by K. C. Hamby
The Wrath of the Chosen
To my cats: without you guys, this would have been done a whole hell of a lot sooner.
I’m looking at you, Podrick.
Warning: This novel contains strong language, talk of sexual assault, sex trafficking, and self harm. Please proceed with caution.
Chapter 1
I always have trouble deciding exactly how I want to kill a target. There are so many different ways, it’s hard for me to choose the best—and most efficient—method. I guess it can depend on the situation; if I need to be quick about it or if I can take my time and enjoy the hunt.
Right now, I’m not enjoying much of anything except this Jack and Coke, and even it is a little on the flat side.
The Paint Can. Interesting name for a club. Apparently, the name is some kind of alcoholic drink, but it’s not a drink I ever want to be associated with. The place does have a decent environment, though. The colorful lights blink over intoxicated bodies of dancing people, moving to the beat of the music. The bar I’m sitting at is long and filled with desperate humans thirsting for attention or another drink as an electric buzz crackles through the air, striking everyone within shooting distance and coaxing them into having too much of a good night.
Unfortunately, I’m not here to enjoy it. I have a job to do. I’ve been waiting on my target to show up for hours, but so far, I haven’t had any luck. I’ve done enough research on the damn guy. I know he’s supposed to be here tonight, but I’ve been here for three hours and the bartender is growing annoyed since I’ve only ordered three drinks and I’m taking up a spot at his bar.
I sigh. My bloodlust is making me impatient and irritable. Maybe I’ll just walk outside and wait for my target. If he is here, he’s bound to come out eventually, right?
I look up from the murky bottom of my flat drink and find a floppy-haired guy staring at me with lingering interest a few people down. He cringes as if he has sat on something sharp when we make eye contact. I flash my teeth at him in a silent snarl. He quickly finds a new place across the room for his eyes to intently stare at and I grumble under my breath.
People react as such when they look at me, so I should be used to it. But it pisses off a small part of me. The part that craves to go unnoticed.
I lift my hand to motion for the dark-skinned bartender to grab my check and close out my tab when I catch the eye of someone else across the bar. She raises an eyebrow at me and smiles.
Now, I’m not usually one to be caught off guard, but people don’t smile at me unless they want to kill me. No one smiles that way at an assassin. I’m usually the one people avoid at all costs.
Naturally, being the social butterfly I am, I don’t react at all. She cocks her head to the side like a confused puppy and her wavy, honey blonde hair falls over her shoulder from the black, floppy hat she’s wearing. Furrowing her brow at something behind me, she hops off her bar stool and heads my way.
“Great,” I mutter under my breath. I don’t have time to try to avoid conversation. I frantically wave to get the bartender’s attention, but he’s too busy being a flirt with some tight shirt guy at the other end of the bar who appears to be the type to wear too much cologne. I roll my eyes and groan at my failed attempt to get my check and avoid this preventable conversation.
“Hey!” I hear from behind me and a finger taps on my shoulder. I cringe at the touch.
I hate being touched.
I hesitate, but finally sigh and decide to turn around. Of course, it’s the girl from across the bar.
She looks at me with bright eyes I can only describe as the color of sapphires. She’s not very tall—about 5’2” it seems—and a huge smile lights up her freckled face. Her tan shirt flows down into her black, strange print skirt stopping a little too high for the cooler weather outside, but I guess she compensates with her thigh-high, black tights diving into her ankle boots. She looks like a flower child.
“Yeah, hey,” I lamely respond. The rudeness laced in my words clearly screams I’m annoyed. They come off as sharp as the knife hidden in my boot.
Surprisingly, she isn’t fazed at all by my lack of benignity. She hops on the stool right next to me with the perkiness of a playful puppy.
“My name is Nina!” Her smile grows impossibly wider. “You seemed sad sitting by yourself, so I figured I would come try my hand at cheering you up.” Her eyes flick behind me again cautiously. Probably someone she thinks is attractive. She must have wanted to get closer to them and used me as a middle ground. Sensuality rolls in her strange scent like opium smoke.
I shake my head from the thought.
I press my lips together, preventing a smart-ass remark from tumbling out of my mouth about how maybe this is just what my face looks like all the time.
Proud of you, Fal, I think to myself. Self-control. Brownie point for me.
“That’s, uh, nice of you.” I stumble over my words, clearly out of practice with socializing. “But, I was actually about to leave,” I clip out, jutting my thumb over my shoulder in the direction of the exit and inwardly cringing at the cold bite of my excuse. I finally get the bartender’s attention and he rolls his eyes, pulling himself away from his boy toy.
Her smile plummets. “Yeah, okay. Well, I hope your night gets better!” She lightly taps my knee and slides off the stool to disappear into the crowd of people on the dance floor.
Thank goddess.
I quickly pay for my drinks and leave, not wanting someone else to come talk to me out of pity. I was already severely annoyed at how the night had gone so far, but now I’m just in a shitty mood all together.
The air is frigid for a spring night, but the sky is dark and clear. The stars are slightly visible, which is saying something for a night in Seattle. The city lights usually obscure the more distant stars, covering the sky with buildings instead. The space needle stands tall and alone in the silhouette of the city and buildings reach for the sky on each side of the street. I get a sense of the loneliness the Space Needle must experience over and over again; standing tall and proud by itself, overlooking the lively city beneath it. It makes me want to go home, but my bloodlust makes me want to kill my target more.
My black combat boots clump along the pavement as I scan for a place to wait for him.
The air is unusually silent until my ears pick up something behind me; some kind of altercation. I slow my pace to get a better read on the situation.
“Oh my god, go away!” shrieks through the darkness. The voice is familiar. I roll my eyes realizing it’s the girl from the bar. What was her name? Nina?
“Well, you’re just a pretty thing, aren’t you?” a gruff voice answers. A guy. I stop walking, debating on whether or not I should intervene.
“Stop touching me, you creep!” Nina yells. A spark of anger flickers in my chest, making my decision to turn around for me.
I walk closer to their voices, but no one is speaking. Now, all I hear is a struggle.
And then a piercing scream.
I make it to an alley on my left and catch sight of Nina.
And a guy trying to yank her out of her clothes.
Nina manages to kick him off and land a punch square on his jaw, simultaneously stopping me short and impressing me. But the guy uses his size and strength, picking her up and slamming her against the brick building behind her.
The spark of anger I felt? Yeah, it has exploded into a full-blown, raging fire.
I launch myself down the alleyway, not holding back my speed. I’m on him in three quarters of a second and he’s understandably surprised to see me. I yank him off Nina and slam him into the parallel brick buildin
g. He loses his breath and I hook my fist right into the side of his face, landing him on the pavement in a sickening thud. A pathetic groan pushes from his lips.
After a few seconds of no movement from the bastard, I leave him alone and turn my attention to Nina.
I squat in front of her and tilt her chin up so her eyes lock with mine. My stomach does a weird flip and my heart pounds, but I shake it off. Or, I try to. I have more important things to deal with.
“Hey, you doing okay?”
Her eyes focus and one side of her mouth tilts up in a smile. “I am now, thank you.”
I blow out a chest full of air in a huff. Dropping my hand from Nina’s chin, I let it fall between my knees and remain in a squat in front of her wondering why I decided to intervene in the first place.
I don’t need to try fooling myself into thinking I regret this. It’s in my nature to protect humans from vile, evil things. That’s why I intervened. That’s why I knocked my fist into the guy’s face. My antisocial tendencies don’t get to guilt me into not doing the right thing.
I turn my head to the spot her attacker should be occupying, but I find him running off with a yellow line figuratively sliding down his back. Coward.
He looks back at us and I realize he’s the asshole I was supposed to kill.
Chapter 2
After I get Nina back to her friends—which I immediately avoid all eye contact and conversation with—I call a Voítheia living nearby, asking them to come pick me up so I have a place to stay for the night while I try to figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do now. She’s nice enough; the Voítheia, I mean. I remember her from our classes at the Complex. She’s my age—about twenty-three—and she’s just one of those Lupi not cut out for the assassin lifestyle like I am.
If I remember correctly, Ashley—that’s her name—decided she wanted to be Voítheia. Lupi choosing this track become the help to the assassins. They clean up bodies or assist in any other way we need them on our missions.
Ashley chose the Voítheia track when she was sixteen—the Choosing year—instead of continuing on her training as an assassin. Hell, even if she did choose to stay, I don’t think she would have made it in the top ten. She would have become a Voítheia by default anyway.
Stepping in the shower of Ashley’s guest bathroom washes all thoughts and tension from my war-scarred body, if only for a few seconds.
I never miss targets. Never. And this guy just walks away from me? Okay, he ran, but that’s not exactly the point. Now Cosma is going to want my ass on a silver platter. She’s a good enough Pack Alpha, but goddess, she is strict about deadlines. Deadlines I have never missed.
I groan and step out of the shower, the warm water dripping to the floor mat and the air chilling my skin. Even after the shower, I’m still in a pretty shitty mood. I wipe away the condensation accumulating on the mirror and stare at my scarred face. Sharp cheekbones, sharp jawline, a sharp brow line; everything about my face is as sharp as the knives I carry. I even have sharp eyes.
Well, I guess I should say eye. The left eye is sharp and cat-eye shaped with a bright amber iris. The right is still shaped sharply, but slashing through it like someone’s nightmare is a ragged scar. The scar starts an inch above my eye, ending an inch beneath. I had to receive a skin graft to cover my exposed flesh, so the skin in my scar is a different color than the rest of my face. The color of the iris is cloudy and gray. It appears as if I’m blind in my right eye, but thanks to Lupi healing, my vision is fine. What I find funny is how scars don’t heal. Something about how we don’t heal for cosmetic reasons; we heal to stay alive. I guess it makes sense and I’m not one to question a goddess. I’ll live with this scar on my face. It’s become a part of me.
The bastard that gave it to me..
I sigh. I don’t need to think about that. I have other things to worry about like what the hell I’m going to do about my missed target.
I pull myself out of my thoughts and away from the mirror, towel drying my long, raven black hair falling nearly to my waist. I brush and french braid it down my back. I don’t have the patience to do anything else. I’m not exactly the fix-it-up type, anyway.
My biceps flex in the mirror, showing off the Alpha bands circling my left arm. I’m the Alpha of my class, so I received my three Alpha bands the day I graduated an assassin. It’s three black bands. The one in the middle is about half an inch thick and the outer two are a fourth of an inch thick. They are used to identify ranks of Lupi; one for Third, two for Beta, and three for Alpha. The memory of the hard needle dragging, vibrating, and piercing across my skin makes me wince involuntarily.
I sit on the bed in Ashley’s guest bedroom and think. The comforter is soft enough, even though I’m not too fond of the bright green color. But, what do I know? Black is the only color I care for. The walls in this room are beige and covered with dark pieces of art screaming Edgar Allan Poe. I do approve of those.
Now, about my target..
The guy goes to The Paint Can nearly every night, hunting for his next victim. That’s the only thing I know for sure. The other places he goes to aren’t habit. I would be trying to find a piece of hay in a stack of needles; painful and, ironically, pointless.
The only real plan I can come up with is I go back and wait outside of the bar instead of going inside and see if I can catch him on his way in. It’s not a great plan. In fact, it may be the worst plan I have ever come up with, but it’s all I have right now.
I climb under the covers and send a silent prayer to the goddess. Hopefully, she’ll help me out.
Chapter 3
The music rolling out of The Paint Can is threatening to dissolve what little bit of patience I somehow managed to obtain despite the annoyance rolling through my system. They never play anything with substance here, which I guess is the point. They just need people to dance and hydrate themselves with more alcohol. I personally don’t enjoy music that doesn’t induce deep feeling, which is funny. I’m pretty much void of all emotion other than rage.
I lean against the outside brick wall of the club, trying to will away my music induced headache while I wait for the sleazeball to show up. My hands are warm in the pockets of my black, leather jacket I wear over a midnight black v-neck shirt. I grip the handle of my amber stoned dagger, letting the blade menacingly stick out of my pocket. My eyes are painted over with black ceremonial assassin paint, making me look like the worst kind of bandit. It’s always done when we’re about to take out a target and to—somewhat—keep our identities hidden. Honestly, I like it because it’s intimidating as hell.
I usually wear my hair back in a long braid to keep it out of my face, but I decided to wear it down, helping in concealing my scar. My tight, black jeans and combat boots finish off the incredibly dark and functional look. But, I always look like this, minus the paint. Black is simple and easy to blend with shadows.
I don’t look like I have five throwing knives, a pistol, a knife tucked in my boot, a spring blade on my wrist, and a dagger on me, but oh, I definitely do.
You know, just in case one method isn’t efficient enough.
I wait patiently, scanning the entrance of the alley I’m in. It gives me enough view of the front of the club, so I’ll be able to see when the target walks up. My hair blows in the cool breeze, bringing with it the sharp odor of cigarette smoke. I push the smell from my nose with a huff.
I wonder if that Nina girl ended up okay. She faced off with a monster, after all. He’s a rapist and a murderer, as if one horrible deed isn’t good enough. That’s why I’ve been given the order to kill him. It’s what Lupi were made for; protecting humans and ridding the world of terrible actions and people.
The goddess, Hecate, is the Protector of humankind. She saw the destruction and evil in the souls of humans and how it was destroying humanity. She made Lupi—or wolves—to keep the balance between good and evil.
Yeah, we can shift into wolves. I suppose it’s cool and helps with the whole go
od and evil battle, but I don’t shift. Story for another time, though.
Apparently, I’m part of the good in all this talk. But, how does one destroy monsters without becoming one? I’m not so sure I’m good. I lost myself somewhere in the suffocating darkness and difference between the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of what I’m made to do. That’s also assuming I knew who I was to begin with. I don’t know how to find whatever person I was before I became an assassin; a killer. I don’t remember her. I don’t know if I want to.
The person I am now definitely does not fall under the category of ‘good people.’ I am a murderer in my own right. It’s for the betterment of humanity, but sometimes I wonder..
Anyway, I’m glad I caught the guy when I did. That Nina is too nice to be his next victim (of course, no one deserves to be his victim, but that’s not the point here). She was kind to me after all. Or, maybe that’s why he went for her. Maybe he sees kindness as weakness. Who knows? I don’t like trying to understand why my targets to terrible things. I just stop them from doing said terrible things ever again.
I pull my thoughts back to the alley and smoke-filled air. The scumbag finally walks up, and I smirk. He just can’t stay away. Looks like he has a pretty black eye as an accessory tonight. I’m glad I could give him a parting gift. So sweet of me. Maybe this being nice thing isn’t so hard after all.
I saunter to the edge of the alley, hiding my face with the shadows of my hair. He’s about to get in line for the club when I yell his name.
“Ian!”
I immediately have his attention. I wiggle my finger, gesturing for him to come closer. He looks me over slowly, smirks, and walks my way. I want to punch the wall for having to say his name like that; all seductively. I remembered it from his file and I knew I could easily get his attention by calling for him like this, but it doesn’t make it any easier for me, personally.
