Claimed By The Touch-Starved Alpha Beasts

Cassandra's lungs burned.

The air she inhaled didn't taste like oxygen. It tasted like rotting sugar and heavy ozone. She pushed herself up from the ground, her palms scraping against something rough and damp.

She opened her eyes. The world was wrong.

Giant, fleshy ferns towered over her, their veins pulsing with a sickly bioluminescent purple light. Mushrooms the size of cars sprouted from the dark soil, emitting a faint, humming sound.

Cassandra looked down at her hands. They were covered in thick, black mud. Her favorite pair of blue jeans was torn at the knees, and her plain white T-shirt clung to her skin, soaked in cold sweat.

She tried to stand, but her knees buckled. Her stomach lurched, sending a wave of nausea up her throat. She swallowed hard, tasting bile.

Where am I?

Before her brain could process the impossibility of her surroundings, the ground vibrated. It wasn't a subtle tremor. It was a violent, rhythmic thud that rattled her teeth in her skull.

A roar ripped through the dense foliage. The sound was entirely alien-a guttural, metallic screech that made the tiny hairs on Cassandra's arms stand up.

Adrenaline dumped into her bloodstream. Her heart slammed against her ribs, a frantic, painful rhythm. Survival instinct hijacked her frozen limbs.

She scrambled to her feet and ran.

She didn't look back. She just sprinted toward a patch of dimmer light, her sneakers slipping on the slick, mossy ground. Branches whipped against her face, leaving stinging red welts, but she didn't slow down.

Behind her, the underbrush exploded.

Cassandra risked a glance over her shoulder. Her breath caught in her throat, choking her.

It was massive. It looked like a rhinoceros stripped of its skin, covered instead in thick, overlapping plates of dark gray armor. Three glowing yellow eyes sat asymmetrically on its blunt face. Thick, corrosive saliva dripped from its jaws, hissing as it hit the ground and burned small craters into the dirt.

The beast locked its three eyes on her. It let out another deafening screech and charged.

Cassandra pushed her legs harder, her chest heaving. Her vision narrowed to the path ahead. Keep running. Just keep running.

Her foot caught on a thick, glowing root hidden beneath the mud.

She pitched forward, her hands flying out to brace her fall. She hit the ground hard, tumbling down a steep incline. Sharp rocks and thorns tore at her clothes and skin. She slammed back-first into the trunk of a massive tree.

The impact knocked the wind out of her. She gasped, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, but no air filled her lungs.

She looked up.

The beast stood at the top of the incline. It dug its massive, clawed feet into the dirt, preparing to leap.

Cassandra pressed her back against the rough bark. Her fingers scrambled blindly in the dirt beside her. Her right hand closed around a thick, broken branch. Its end was splintered and jagged.

She gripped it so tightly her knuckles turned stark white. She dug her fingernails into her palm until the skin broke.

The beast lunged. Its massive jaws opened, revealing rows of serrated teeth.

Cassandra squeezed her eyes shut. She raised the broken branch in front of her face, locking her elbows. She braced for the agony of teeth tearing into her flesh.

A blinding flash of blue light pierced her closed eyelids.

The beast shrieked-a sound of pure, agonizing pain. The ground shook as something heavy slammed into the dirt just a few feet away.

Cassandra opened her eyes.

The beast was thrashing on the ground, a smoking, charred hole in its armored back.

Above it, suspended in the air, were men.

They wore sleek, black tactical suits that absorbed the ambient light. From their backs extended massive, metallic wings that gleamed like polished gold. They hovered with impossible grace, holding long, metallic rifles that hummed with blue energy.

One of them-a man with sharp features and intense green eyes-shouted a command in a harsh, guttural language. The others fanned out, forming a perimeter in the air.

Cassandra pressed herself harder against the tree, her brain entirely short-circuiting. Men with metal wings. Laser guns. Monsters.

The man with the green eyes fired another precise shot into the beast, silencing it permanently.

Cassandra let out a shaky breath. Her fingers loosened slightly around the branch.

A low growl sounded right next to her ear.

She snapped her head to the right. A second beast, slightly smaller but just as terrifying, had crept through the bushes. It was already mid-pounce, its jaws aimed directly at her throat.

"Look out!" the green-eyed man yelled from above, his voice cracking with sudden panic.

Cassandra didn't have time to think. She didn't have time to scream.

As the beast collided with her, she simply shoved her arms forward, driving the splintered branch upward with every ounce of strength she had left.

The beast's momentum did the rest.

The sharp wood slid perfectly into the beast's left eye socket-which was already bleeding from a stray laser burn-and pushed deep into its brain.

The monster went entirely rigid. Its massive weight collapsed onto Cassandra, pinning her legs to the ground. Hot, foul-smelling blood sprayed across her face and chest.

Cassandra lay there, trapped under the dead weight, her hands still gripping the bloody branch. She was hyperventilating, her chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow jerks.

The clearing fell dead silent.

The men in the air lowered their weapons. They stared at her.

The green-eyed man descended slowly. His metallic wings folded seamlessly into a compact pack on his back as his boots touched the ground. He walked toward her, his green eyes wide, his jaw slack.

He didn't look at the dead beast. He looked only at Cassandra.

He stopped three feet away. Slowly, deliberately, he sank to one knee. He placed his right fist over his heart and bowed his head.

Cassandra stared at him through the blood and sweat stinging her eyes. She tried to speak, to ask for help, but her throat was completely dry.

The edges of her vision began to blur, turning dark and fuzzy. The metallic hum of the forest faded into a dull ringing in her ears.

Her grip on the branch finally failed. Her hands dropped to the dirt.

The darkness swallowed her, and she slumped forward into unconsciousness.