staccato.
The echo crashed against the walls. Then a new sound cut through the night.
A deep, oscillating hum. Vrrrr-wumm. Vrrrr-wumm. The frequency was so low Jules felt it in her teeth. The mechanical vibration of a military energy hammer cycling up to charge.
Stay. Dark. The command burned in her mind. Her survival instinct clawed into the furs. The darkness was her shield. Back here, the drones' sensors wouldn't detect her.
But the throbbing in her lower belly, the stretched fullness of Kore's knot, pulled through her nerves like a steel cable, drawing her toward the outside. His saliva burned hot on the sealed wound on her arm. He had given up the ultimate weapon to make her his mate.
A second plasma shot tore through the night. Loud hissing, a dull impact. Someone screamed. The distorted death cry of a mercenary whose chest was being crushed.
Jules pushed herself off the furs. Pain shot like liquid fire through her thighs as she forced herself onto her knees. She ignored the burning, grabbed the torn shirt, and pulled it over her head. The wet fabric stuck to her skin, reeking of swamp and jackals, but it was something.
She crawled out of the nest. Bare knees scraped against rough stone. The darkness gave way to harsh strobe light. Searchlights from the Syndicate troops pierced the waterfall, throwing grotesque shadows on the walls.
Jules reached the edge of the main cave. She pressed herself behind a stalagmite. Cold rock against her shoulder. The surface of the thermal spring vibrated wildly.
Outside, beyond the water curtain, hell was forming. Harsh halogen beams cut through the churned spray. The jungle was a battlefield. Torn ferns, splintered trunks, churned mud.
The enemy stepped from the shadows. Heavy, metallic steps made the swamp tremble.
Raze. The Syndicate's warlord broke through the tree line.
He wore matte black titanium armor. The plates overlapped like an insect's carapace, servomotors humming quietly under the weight.
His face was half-hidden behind a tactical visor.
The bulging jaw and gray, scarred skin radiated cold brutality.
In his armored hand, he held the war hammer. The carbon shaft ended in a hammer head pulsing a toxic neon blue. The energy field burned the falling rain with a hiss.
On his belt, next to a row of plasma grenades, dangled a small, deformed piece of metal. Jules's breath caught. The backup tracker. Crushed, deformed, crusted with dried blood. Her blood. Raze wore the destroyed device like a trophy.
“Pathetic,” Raze's voice rumbled through the helmet, metallically amplified. He raised the hammer. The blue energy field reflected in the mud. “You've lost your mind to the jungle, deserter. A wild cur squatting in a cave, hoarding prey.”
The answer wasn't a word.
A roar tore the air to pieces. It was so deafening, so deep, that Jules cried out in pain and pressed her hands over her ears. The sound wave possessed physical mass. It pushed the falling water curtain outward for a fraction of a second.
Kore didn't simply step out of the cave.
He exploded from the water. He broke through the curtain.
The harsh light of the searchlights hit his dark skin.
He wore no protection. He needed no servomotors.
The muscles on his thighs and chest tensed like steel cables.
He landed on the clearing with such force that mud sprayed yards into the air.
He planted himself exactly between Raze and the cave entrance.
A barrier of flesh, bone, and pure destructive fury.
Kore's pitch-black mane was wet, stuck to his shoulders.
The claws were fully extended—ten black blades that absorbed the light.
The tail whipped hard through the air, struck a broken stump, and shattered the dead wood effortlessly.
His golden eyes glowed. No visor. No machine. Only the blazing fire of a predator who smelled the enemy at the threshold of his nest. He ground his jaw, white fangs flashing. The stench of Raze's armor collided with Kore's heavy musk. Two alpha warlords on a bloody clearing.
Jules crouched behind the stalagmite. Kore's back filled her field of vision. He stood alone. Behind Raze, heavily armed mercenaries in exoskeletons formed up. The muzzles of their plasma rifles glowed red. They were waiting for the order to turn Kore into a sieve of molten flesh.
He was one man. An army stood before him.
Stay. Dark. The command echoed through her mind again.
Jules clenched her hands into fists. Her fingernails dug deep into her palms. “Fuck the dark,” she hissed through her teeth.
The flight instinct evaporated. Years of conditioning shattered against the silhouette before her. She was the reason Raze stood here. She was the target.