Marie Harte: Zack and Ace

Something had definitely gone wrong. Ace Two Bears and the other four members of Circe’s Recruits, the last surviving sane members of the now-defunct Project Dawn, searched in vain for the serial killer stalking the woods of Glens Falls, New York. What should have been a simple search-and-destroy mission had turned into a bloodbath. Now they had two more crazed Circs to take down. Their original target lay in a broken heap near the dozen campers the monsters had brutalized to death.

Ace sighed, a low rumble that sent the denizens of the forest scrambling for safety. The lack of moonlight didn’t bother him. The scent of blood all around did. When changed, Ace stood a head above his normal six-two. His tougher, darker skin blended in with the night and the woods in which he walked. He could see in the dark, and his hearing and olfactory senses remained in a heightened state during a hunt.

Opening his mouth, Ace sought the scent of his prey. Nothing but the coppery taste of blood registered. He snarled under his breath and pressed onward, following his intuition that told him one of the murderers had to have passed this way. The only escape avenues open to his quarry were to the south and the east. Roane, Derrick, and Hale had taken the south. Zack and he had the east.

He stopped and listened, catching the faint noise signaling Zack’s footsteps. Unbidden desire spiked at thoughts of his best friend and biggest rival. The unwelcome need frustrated him. Ace didn’t like lusting after Zack English. Before Project Dawn, he’d never considered sex with a man. Unfortunately, the science that had turned his squad from military servicemen into supersoldiers had side effects. And the mating heat was nothing to sneeze at.

Trying to forget about the last time he’d experienced that all-consuming lust, Ace hurried forward. He spied broken branches and large footprints in the damp soil to his right.

Gotcha.

Turning, he followed the trail and froze when the scent of his violent quarry returned.

He tilted his head, trying to catch a hint of sound in the still night. Nothing moved, but he could feel eyes on him. The prey had suddenly turned predator. And Ace had just become the prey.

Alert, Ace realized he’d been drawn into an ambush when two foreign, tainted scents tingled his senses. The rogue Circs had paired up. Shit. Against one he was fucked. Against two? The waiting dead.

He felt the attack before it landed. Aiming in that direction, Ace fired off half a dozen shots before his gun was yanked out of his hand by strong fingers with sharp nails. Claws raked his hardened skin, drawing blood. The force that landed on him knocked the breath out of him -- no small feat to take down a Circ. The dead weight crushing his chest told him he’d nailed the bastard. Thank God.

Ace struggled to shove the unmoving mass off him, aware he had another rogue to deal with. One minute the body crushing him was there; the next it was gone, lifted off him as if it weighed nothing. Before he could catch his breath, he suffered several slashes to his chest and abdomen. The remaining Circ was twice as strong as Ace, hopped up on drugs fed to him by Pearson Labs. Satan’s scientists at work. Ace grimaced as sharp claws gouged his shoulder.

Rolling to his feet, he managed to avoid a stomp to his face.

Glaring at the fucker facing him, Ace now knew what evil looked like. The demonic look of pleasure on the rogue’s face was one he wouldn’t forget anytime soon. Unlike himself, this hulking monstrosity topped eight feet. His shoulders were freakishly broad, and bits of his black skin had been flayed by something, giving the Circ an almost garish, undead appearance.

What the hell was he? Ace dodged another swing and countered by kicking his opponent in the chest hard enough that he snapped a rib bone. The rogue didn’t flinch.

Studying the male, Ace had no idea what to make of him.

Derrick, one of his team members, was African American. When changed, his skin took on a darker brown than his original shade. Ace had Native American ancestry, and when changed, looked more copper than brown. This creature… What the hell turned black? He looked burned, his face so distorted by stretched muscle and bone that he no longer resembled anything human. Those dead campers had never stood a chance.

“I’m going to suck the marrow from your bones while you watch,” the rogue rumbled in a deep bass. He grinned, showing wickedly sharp fangs, longer than any teeth Ace had ever seen on a Circ. “But not until I fuck you first. Been a long time since I’ve had a Circ when the mating heat hits. Normally, I rape whatever’s handy. But you know, it never quite satisfies.”

Oh, shit. Ace recognized the rogue’s sudden, overpowering pheromones. He felt a familiar tingle throughout his body, that fucking call to procreate the damned scientists at Pearson Labs had engendered. They’d burdened both the female and male Circs with the need so that when the mating heat struck, both genders went crazy. Because a Circ could only experience satisfaction with another of his kind, it wasn’t as if Ace could find fulfillment with a human female, not when changed. Someone like Kelly Malloy, say, would only suit him when he wasn’t in heat. He’d been stuck for the past two years fucking Zack and the rest of the team when the call to procreate hit them.

Ace hadn’t experienced this lust in a month, not since he’d helped their newest female Circ bond to the others. The unnatural lust that at times accompanied his current form drew him to Zack, of all people. His best friend. But if he wasn’t careful, he’d find himself under this piece of shit -- the freak/mutant stared at him as if he was his next meal.

“You killed innocent people. You’re a fucking monster.” Ace growled. “I’m here to end your life. Why don’t you do us both a favor and kill yourself, asshole?” Not known for his diplomacy, Ace let his foe have the unvarnished, ugly truth.

“Now why would I kill myself before I’ve given you what I’m here for?” The mutant’s purr grated against Ace’s nerves. The rogue licked his lips with a -- God help him -- a split tongue. Circs were far from normal, but this rogue was beyond even that. What the fuck was he?

“Look, you mutant. You’ve been abandoned by the labs. The PPA damned well led us to you. There’s nothing for you now.” The PPA, Project’s Protection Agency, was Pearson Labs’ version of security. Ace might have been moved to pity by his enemy’s circumstance had he not seen the victims this thing had left behind. Though this creature had once been human, he was now nothing more than a killing machine.

The bastard leaped forward. Ace broke the rogue’s clavicle, but still he kept coming. He took Ace to the ground and grabbed one of his hands, piercing the tender flesh between Ace’s thumb and forefinger with serrated teeth.

Ace jerked and swore. That fucking hurt like a bitch. He fought to break free with everything he had. Then he felt an alien tongue probing his wound, seriously freaking him the hell out. Two prongs of flesh sucked at his blood, and everything went black.

When Ace came to, he felt the male shoving against him with an urgency he didn’t understand. He hurt, his body was slick from the blood of his injuries, and the sting of his wounds intensified as the male on top of him slid over him again and again.

“Shit!” He heard Zack’s voice as if through a long tunnel, and the presence on top of him vanished. The scuffled sound of fighting preceded the muffled pop of a silencer firing several times. “Ace, man, you okay?”

“I…no. What…?”