Chasing His Assassin

3. Leah Gunn

“You mentioned Caspian on the phone, what on earth is going on?” Asher asked as the curiosity began to eat at him. He couldn’t bear the uneasy feeling in his gut.

“I’ll go straight to the point. Lately I discovered Caspian has been trying to track a certain warlock down. But this warlock is one known to hide himself even better than the witch Arielle. So instead, Caspian decided to track down one of the warlock’s former apprentices in hopes that she would know her former Master’s location.” Vanna started, “Knowing all this, I sent some men to watch over the witch, to keep her from falling into Caspian’s hands. Maybe they could even capture one of his lackeys and we could get information on Caspian, is what I thought.” Asher could feel the frustration and anger oozing off Vanna.

“What happened?”

“Arriving at the witch’s location, we were faced with a force far greater than ours.” Daron added. “A single female, barely up to my chest in height, wiped out the entire squad. Two of our members fell in the process.”

“So that’s why the house is so quiet.” They were mourning the loss of their brethren. Anger surged through Asher at the information. Wolves felt the loss of their brethren on a deeper level than other species did. For them, each member was family and they’d just lost two of those family members.

“You said one female did that?” His rage quickly turned into shock. There was no way. “You sure you saw well?”

Daron shot him a hard glare.

“I wouldn’t mistake the one responsible for killing my men.”

Asher lowered his head in apology. He shouldn’t doubt Daron but still it was hard to believe. A single female really wiped out a Lykae squad?

“A demon?” Asher asked as that was the only possible explanation to him.

“Worse.” Vanna rubbed between her brows. “A vemon.”

It was one surprise after the other with these people today. A vemon? A vampire-demon hybrid. Those were the rarest of halflings and they were as powerful as they were rare. With the combined strength of demons -a Lykae’s only match in strength- and a vampire -another deathly strong species. For some reason whenever Vampires and Demons mated, you either got a vampire or a demon. Perhaps it was Fate’s way of keeping a balance. Having that many vemons run rampant would be deadly. Just look at the commotion a single one was causing.

Still would a vemon really be able to take on a whole squad of trained wolves? It seemed highly unlikely that a single female would be capable of that despite how strong she supposedly was. But Daron had the wounds to prove his claims.

Maybe he’d underestimated the female as a lot of males tended to. Assuming a woman’s strength based off her size was one of the fatal mistakes immortal men made.

Taking Vanna for example, though taller than the average female, she was still small in Asher’s opinion. But in a real fight, if Asher tried to battle her, he would be dead before he could even raise a fist at her. She was known as ‘the Demon Alpha’ for a reason.

Asher strongly believed they underestimated the vemon and that was what caused their loss.

“This is why I need your help Asher.” Vanna added.

“So you don’t have any leads on his whereabouts.” Asher pointed out.

“This is a possible lead right here. The vemon girl must know where Caspian is hidden, if we can capture her..”

“So you want me to bring her here? You see what she did to Daron, what makes you think I’ll fare any better against her?”

“You’re the strongest wolf I can currently send out.”

“What about Zane?” Asher asked curiously. If she needed someone strong then it was almost obvious that she should send the strongest in the pack.

“You know damn well I can’t control that madman.” She answered with a glare. Vanna was the queen of wolves, the Alpha of all Alphas. By nature she was a dominant wolf so the idea of having a wolf like Zane who refused to submit to her infuriated her to no end.

Zane was left alone for the most part because by mortal terms, he would be deemed clinically insane. It wasn’t worth anything battling with the one known as the ‘mad wolf’.

“You’re sending me on what you know is a suicide mission.”

“You’ll have back up. I underestimated Caspian’s lackeys once, I won’t make the same mistake again. I won’t lose more men.” She stated firmly, eyes fierce.

“I don’t really have a choice here do I?”

“No you don’t. But hey, we might finally get a way to track Caspian.” She gave a small, knowing smile at the end. Asher would never let an opportunity like this go to waste.

For centuries he’s plotted the ways he would dish out his revenge once he finally got his hands on Caspian. The pain and t*****e he would dish out would be far worse than the one his family suffered. Vanna knew this, knew how much he loathed Caspian. She knew Asher wouldn’t refuse.

She reached for a tablet on her desk and swiped it open. A map came up on the screen and she showed it to Asher.

“Sources say the witch frequents this location and is expected to be there tomorrow. I don’t doubt that Caspian will send his people there to get her so I’ll have you and nineteen others stalk the location. Your mission is to retrieve the witch and if possible capture the vemon but remember, capturing the vemon is NOT a priority. Avoid confrontation with her if necessary.”

“You make it sound like capturing her will be nigh impossible. I honestly don’t think it’ll be that difficult.”

“Asher...”

“No worries, I can handle a small female no qualms. You have nothing to worry about.”

“You’ll get yourself killed with that mindset.” Doran pitched in. “I’m sure you must be thinking I underestimated her and paid for it. I didn’t. My own mother can have my a*s handed out to me on a platter, I underestimate no woman.”

“Relax, I’ve got this.” Asher was confident in his skills. The little vemon might have had one on Doran but she wouldn’t have the same edge over Asher.

***

Leah stood with her fists clenched by her sides as Caspian’s fist made contact with her face. Her face whipped to the side from the force and she felt liquid drip down her nose. To think she’d just fought ten Lycans without sustaining a single scratch.

“What did I tell you?”

“Spare no one.” She forced herself to answer through clenched teeth and the pain in her cheek. Those words had been forcefully ingrained into her mind from the moment Caspian took her in almost two centuries ago.

“So why did you spare them?” Caspian asked infuriated.

Leah was an assassin. That had been her occupation for the last two centuries of her life. If Caspian needed someone gone, she would fulfil his wishes without question but just because she was used to it didn’t mean she liked it.

She didn’t like the sight of blood and she didn’t get why all these people had to die. Their leader wronged him but was that reason enough?

Her master, the man she owed her life to and the closest thing she had to a father was this man. So even if she hated killing, she would do it if it pleased him. Because he’d saved her all those years ago.

“I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.” Leah apologised with her head bowed. The blood from her nose now dripped to the floor instead of staining her face like before.

Caspian wasn’t a bad person like many thought. He was kind. He was hurt in the past and wished to enact revenge on the one who brought him pain, the Lycan Queen. Leah didn’t know what exactly had transpired between the two of them in the past, all she knew was that Caspian hated queen Vanna.

A lot of folks do bad things to the ones they hate, Caspian is no different. It doesn’t make him a bad person.

To an outsider, him hitting Leah would seem cruel but Leah was merely facing the consequences of her actions. She broke a rule and was being punished accordingly. Never leave a witness because a witness would testify to Leah’s existence. Her powers would be known and the power hungry immortals would be after her.

Caspian was only trying to protect her.

Even as she stood in front of him, Leah still didn’t know why she’d spared those wolves earlier today. The moment she moved to deal the finishing blow, an invisible force kept her from completing it. If she tried explaining it, everyone would look at her as crazy.

Leah rose her head when a sigh escaped Caspian. His eyes were shut and he ran a hand over his short brown hair, a move he made when he was trying to collect his thoughts.

“Not only do they now know about your existence, you also didn’t return with the witch.” His grey eyes snapped open and he glared hard at the person behind Leah.

“My deepest apologies. She slipped away before I could get a hold of her. It’s almost like she knew we were coming after her.” Noah, Leah’s partner for the failed mission answered.

“Well she definitely knows now.” Caspian snapped. “Dammit! She’ll be even harder to track now.”

“I was able to get some information on her while I was out. Apparently she frequents a certain vacation home in the middle of a forest.” Noah stabbed her hand into a pocket of her combats and dug out a piece of paper. “This is the address. She’s likely to go there tomorrow.”

Caspian eyed the piece of paper before a flash of smile appeared on his lips. If Leah wasn’t paying close attention, she would’ve missed it.

“You’ll be in trouble if you fail again.”

“I understand.” Noah answered.

“You may both leave now, get some rest before tomorrow.”

They both bowed their heads and proceeded to leave the office.

There was silence as they both walked to their respective residences, the only noise being the sound of their heavy boots as they walked.

Leah couldn’t rid herself of the jealousy she was feeling. She worked hard, possibly even harder than Noah. It was because of her efforts that Noah was even able to get close to the witch in the first place. So why was Noah the only one to get praised?

It was always like that, the blatant favouritism annoyed Leah. What did she have to do for Caspian to approve of her?

“Goodnight.” Noah said when they finally reached the hallway where their paths split.

“Goodnight.” Leah answered back as she continued to walk.

Noah wasn’t a bad person but Leah couldn’t find it in herself to like her. Leah had worked under Caspian much longer than she had but in the short period that she’d been here, Noah had managed to garner his affection while Leah hadn’t.

She finally arrived at her room, pushed the heavy door open and slammed it with a bit more force than intended. She quickly went over to her favourite spot, the window that overlooked the ocean and plopped her arse on the sill.

Their home, an old abandoned Castle was built on the edge of a cliff and just below the cliff was the beautiful vast ocean. The water glittered as moonlight reflected off its surface. This view always managed to calm Leah down whenever she felt upset or distraught.

‘Why did I do that?’ She scolded herself running a hand through her hair.

I’ve been doing this for years so why did I hesitate? She’d killed so many times that it didn’t even faze her anymore. Her hesitation invoked Caspian’s rage and that made her feel even worse.

She reminisced the day she’d just had.