Author: Pepper Winters

“Forget it.” Dropping my voice to a whisper, I said, “I’ll go. But you should know I came back to give you a piece of my mind, but also to continue our agreement. I refuse to stay here for a month, but I was willing to spend my days with you. To give you what you wanted. Despite what I said—I did want you. I felt the same pull.”

His back rippled with tension. The air seemed to crackle and weep around him with a mixture of regret and self-loathing. For a moment, I thought he would throttle me. Reach out and grab my throat in his large hands and wring the air from my body. But then his anger diminished, flickering out to be replaced with utter coldness. “I don’t care. I never wish to see you again.”

Fuck him. I was done.

Whirling around, I stalked to the door. My anger crashed over me in a wave. I gave him my passion and offered a lifeline, and he threw it in my face.

The moment I walked out the door I never wanted to see him again. I wouldn’t be able to stand it. I needed to make sure the goodbye was final.

“Don’t ever come near me again, Fox. If I see, or hear, or find out you’ve come near, I won’t just hurt you.

“I’ll kill you.”

Chapter 10

The day I completed the final phase of training, two things happened. They tattooed me with the mark of the highest operative, and I was informed of my inheritance. For years I’d lived in a cell inside a giant manor; I’d been told what to eat, told who to kill, and when to speak. I lived in the same black clothes all the recruits lived in. I followed the code.

Then they told me who I’d been before they stole me on my sixth birthday.

I wasn’t a pauper or a bum off the street like some of the other kids. I wasn’t middle class from a generic family.

Oh, no.

Turned out, I was twenty-fourth in line to the throne. My ancestors had been kings and queens; my family God-fearing and respected.

They told me I was to inherit a multi-million dollar fortune of property, jewellery, and cash.

My real name was Roan Averin, but none of that mattered.

It didn’t matter as I was a royal heir to a succession that no longer existed because I’d killed every last person from my bloodline. No one knew I was alive. No one knew I existed.

There was no one left.

Just me.

And I belonged to them.

“I’ll kill you.”

“Do it or I’ll kill you.”

“Obey or I’ll kill you.”

“Slaughter them or I’ll kill you.”

“Kill and sever and decapitate or I’ll kill you.”

The threat resonated in my head over and over and over.

Zel’s parting comment threaded with my past. “I’ll kill you.”

The small hold I had on my conditioning disintegrated, hurling me head first into darkness. My brain swam with memories of my faceless handlers. All I saw were waterfalls of red and slicing blades through flesh.

The urges sucked me deep and dark until I forgot I no longer lived that life. I was theirs. A nobody with no feelings or hopes or dreams. Worthless.

I’d been able to control myself while arguing with Zel thanks to the pain in my joints. The beating Poison Oaks gave me kept me sane—barely. I’d kept my distance—hating her perception, her correct guesses all the while saving her from myself.

Her passion turned my cock stiff as a fucking pole. My blood raced to take her again—to make promises—to swear I could do better. To promise the next time I took her I’d be strong enough to touch her sweetly. But the pain wasn’t enough and every lash of her voice made me tremble, fighting my past.

I screamed and cursed for her own protection. I wanted her gone forever so I never had to worry about harming her.

But then she used the one sentence guaranteed to hurl me back in time.

“I’ll kill you.”

I groaned as the room swirled like a black hurricane, propelling me from safety to horror. The aliveness in my blood switched from wanting to protect Zel to wanting to kill her, and I could no longer ignore the call. The conditioning was too strong, too ingrained, too deep to reject.

The rules I’d been made to live by compounded in my skull, pounding with an insane headache. She was a weakness. She was an enemy. She knew too much.

She has to die.

My jaw ached from clenching so hard, and I howled like the wolves who’d kept me company all those lonely nights. The last of my humanity filtered away. I was about to kill the only person who might’ve had a chance at saving me.

And I couldn’t stop it.

Icy cold obedience flowed in my veins.

I launched at the woman intent on ruining me—intent on ripping my past and secrets from my broken corpse. She had the audacity to say she could fix me. There was nothing left to fix. I was a highly trained Ghost. She had to go.

Soon, she wouldn’t be a threat. Soon, she’d be dead.

She screamed as I grabbed her from the door and shoved her face first into the carpet.

My knees slammed against the floor on either side of her body; my hands wrapped around her throat. The unprotected muscles of her neck were an aphrodisiac to my need to obey. My need to kill.

I revelled in the power of my fingertips as I dug them deeper and deeper into her flesh. The pain in my body from the fight diminished, blocked off just like I’d been trained—allowing me to focus entirely on the mission at hand.

“Fox! Stop it!” Her voice wobbled and wavered before I squeezed harder, cutting off her air supply. She made a pitiful wail in her chest, thrashing beneath me.

Her arms flew back, fingers desperately scratching at my forearms. Her nails drew blood, slipping with red, losing traction. The coppery stench of blood filled my nose.

Her hands struck my thighs, my elbows, flailing around, hitting anything in reach. Her body convulsed as the terror of dying hit her central nervous system.

Her fingers locked around mine; her touch only made it worse.

The fog returned to my vision, turning everything blizzard white. I no longer knew where I was. All I knew was I had to kill her before my handler found out. He’d punish me if he knew someone had guessed my secrets. He’d find more victims for me to maim.

She was a liability. She was detrimental to my mission.

“You always were reliable, Fox.”

My heart raced in pride. My coach, my trainer—my father for all intents and purposes—smiled, but didn’t pat my back or shake my hand. Unnecessary touching wasn’t allowed. “I think you’re ready.”

My heart thudded for a different reason. I wasn’t ready. Never ready.

Standing as tall as my fifteen-year-old frame would let me, I said, “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

His eyes shone, knowing what I’d finally agreed to do.

I wished I could kill myself. After this, there would be no one left.

I just agreed to kill my brother.

The final step to finishing the transformation from human to Ghost.

Zel suddenly stopped scratching my arms and twisted her body. Her left leg scissored outward, kicking as high as she could go. Her hand flew to her tangled hair.

I squeezed harder.

She grunted with the last few dregs of oxygen in her lungs; her fingers erupted from her hair, clutching something.

The thick pulse of blood in her veins chugged harder, inching closer to cardiac arrest. My eyes smarted, wishing I didn’t have to be such a coward. I just wanted to be free. I didn’t want to kill this woman. I liked her. I cared for her. I wanted to keep her.

But just like everything I wanted to keep, I wasn’t allowed. They all had to die. Every single one.

I bellowed as something sharp plunged into my calf, followed by a slick withdrawal. Another hot, burning slice joined the symphony of agony as Zel plunged the serrated weapon into my thigh.

A Ghost prided themselves on working through pain—nothing would stop our objective, but the flash of torture brought clarity.

What the fuck am I doing?

I scrambled off Zel and scuttled back. Far, far away. Away from touching distance. Away from killing distance.

The white fog from my eyes withdrew, helping me to focus on the present and not the past.

I’m out. They won’t know if I don’t kill her. I no longer belong to them.

The sudden tsunami of relief crushed my lungs. My head fell forward as I let my hands drop to my sides. I didn’t have to kill her. She was safe. The conditioning ebbed away, popping into nothingness in my blood.

I didn’t care about the crimson gushing from two gashes in my leg. I didn’t care about the red-black stain pooling quickly beneath the wounds. All I cared about was ending my miserable life.

I didn’t deserve to live. Not after the atrocities I’d committed or the lack of strength I had to ignore a lifetime of training. I was ruined, and there was no way I could change.

Zel had guessed everything right about me, but she’d also shown just what a lost cause I was. There was only one way to end my suffering, and it wasn’t through the gasping, wild-eyed woman slouched in front of me.

Zel squirmed into a lopsided upright position, one hand rubbing her tender throat. Her lips were bluish-white from lack of oxygen; she watched me with tears glassing her eyes. “Don’t touch me, you asshole!”

My eyes dropped to her bloody outstretched hand, smeared from stabbing me. She brandished her skinny blade in my direction. “That’s twice you’ve tried to kill me. I’ll murder you if you try for a third.” Her voice wasn’t soft and melodic; it rasped and croaked from strangulation.

“Do it, operative.”

“Finish it.”

My hands clenched as the commands siphoned through me. I shook my head, trying to clear the conditioning. The need to kill throbbed just out of reach, making me wish I could peel off my skin and find the switch to deactivate it.

I needed serious fucking help. She’d never forgive me. I’d never forgive me.

I deserved an eternity of purgatory.

Zel climbed onto her knees, double-fisting the knife. “Who the hell are you?”

I dropped my eyes, looking detachedly at the wounds in my legs. The red seemed to twist and helix into shapes. I became entranced watching the droplets spread into a larger stain on the carpet, turning black to deep red. Who am I? I don’t know. I’ll never know who I was before they broke me.

I deliberately poked the oozing wound in my thigh with an unforgiving finger. I winced, hissing through my teeth. The cut wasn’t big, only a centimetre in length, but it was deep.

I’d been stabbed, beaten, and tortured more times than I could remember, but Zel was the first female—the only woman—to ever inflict harm on me.

My eyes flew up at the thought. Every injury had been given by a man. Either sought out by fighters or retribution from my handlers.

My anger toward Zel changed to deep respect. Something untangled deep inside me, unlocking long forgotten needs. I wanted companionship, friendship—someone I could rely on to never let me get out of control.

It was as if the sun entered every recess of my brain, chasing away the darkness and despicable past leaving me to see clearly for the first time in my life. Hazel was strong enough, brave enough, stupid enough to put up with me. I could suddenly breathe easier, and the hatred for myself ebbed just a little—leaving me suspended, tingling with hope.

I drank her in: her fire, her temper, her amazing strength. She was fierce and quick and smart. She’d prevented a Ghost from killing her. No one had been able to stop me mid-mission.

I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but what could I say? How could I put into words the epiphany Zel gave me from stabbing me in the leg? She’d knocked more sense into me with one action than anything she’d screamed at me in passion. She may never forgive me, but I’d fallen more under her spell and had no chance in hell of letting her go.

Panic raced in my veins with a compulsion to tie her up and never let her out of my sight again.