trained in the same methods. They were both hard to kill, and prepared to take the fight to their final breath.
In a blur of motion and lethal intent, the pair of them ditched their empty firearms and took their battle hand to hand.
Hunter deflected the rapid-fire upper-torso blows that the assassin led with as he roared up on him. There was a kick that might have connected with his jaw if not for a sharp tilt of his head, then another strike aimed at his groin, but diverted when Hunter grabbed the assassin's boot and twisted him into a midair spin.
The assassin regained his footing with little trouble, coming right back for more. He threw a punch and Hunter grabbed his fist, crushing bones as he tightened his grip then came around to use his body as a lever while he wrenched the outstretched arm backward at the elbow. The joint broke with a sharp crack, yet the assassin merely grunted, the only indication he gave of the certain pain he was feeling. The damaged arm hung useless at his side as he pivoted to throw another punch at Hunter's face. The blow connected, tearing the skin just above his right eye and hitting so hard, Hunter's vision filled with stars. He shook off the momentary daze, just in time to intercept a second assault - fist and foot coming at him in the same instant.
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