“Fucking savages.” The sound of Atticus from behind didn’t startle Titus. He’d expected him to follow. As much as he could be a bastard, the truth was, Atticus had a possessive streak. No doubt, the comment about these men violating what he considered to be his gnawed at him.
“I’ll take the north end of the camp,” Titus said. “You take the south. We’ll meet in the middle.”
“I guarantee, by the end of this, I’ll have killed more than you, Brother.” Atticus pulled a grisly-looking blade from a side holster, another from his boot, and tucked a third up into a holster at his wrist. In the absence of guns, he’d make a formidable opponent to these men, wiping them out in seconds. Unfortunately, he’d need Titus to level the odds where automatic weapons were concerned. While they kept a few guns hidden back at the camp, they found them to be cumbersome during evening treks. Marauders and Legion were the only ones who typically carried an arsenal. Most wanderers and rogues could be subdued with a blade.
It’d been months since either of them’d had to kill anything that wasn’t food.
With the same sly stealth that he employed to hunt down rabbits and quick prey, Titus stalked toward a man who stood facing away on the perimeter of the melee. The gun strapped across him did him no good, as Titus slid a hand across his victim’s mouth, and with three perfectly executed stabs, the man gave out a mumbled grunt that vibrated against his palm, seconds before he went limp in his arms. Titus slipped the gun from over the dead man’s head and strapped it to himself before creeping up to his next target.
In the same manner as before, he carried out a quiet execution, dragging each man to the shadows of the surrounding tents to avoid being seen. Opposite, Atticus would be making his way toward the center in the same manner, laying waste to every marauder in his path, without so much as a peep. Since they were boys, they’d been trained to raid hives on behalf of Legion in the same lethal stealth. And though marauders posed a bigger threat than the more peaceful and family-oriented hives, the two of them had managed to take out most of the invaders in a matter of minutes.
As his sixth victim fell to the ground, Titus gathered his weapons and caught a glimpse of Atticus across the camp, hidden behind a stack of firewood he had helped stockpile. A stash of pilfered guns lay hidden behind one of the tents, which Titus would collect before they headed back to their own camp, and the only men that remained were those guarding the older women, children, and badly wounded men of the hive, who wavered on their knees with hands tied behind their backs. Given the absence of the younger women, he suspected a few more marauders had stowed away in the tents, making use of the females.
Grunts and muffled screams bled through the one of the tent’s canvas barriers, as Titus stalked the perimeter, careful not to cast a shadow with the flame of the bonfire at the center of the camp. He could see the movement through the fabric, where the couple inside rolled too close to the edge in their haste and struggle, but the thick canvas prevented him from discerning which of the wriggling forms was the marauder, or the female .
“I’m going to take you with me, girl. Back to my camp. I’ll tie you to a tree, and fuck you until your belly is so full of my cum, you’ll be pissing it for weeks.” The chasing whimpers told Titus he’d already begun the task. As disgusting as it was, the act would keep the raping bastard occupied enough for Titus to sneak inside.
Crouched low, the Alpha peered around the front, where the only eyes on him belonged to the father of the three daughters that Atticus had slept with. Mouth gagged, face covered in blood, his eyes seemed to soften with relief, as he gave a subtle nod, and without any prompting, the older man kicked out a leg, slamming it into the guard beside him.
A scuffle between the man and two marauders ensued, and Titus stole the opportunity to sneak inside the tent. As quiet as the predatory cats he’d often encountered in the mountains, he moved across the small space, lit only by the light from the bonfire outside, and found a man moving against a woman’s back, her face buried in the dirt beneath her. With his head kicked back, eyes closed, he didn’t immediately notice the danger closing in on him, and Titus knew when he had by his lids shooting open. A brief yelp escaped him, before Titus silenced him with a blade across his throat. Blood leaked on the woman below, and when Titus shoved the spasming body off, he was greeted by the tearful face of Senna.
“Titus?” Her lip trembled, and before he could stop her, she threw herself at his chest, burying a sob in his shirt. Body quaking, she felt like a child against him, brittle and scared, and he wrapped his arms around her, in spite of himself.
It’d been a long time since Titus had felt compelled to protect something.
“I have to finish this,” he whispered, lowering his hands to break the embrace. “Wait here.” From a nearby cot, he snatched a blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders, then he spun around for the entrance to the tent. Peering through its cracked opening, he observed a stillness that sent a blaring warning through his muscles. Across the bonfire, Senna’s father lay bleeding out of his battered skull. The marauders who guarded him also lay in a heap, with the signature mauled throats of Atticus’s roughly serrated blade. The women had vanished. No one stirred through the camp. He searched for Atticus, finding no sign of him.
As if everyone had abandoned the hive. Hopefully, led off by Atticus.
Blade leading the way, Titus widened the opening, and scanned left to right, to ensure no surprise attack. Every cell of his body was primed, electrified with the impulse to attack.
“Wait.” Senna spoke just above a whisper. “Take me with you.”
Shaking his head, Titus signaled for her to stay put and stepped out of the tent. Nothing moved, save for the flickering bonfire and the still-burning tent at the other end of the camp.
Instinct told him to take cover, but the quiet hum through the air beat him to it, slamming into his chest. A bullet, but not like any normal ammunition. He pried it out of him, holding it up to examine the foreign object armed with a needle at its tip, durable enough to penetrate his skin.
The chasing sensation of dizziness told him it carried a potent poison, stronger than that which lined the tips of the prods Legion soldiers had often used to subdue him during his time in Calico. The toxin moved through him quicker than any other, with the kind of noxious intensity that had him wondering if it might be powerful enough to kill him.
As he backed himself to the side of the tent, another thumped into his leg. Another in his bicep. On a grunt, he tumbled to the ground as the poison took hold, the capsules bursting inside his veins, releasing a toxicity that squeezed like a tight fist around his lungs.
He couldn’t breathe.
He couldn’t move.
Another bullet hit his chest, his muscles hardly flinching with the impact. His breaths turned laborious, his heart rate slowing. Slowing.
Two dozen Legion soldiers edged toward him, every one of them armed.
Titus was powerless to stop them. Leaning to the side, he heaved up his last meal as the venom in his blood became too concentrated. Too many bullets.
The line of soldiers parted, and another of them stepped forward and removed the canister mask hiding his face. His signature black uniform carried decorations of a more seasoned Legion officer, but he wasn’t the highest ranked, given his insignia only bore three out of four stars.