Back and forth it went, both males breathing hard from the exertion, both bleeding from where the other had managed to get the upper hand. Neither would ask for mercy, no matter how long or bloody their combat became.
Mercy was a concept foreign to them, the flip side of pity. Two things that had been beaten out of their lexicon from the time they were boys.
The only thing worse than mercy or pity was failure, and as Hunter took hold of his opponent's broken arm and drove the big male down to the ground with his knee planted in the middle of the assassin's spine, he saw the acknowledgment of imminent failure flicker like a dark flame in the Gen One's cold eyes.
He had lost this battle.
He knew it, just as Hunter knew it when a clear shot at the thick black collar around the assassin's neck presented itself to him in that next instant.
Hunter reached out with his free hand to grab one of the discarded pistols from its place on the pavement. He flipped it around in his hand, wielding the metal butt like a hammer, then brought it down on the collar that ringed the assassin's neck.
Again, and harder now, a blow that put a dent in the impenetrable material that housed a diabolical device. A device crafted by Dragos and his laboratory for a single purpose: to ensure the loyalty and obedience of the deadly army he'd bred to serve him. Hunter heard a small hum as the tampered casing triggered the coming detonation. Dragos's assassin reached up with his good hand - whether to ascertain the threat or to attempt to stop it, Hunter would never be sure.
He rolled away ... just as the ultraviolet rays were released from within the collar. There was a flash of searing light - there and gone in an instant - as the lethal beam severed the assassin's head in one clean motion.
As the street was plunged back into darkness, Hunter stared at the smoldering corpse of the male who had been like him in so many ways. A brother, though there was no kinship among any of the killers in Dragos's personal army.
He felt no remorse for the dead assassin before him, only a vague sense of satisfaction that there was one less to carry out Dragos's twisted schemes.
He would not rest until there were none.
Chapter Two
As founder and leader of the Order - hell, as a Gen One Breed male with some nine hundred years of life and then some under his belt - Lucan Thorne was not accustomed to taking an earful from anyone.
Yet he listened in smoldering silence as a high-ranking Enforcement Agent by the name of Mathias Rowan filled him in on what had gone down a couple of hours ago in one of the Agency's private hangouts in Chinatown. The very club where he'd sent two of the Order's warriors, Chase and Hunter, on patrol that night. He could hardly pretend surprise to hear that things had gotten out of hand, or that there had been a shit storm of violence and Chase had ended up in the middle of it.
Or rather, at the start, middle, and end of it, according to Rowan. Under normal circumstances, neither Lucan personally nor the Order as a whole would give a damn about ruffled feathers within the Agency. For as long as they'd existed, the Order and the Enforcement Agency had operated on their own terms, by their own brands of laws. Lucan had founded the Order based on justice and action; the Agency's credo had been mired in politics and empire building from the beginning.
That didn't mean there weren't good, trustworthy men among their ranks - Mathias Rowan being one of those notable exceptions. Sterling Chase had been another. It wasn't much more than a year ago that Chase had been part of the Enforcement Agency's elite, a well-bred, well-connected, well-mannered golden boy whose career trajectory might have known no bounds.
And now?
Lucan's mouth pressed flat in grim consideration as he paced alone in the living room of the private quarters that he and his Breedmate, Gabrielle, shared at the Order's underground headquarters. He couldn't discount that Chase had been a valuable asset to the Order since he'd traded in his starched white shirts and natty Agency suits for basic black combat fatigues and the give-no-quarter methods of a warrior. He'd come on board fully committed to the Order's goals and missions. He'd been a quick study on patrols and had covered more than one of the warriors'
asses in the heat of their battles.
But Lucan also couldn't deny that in recent months Chase was skating on damned thin ice. He'd been losing his edge at times, losing his focus. Lucan's anger spiked dangerously close to off the charts as he listened to Mathias Rowan's recap of the all-out brawl that took place downtown.
"I've got reports of three Agents beaten to within an inch of their lives and another one who looks like someone sent him through a shredder," Rowan said on the other end of the call.
"That doesn't count the walking wounded or the ones still unaccounted for either. To a man, they're all saying that your warriors came into the place looking for an excuse to start trouble. Chase in particular."
Lucan hissed a low curse. He'd had a bad feeling about putting Chase on the Chinatown patrol tonight. That was the reason he'd tasked Hunter to ride shotgun - the coolest head in the Order to accompany the loosest cannon. The fact that neither of them had called to report in for the last hour wasn't making him feel any better about that decision.
"Look," Rowan said, then exhaled a beleaguered sigh. "I consider Chase a friend, and have for a long time. He's the reason I agreed to assist when he first approached me about being the Order's eyes and ears within the Agency. As for what's going on with him personally, I can't say where the change is coming from, but for his own sake - perhaps for everyone's sake - he'd better start figuring it out. And far be it from me to tell you how to run things within your operation, Lucan - "
"Yes," he interrupted, clipped and to the point. "Far be it, Agent Rowan."