When stupid little Lottie threw a stick to throw off a monster (spoiler: it didn't work), she did not expect that it would lead her down the path of an unordinary life with a very unordinary husband.
✽ ✽ ✽
All Lottie had ever wanted was to live an o...
He had hoped it would be his old friend who responded, but no, he could tell by the rage and vengefulness embedded in that single, clipped whistle that it had to be Dawn, the she-devil of the Enforcers—the secretive, underground guild of assassins who did the dirty work for those with too much gold to line their pockets.
Once upon a time, he too was a member of the guild. He followed orders, killed named targets without question, and quietly rose up the ranks.
Competition was fierce, though he did not care. To him, the guild was the only place that took him in. The only place that celebrated the monstrosity he was and his ability to kill with brutal efficiency. So there, he stayed.
Yet his cavalier attitude towards guild competition and politics angered some, like Dawn, who strove to prove herself in a world dominated by men, and hated how easily he overtook her and other long-standing seniors of the guild without even trying.
In those days, when he lived and breathed bloodshed, Dawn was more of an annoyance than a threat. But he had not lived that life since he escaped the guild and went into hiding three years ago. Three years in which he had time to grow rusty while his former comrades and rivals potentially surpassed him in skill.
And even if Dawn still couldn't slit his throat, she could go for the next closest target... Lottie.
In a heartbeat, Cain morphed back into his wolf form and raced back for the hut, picking up the ripped shirt between his teeth on the way. He never liked creating work for Lottie, but it was unavoidable and there was something sweet and endearing about wearing something she had painstakingly stitched and mended for him—just for him.
He needed that again.
He needed their life back. A broken home could be rebuilt. If only she would wake and be well again, he would do anything to bring their old life back, as unlikely as it might be after... this.
Cain dashed back into the hut in his half-torn shirt, took a quick glance to check that Lottie was still unharmed and breathing, then slammed the shutters closed.
The only weapons he had available now were his own claws and the wooden planks in the hut. Immersed in pitch blackness, with those bare 'weapons' at the ready, he listened.
It would not take her long, for this part of the woods was close to one of the underground bases of the Enforcers and the message in her whistle was unmistakable: I am coming.
Yet he waited, and waited. Such were the games the devil played, hoping to catch him while he dozed. After two long days, sleep called to him like a siren's song to a wayward sailor.
No. He reached for Lottie's hand, small and clammy in his own. She was his anchor to this world. She was the reason he was still here today, for if she had not shown him kindness all those years ago and proven to him that there was still goodness in mankind, he might not have held on to his humanity—
Cain jolted at the slightest change in the wind and the tiniest rustle—silent to the human ear and only barely audible to his wolfish ones, right before the devil swept in.
As he expected, her greeting came in the form of a small flask lobbed through a gap in the window shutters, producing a loud shattering and a flood of smoke.
Then the door swung open with a violent bang and a barrage of needles came flying at him out of the smoke. Without the need to inspect each needle individually, he would bet his balls that they were all tipped with deadly poison.
With a few deft swipes of a wooden plank, he batted half of the needles aside and caught the other half in the wood, leaving a corpse of poison-tipped needles scattered across the floor.
Don't cheer yet, because half a second later, the deadly woman had him pinned to the ground with the sharp edge of a dagger pressed against his jugular.
"You can do better than that, Wolf." Dawn sneered down at him, her large eyes narrowed threateningly in a promise to kill. How little some things have changed in three years.
To Dawn's credit, this was the closest she had ever gotten to him, though that was perhaps why it did not cross her mind that his expertise lay in close combat.
"For you, there's no need," Cain said, pushing the tips of his claws into her ribs. He dug them a smidgen deeper to penetrate her armour, for good measure.
Dawn snarled back at him, but a soft moan from the pallet next to him drew both of their attention.
Eyes still tightly shut, Lottie murmured, "Don't... don't hurt him." Cain's heart clenched at the pain laced through her words.
"Is that..." Dawn scanned Lottie from head to toe, until she stopped on the scarred cheek. Her eyes widened a fraction.
"She needs help," Cain said, searching Dawn's eyes for a speck of sympathy. There was none, but still he withdrew his claws in his extension of an olive branch. He was the one in desperate need of help.
Dawn, however, was the blood-thirsty sort, even for assassins' standards. She pressed her dagger point into the hollow of his throat, drawing a thin trickle of blood.
"You left us, you traitor," she spat. "Tell me why I shouldn't kill you right now."
"Save her, and I'll owe you a blood debt."
"Is that so..." Dawn mused, her lips stretching into a sly smile. "A blood debt must be paid by blood, Wolf. A lot of blood." She practically salivated.
It was a steep price she asked for. it was precisely the reason he had extricated himself from the guild years ago. Never make a deal with the devil, they said, but what option was there when there were no other options?
"Cain..." Lottie whimpered, keeping him in her thoughts even while she was delirious with one foot through the doorstep of hell.
She had saved him once. He would save her too, even if he would lose everything in the process.
"Deal."
And the devil cackled.
Word count: 1,056
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
A/N: Different graphic? Yeah. Welcome to Part 2 of this story. We've seen her people. Now we're gonna see his. Who's gonna be the worse of two evils? 👀
