Chapter 1
An incessant ringing mingled with piercing, guttural screams, echoing around the old, crumbling lumber mill. The run down factory was situated far from prying eyes and ears on the harbor.
The setting was ideal for the purpose I intended it for.
Just past two in the morning, I was elbows deep in a screeching vampire’s intestinal tract. Glaring at my phone as it buzzed on the trolley beside me, I watched the surgical tools rattle across the rusted, metal surface.
Sighing, I extracted my hands from my victim's innards with a satisfying squelch. His screams turned to heavy sobs, as I turned, snapping off the latex gloves.
“Take a breather. You’re gonna need it.” I grumble, palming the cell, and strode to the other side of the factory, dirt, and debris crunching underfoot.
Turning my attention to the screen, I glowered at my uncle’s name flashing across it.
Accepting the call, I pulled it to my ear. “Yeah.”
“Ryker?” his rough tone seemed uncertain.
“What can I do for you, Alpha Henrik?” I grunted, impatient as shit to get back to my interrogation.
Caught off guard, he gruffly stuttered. “R-right, cutting to the chase. I’d like to hire your services.”
“Which ones?”
There was a pause on the other end, as he formulated his request, then he spoke.
Listening to him drone, I mulled over the job he was proposing.
I knew I was going to take it. There was no question about that.
It didn’t matter how much I hated the person asking the favor, if I knew there were innocents involved, bet your ass I’d insert myself where ever I was needed.
Even if I had to work with entitled pricks.
It wasn’t pleasant, but I was used to trudging through bullshit.
Cutting him off mid-sentence, I grunted, “I’ll be at the Onyx Moon pack entrance tomorrow at ten a.m.”
Exasperated, he sighed, “Is there any way you could get here today?”
“No.” The journey alone would take roughly fifteen hours and I had other shit to finish up before I could be on my way.
Not to mention, sleep was pretty imperative.
Exhaling an exasperated sigh, he groaned. “I guess it can’t be helped. We’ll see you tomorrow, nephew.”
Ending the call, I stalked back over to my blubbering captive, as he begged, “Please! Please, no more! Just fucking kill me! Please, man, I’m begging you!”
The greasy-haired vamp yanked at his restraints, the chains rattling against the rusted, make-shift operation table.
“Have you earned it?” my tone was low, leaning down. His cries picked up in volume, as the desolation leaked from his bloodshot eyes.
I propped an elbow on the gurney next to his head, resting my chin in my palm, as I stared into his muddy irises, the orbs reflecting my image back to me.
Yellow eyes the color of molten glass, with a shock of snowy, shoulder-length hair.
The whites of his eyes had long since vanished, replaced by a bloody crimson red, signaling how ravenous he was. They’d shifted at the same time his fangs elongated, having lost about a gallon of blood.
Staring at my handy work, I took in the sight of his internal organs spilling out around his belly, his rib cage cracked and split wide, revealing his raggedly expanding lungs and wildly beating heart.
He fucking deserved it.
Willy boy here, as was one of the Legion’s foot soldiers, had his hands and fangs drenched in the blood of the vulnerable and innocent, working himself up the ranks.
It’d taken me almost a decade to find the POS.
The Legion was this amalgamation of supernatural beings that, for some fucked up reason, decided to join the enemy.
Vampires, witches, fae, shifters of every species, all working together to seemingly destroy its own kind. Destruction for destruction's sake.
Their calling card was an Ouroboros, a snake eating its own tail, something I’d seen far too often left at sites of absolute devastation.
The Legion’s final ‘fuck you’ after an attack.
My home pack being one of them.
“You know exactly how to get what you want.” I said evenly. “Who led the attack on Obsidian Lake nine years ago?”
When I was seventeen, my pack was invaded, just another casualty of the Legion’s war.
Males, females, and pups alike, all butchered. Some survived, but most were eviscerated.
My parents, the Alpha and Luna were among them.
I couldn’t give two shits about the sadistic asshole that sired me, but my mother’s death…
That haunted me.
I’d been there, begging her to let me stay, to let me protect her, as she, in the same breath, implored me to follow my siblings, to protect them as they escaped.
But I’d been knocked out from behind, her screams echoing through my unconscious mind.
When I’d finally woken in the pack’s infirmary, days had passed.
That’s when my father’s Beta informed me of her death.
It had gutted me and rocked my world so severely that I’d shut down.
But a single-minded purpose seeped through my marrow, giving me substance.
I’d find the bastard responsible, set his ass ablaze, and dance to his screams.
My captive’s breath hitched, as he struggled to breathe, his gurgled sobs rasping out of him.
Even with the state he was in, there was no risk of him dying, vampires being remarkably resilient and fast healers.
I had to repeatedly reopen gaping wounds, as they’d continued to knit together before my eyes.
Leaning down to his ear, I half shifted my hand, my black-tipped claws sharpening, as I brought them down menacingly slow toward his wide open abdomen, whispering on a growl, “The offer expires in three, two—”
“Okay!” he screeched, spittle flying from his mouth, as he jerked. “I-I was just a-an underling, so I don’t know h-his name or what he looked l-like. He w-wore a m-mask around the l-lower ranks. Our o-orders were to find Alpha R-Ryatt Finch and take him o-out, but t-to leave Luna Twyla a-alive.” He gasped.
What? But that didn’t make sense. If she was supposed to live, why was she killed?
Schooling my features, my voice dipped into a growl. “What else.”
He broke into a devastated sob. “There was o-one other target.”
“Who?”
“T-the eldest s-son, Ryatt’s h-heir.”
Yeah, I knew that much.
He’d nearly succeeded in killing me, but everyone had assumed he was interrupted before he could finish the job.
However, all of that was speculation, being that I had no memory of what happened after I’d been knocked out.
Just my mother’s screams.
“Were you there when the Luna was killed?” I growled, claws poised over his bobbing throat.
“Nonononononono! I swear!”
“Then where were you?” my tone evening back out.
“I was…” he paused, terrified.
Putting pressure on his jugular, he screeched, “I was draining a shifter female!”
Shoving the bile back down my throat, the haunting image assaulting my brain, I growled in warning. “Why was Obsidian Lake targeted?”
“A-all I know, is that the Legion wanted it under their c-control.”
So, take control of the largest wolf shifter pack in the world by offing the Alpha and his only legitimate heir, but leave the Luna alive?
It doesn’t add up.
If the goal was to transplant a Legion wolf-shifter as Alpha of Obsidian Lake, why not take out the Luna too? Why did they want it so fucking bad?
“Why were you supposed to leave the Luna alive? What’s so special about that pack?”
“Please,” he sobbed, “I don’t know! I w-wasn’t high u-up enough t-to k-know that!”
Watching his face, as fat tears streaked down his cheeks, blood and sweat caking every inch of skin, I knew he didn’t have anything else of value to add. He was done, having given all he knew.
Luckily, clean up would be easy enough, the plan being to leave his body parts out in broad daylight, the sun’s rays doing my job for me.
He’d burn to ash and the wind would carry his ass across the ocean.
Done and dusted.
Literally.
Before he could take another full breath in, my shifted hand plunged into his open chest cavity, my knife-like claws gripping his heart tight and ripping it out of his body.
I held it suspended before his eyes, so he could see it as life drained from him.
I didn’t give a shit that it was a slower, more painful death than I promised.
I felt nothing except a sense of satisfaction that one more Legion shit stain was no longer in rotation.
This was my life now, what I did best.
Slicing and dicing, extracting information one sliver of flesh at a time.
I just wished I could have done the same to my psychopath father, pissed that I’d been deprived of the opportunity.
He was responsible for the killer I’d become. Cold, detached, but utterly controlled and calculated. I was a master of stealth and speed. An artist with a blade. No one could best me. Not since that night.
Never again.
It was impossible to sneak up on me now, but damn, had I gotten good at sneaking up on them. No supernatural could see or hear me coming, known for disappearing and reappearing, my movements too fast to track.
I’d even earned a moniker amongst the Legion.
Ghost.
I remember the first time I’d heard one of them use it and a sick sense of pride filled me.
I was a killer, plain and simple. My father’s fucked up brand of ‘training’ was a pivotal reason why, but that fucking night…
It’d created the monster I was now.
It pushed me over the edge when I’d been desperate to hold on to a slice of warmth, the sliver of goodness my mother had seen in me.
That my sire tried to bleed out of me.
But, when she’d been killed, I’d iced over.
Once I could piss on my own, I got on my bike and hit the road, becoming a rogue, disentangling myself from Ryatt Finch’s legacy.
Everyone expected me to take over as Alpha of Obsidian Lake, but I didn’t fucking want it, essentially flipping everyone off as I hopped on my bike and rode into the sunset.
I’d willingly left my sisters behind, under the care and protection of the Beta. He’d agreed to run the pack in my stead but refused to take the mantle.
And my brother came with me.
Balor was deranged and nearly feral when it came to hunting and killing Legion members, getting a high from the bloodletting, the only one skilled enough to consider my equal.
One by one, we made them sing, gathering information on the male that killed my mother.
Eventually, we deduced that he was the leader of a smaller faction, but he was good at keeping his name hidden, as well as his location.
He was a slippery piece of shit and every time we got close, he’d slither away.
It was infuriating.
And through all this, Balor earned his own moniker.
The Reaper.
Which was fitting.
But, tracking her murderer was taking too long and we didn’t get paid to hunt.
That’s when I started offering my services to the supernatural world, who as a whole, were at risk of falling victim to the Legion. Most of which had already been attacked and were trying to rebuild.
I had no prejudices, I’d offered my help to anyone who needed it. Vampires, witches, faeries, shifters of every kind, and even sirens hired me to come into their communities and change everything. I’d build up their warriors, and strengthen their borders and security. As long as I got paid well,
I did whatever job needed doing.
Bodyguard?
Check.
Merc-for-hire?
Double check.
Balor tried one job with me and promptly decide that shit wasn’t on his dance card. He was too unhinged to play nice with polite society, so he opted out and we came to an agreement. As long as he continued the search, I’d split whatever I earned with him. So far, it was working well for us.
We had an inheritance, but neither one of us wanted to set foot in Obsidian Lake all that often to get it, knowing our sisters would drag us back indefinitely.
Mainly me.
They wanted their Alpha, but fuck if they were going to get him.
Despite my hatred for it, my mother loved Obsidian Lake. So, I felt obligated to at least do the bare minimum, making sure the pack was cared for, the shifters within safe, the borders protected. But anymore than that, I delegated.
The Alphaship could shove a cactus up it’s ass, for all I cared.
I had shit to do, Legion trash to eradicate.
Which was why, after I cleaned up this mess, I’d be loading my bike and taking off, Onyx Moon my destination. I’ll be there as long as it takes to make them safe and figure out why my uncle’s pack was being targeted.
And who knows, lady luck could grace me with her presence and I’ll get one step closer to finding the fucker that turned my world on its fucking head.
