Rogue Assassin

by Adam Johnson

  “This spell that you want me to perform on you, you need to know just how dangerous it is. I need you to understand that what we are doing is very dark magic. Magic that I swore to myself I would never touch,” she replied. There was a note of sadness to her voice, and I noticed the way Maya shrunk into herself slightly at the mention of never touching dark magic. There was a story there, one I wanted to know more about, but now was not the time to dig.

  If she allowed me the chance to get to know her better, then maybe she would tell me her past. It was dark, that was clear to see; and whatever had happened was the reason she had chosen not to touch the power she so clearly harboured.

  “I don’t really care about the danger, if it means that I can protect myself out here. Like I have said before, Maya. There is something lurking around, and I am not willing to be its next victim,” I told her.

  “Okay, but if this goes wrong it will kill you, or worse destroy your actual soul-“

  “That’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think?” I joked.

  “No, it’s the truth. The magic I am going to be performing requires the person to draw on the power of their soul. Now you’re a shifter and therefor you already have a naturally powerful energy about you. If I was to do something like this on a human it would kill them. Not that a human would likely ever want to block their scent, but stranger things have happened. The magic I perform will be bound to your soul, and there it will stay. The more you call on it, the more at risk you are of tainting your soul. Are you sure that is something you are willing to risk, Chase?” Maya asked.

  I didn’t answer her at first, letting her words sink in. I hadn’t expected this spell to be so dark and twisted. I hadn’t expected it to require so much of me. I needed to protect myself; the unease that had settled earlier that evening hadn’t gone away. There was something out there that was after the wolves, or even Supernaturals. If I was able to block my scent, I would be able to track whatever it was down. I needed to prove to my pack, and the rest of the town, that I was not the killer they were convinced I was. The only way I could clear my name was to find the murderer and bring them to my father.

  I had to do this, there was no other way. Whatever the consequences of my actions would be, I would deal with them when the time came. I was strong; who was to say I wouldn’t be able to control the magic anyway? Flashing Maya a smile, I tried to show a confidence I was not feeling deep inside.

  “Many think I don’t have a soul, so what does it matter if I lose it? I am willing to take that risk, Maya. Now tell me what I need to do,” I said.

  Chapter 7

  MAYA

  I hesitated in answering his question. Chase was nervous, that was clear to see. I was, also. Kira’s warning was at the forefront of my mind, and I knew she was right. I didn’t know what was going to happen; to me or to Chase if I agreed to this. But I felt like I had no choice. I had told him what could happen, and he still wanted to go ahead with it. I understood his reasonings, his need to protect himself.

  But that would mean nothing if he were to die. Or even worse, become so sucked into the magic there was no saving him. There was one other thing that was making me hesitate. My mother. If I was to perform this spell, she would know. She would be able to sense that I had used my magic and she would want to know why.

  There was so much against us right now, yet sitting next to Chase in the eerie silence of the forest I felt strangely at ease. I knew that we were in this together now, no matter what happened. And I was okay with that.

  I was okay with helping this wolf. There was something about him; a vulnerability that I was certain he had shown to no-one else. Yet he trusted me to see his truth, and I trusted him to keep me safe.

  “Maya. What do you need me to do?” He asked again. I shook my body slightly in an attempt to relax my tense muscles and clear my mind of any negativity. There was no point in worrying about what was going to happen. I needed a clear mind to perform this spell.

  “You don’t need to do anything, Chase. I just need you to stay calm and to trust me. It’s going to hurt. It’s going to feel strange when the magic connects with your soul. But I need you to ignore it as best you can,” I explained to him. He nodded silently, though, I couldn’t help notice a flicker of uncertainty cross those beautiful sapphire blue eyes of his. He really was dangerously handsome. I couldn’t lie to myself any longer; I wanted him. I was never one for jumping into bed with someone I had just met, let alone an unhinged wolf. But the moment I had laid eyes on Chase that morning, I knew that I would have my fun with him eventually. I was fairly certain, though, that it wouldn’t be tonight.

  Taking a deep breath, pushing him down to the ground, forcing him to lie flat on his back, I brought my hands to settle just above his chest. He watched me with wide eyed fascination.

  “Don’t you need some witch shit. You know like sage and stuff?” He asked.

  He was trying to crack a joke, but he was scared, and I didn’t blame him. But I needed him to try and calm his nerves.

  “No, I don’t. I am not that kind of a witch. My powers come from within, fuelled by the power of the earth. I need you to be calm, wolf. You have to trust me,” I begged him. Chase went to say something more but must have thought better of it, because he fell silent again. I could feel his heartrate steady as he tried to calm himself. It would be enough for me to perform the spell.

  Taking a deep breath, closing my eyes I reached deep within myself. Dipping further and further into the depths of my magic until I found the darkest part of me. The part I needed to call on to bring my power to its full strength. I felt my body come alive in a way it hadn’t done before and it was overwhelming. Terrifying. I found myself nearly backing out.

  I was scared I wasn’t going to be able to stop once I had completed the spell. Scared that once I tasted the power, I would want to keep hold of it. I knew I should have told Chase no, but it was too late to back out now.

  A light squeeze to my knee forced me to open my eyes and look straight down into the intense stare of the wolf. He smiled lightly.

  “I trust you, Maya. I know you can do this, and I won’t let you get lost to the power,” he assured me.

  That was all I needed.

  The reassurance that my wolf would keep me safe. Closing my eyes once more, I felt my body burn as my magic came forth. Behind my eyelids, I saw the world around us glow an incredible red. My mouth began to move, chanting words I didn’t recognise yet they came out fluently.

  I didn’t stop; I couldn’t stop.

  My magic pulsed through me, and for the first time in so long I felt alive. I could feel it weaving into Chase, wrapping around his soul and drawing on his energy to bring forth the spell I was commanding from it. It was a power I had never experienced before; it felt amazing. I knew I was a strong witch, but I didn’t know I was this powerful.

  A painful howl pulled me from my trance, snapping me from the darkness I was sinking into; brought me crashing back to reality. I opened my eyes to see Chase writhing around in pain, his body contorting as it tried to fight a shift. His wolf wanting to flee from the pain that was no doubt ripping through him. Panic rushed through me. Just as quickly as it had come, the magic disappeared, leaving me trembling with exhaustion and fully aware of the wolf in front of me.

  “Chase? Chase, can you hear me? Chase, please talk to me,” I begged him. I watched him for a few moments, half thinking about leaving him and searching out Laura, the healer of our coven. But I couldn’t. No-one could know what had just happened. Instead, I placed my hand on his chest, feeling his heart beating quickly against it.

  “Chase, please calm down. You need to try and calm down and tell me where it hurts.” His wolf had stopped trying to break free so that was something. But Chase didn’t look good; he was pale and sweating. I was so sure I had pushed too much magic into him. That I had allowed myself to slip into the power craze I had been so fearful of. What
had I done?

  “Maya?” His voice was barely a whisper. The relief that rushed through me at hearing my name leave his lips, was just as crippling as the panic I had experienced earlier. Reaching for his hand, I gripped it tightly.

  “I’m here. How do you feel?” I asked him.

  “I can feel it, the magic. I can feel it taking hold of my soul, but it knows what I want. It can read my mind and emotions. I think it worked,” he muttered, as he pulled himself carefully into a sitting position.

  “Careful. What I just did will likely take you a few days to recover from.”

  “So, let me get this right. I just have to think about pulling my scent blocker up and the magic will do that, it will block me?” Chase asked. I nodded, watching him closely; not liking the way he was swaying slightly where we were sat.

  “Yes. It works with the mind. It will only work for that command though, so don’t go trying to demand other things of your body,” I warned him.

  The smallest of smiles tugged at his lips as he turned to face me fully.

  “I can’t thank you enough, Maya. But I can tell you now, I am not going to be able to move very far tonight. I feel like I could sleep for an eternity,” he joked.

  “Well, it’s a good job you are stuck with a witch isn’t it? One that is now sort of tied to you. One that is willing to stay with you out in the open tonight,” I grinned. With a slight flick of my wrist I created a small fire, glancing down to find Chase watching the flames dance playfully. He really was out of it. Smiling darkly, I tapped him lightly on the arm, forcing him to look at me.

  “You know what? You do owe me,” I agreed.

  “I do, so what can I do to make it up to you?” He asked. I didn’t respond in words. Instead, I leant in engulfing his lips with mine, kissing him deeply. I surprised myself with my bold move, but I didn’t regret it. Not for one moment.

  “Wow, I wasn’t expecting that,” Chase breathed, as we pulled apart.

  “Once you are better, you can owe me the rest. Because, Mr Wolf, you are stuck with me now,” I replied.

  THE END

  ***

  This story will continue in a Standalone PNR ‘The calling’ coming later in 2021

  ***

  About the Author

  English born Bex Taylor is a new Fantasy author. Her characters are sassy, strong, cocky supernaturals all begging for their twisted stories to be told. When she isn’t putting her characters through turmoil, she can be found walking her two beagles in beautiful New Zealand where she currently lives. She can often be found with her head in a book, drawing inspiration from words ready for her next book. When she isn’t reading, writing or spending time with her beagles she can be found at her full-time job as a Dog Day care supervisor.

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  Urban Fantasy

  Mafia Romance shared world

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  Immortal magic: A paranormal standalone romance)

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  Of shadow and death: Shadow and Light duology #1

  *****

  About Annihilation

  There’s not much crime in the small town of Shasta View, Washington, so when a dead body turns up—horribly mutilated—Sheriff Jay Williams and Deputy Erin Alecto have their work cut out for them. As the two investigate, the stress of the situation brings them closer; but the discovery that there’s a supernatural force at work could tear them apart. In the end, both must grapple with the question—when a victim is a bad guy, is his death murder or … justice?

  ANNIHILATION

  Kat Parrish

  Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.

  –Benjamin Franklin

  We don’t have a lot of crime in Shasta View, population sixteen thousand and thirty-nine when the community college is in session. Bicycle theft is a problem, and we spend a lot of our time breaking up bar fights and chasing down porch pirates. About three times a month an old geezer named Foster MacMahon sets off his security alarm and is too addled to disarm it before the security company calls us. He’s always very apologetic and it breaks up the monotony, so no one has the heart to scold him.

  We used to bust a lot of kids—and their parents—for smoking weed, but now that recreational marijuana use is legal in this state, the only druggies left to hassle are the pill poppers and the tweakers.

  The department mostly turns a blind eye to the opioid abusers and prefers to get them into treatment rather than jail them. As long as they’re not stealing to support their habit, we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. The tweakers? They’re just pathetic and we’re doing them a favor by getting them off the streets and putting them somewhere they can get a couple of meals and a dry place to sleep while they detox.

  My new deputy Erin is fine with the department’s laissez-faire attitude. She spent ten years working for the Detroit P.D. and she’s got no stomach for arresting folk who’re just trying to make their lives a little easier. “Better living through chemistry,” she sometimes says, and laughs. I finally had to ask her to tell me why she was laughing, and she explained the phrase used to be the motto of some chemical company back in the fifties and sixties. The company later became infamous as a target for thousands of lawsuits alleging it knew it was polluting communities with toxic substances but did it anyway.

  “Someone spits on the sidewalk in Shasta View and we write them a ticket,” she said. “Kill thousands of people while making a profit and what do you get? A tax break.”

  Erin is a “glass half full and leaking” kind of woman. But I figure she’s earned her cynicism. Working the mean streets of the Motor City can’t have been a picnic, even if it was her home town.

  But maybe I’m wrong. Closest I’ve ever been to Detroit was when my National Guard Unit took part in some readiness exercises in Flint a couple years ago.

  That place was a mess.

  “Detroit’s decline is the result of systemic racism,” Erin’s told me more than once. “Infrastructure’s been left to erode. The educational system has failed.”

  Erin knows a lot of stuff like that. She’s taking night classes at the college, with an eye to going to law school. She’ll make a good lawyer.

  “Prosecutor,” she always corrects me. She’s interested in justice, not mercy.

  I like Erin. I like her maybe a little too much. It’s not just that she’s beautiful with her honey-gold eyes and her thick curly hair that reaches to her waist when it’s not pinned up in a bun or tied back in a ponytail.

  I like who she is—the confident way she walks, the intelligent way she works, the engaging way she listens, the logical way she thinks.

  She’s the whole package.

  Sometimes we go out for drinks after work and I think about what it would be like to have her riding me like a pony as I look up at her. I can almost feel her thighs squeezing mine, silk drawn over iron.

  She’s a little taller than me and I like that. I fantasize about her dominating me. Cuffing my hands to the headboard of her bed, silencing me by stuffing a sock in my mouth and sealing it in with duct tape. Teasing—torturing—taking me to the edge of release and then backing off. Sometimes I fantasize she flogs me. Sometimes she cuts me. My protests, swallowed by the gag, emerge as wordless grunts that could be either pleasure or pain or some mixture of both. It doesn’t matter. She’s the one in control. She will do with me what she will.

  I think these things as we share a plate of super-na
chos and drink our beers. Sometimes our hands touch as we each reach for a chip loaded with cheese and onions and I think I see a little gleam in her eyes that says maybe she likes me too. Or maybe it’s just the beer making her eyes shiny in the dim light.

  It’s such a cliché that I want to fuck my partner. But it’s no damn wonder. Being cops forges a partnership like no other. You spend eight hours a day in the same car shooting the shit about nothing in particular, you’re bound to get to know your partner better than most people get to know their colleagues in brief water cooler conversations or during break room lunches.

  Not that Erin’s made it easy for me. At first, she kind of kept to herself. She was slow to give up her secrets. The first month she worked with me all I learned about her was she had two sisters back in Michigan and had been raised by a single mother and had never met her father.

  I got the feeling if he ever showed up, she wouldn’t be happy to see him. I got the feeling she took out her “daddy issues” on some of the guys she arrested. Anyone who had hurt a child or abused a senior or laid a hand on a spouse was a bad guy in her book and she wasn’t gentle with them when she finally caught up to them.

  There were some complaints about her early on—once even from the mayor who suggested Erin was being a little “overzealous.”

  I told the mayor I’d talk to Erin, but I didn’t. I looked the other way. And eventually the complaints died down. Even the mayor changed her tune when she realized that the people who were complaining were all recidivists, people who’d gotten away with things all their lives and now were shocked—dismayed, even—that there was someone who wasn’t going to put up with their bullshit.

  ***