The Alpha Assassin novel Chapter 82

I awoke to a sky that was turning to dusk. I felt depleted, but in a way that I could live with. My muscles ached, and I could not cry anymore if I tried. Putting them to rest was heartwrenching but incredibly healing, more than I could have thought. It was an honor I did not know I would get to bestow on them. 

After they were buried, few words were exchanged between us all, it was a harrowing experience even for those that did not know them personally. A few other Alpha and Lunas had shown, probably to satiate their curiosity. Some stayed, but I did not know who. I could not fault those who could not stomach or accept what they saw.

I had no words to express my gratitude to those who stayed, and I was too tired to try. I would always be indebted to them, and one day I would start to repay that. 

Ezra pulled me against him and I settled against his chest, burying my face into it. It was so strange being able to spend time with him and not hiding, it did not feel real, I wondered if it ever would. 

“What’s on the agenda?” he asked, kissing my hair.

“I was going to ask you,” I grumbled.

He chuckled, and it rumbled through his chest. I smiled into him and traced my fingers up and down his sides. His body was honed, lethal, and unsurprisingly etched with white scars. He hummed in approval and lay his head back as I traced his body, realizing there was so much I did not know about him, but I knew that it did not matter.

I had already chosen him and loved him for who he was now. I knew the person he intended to be, and I knew his past did not define him. Nor would I judge him for any part of it, even if I had a leg to stand on.

The same logic you should use on yourself - Aksala said.

Sure, sure - I rolled my eyes.

My fingers traced over a raised smooth part of his skin and he stilled, his demeanor changed completely. I stopped but did not pull back as I raised my head and looked at him. His eyes were closed, but not in a peaceful way.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked. 

He breathed through his nose and blinked open his eyes. “It’s a story I’ve told before, not much of a story, really.” He paused, his brows tugging together. “Every time I saw it before it was a source of anger, it reminded me of my hatred. I loved seeing it because of that, it helped me, it helped us, separate from him.” 

“The Silent Assassin?” I asked.

He nodded slightly. “He raised me.” His eyes were vacant. 

“He didn’t truly raise me, raise us, but he was the closest thing we had to…” He struggled for the words, the word. “I guess to any sort of caregiver. There were others, of course, that helped out, especially with the young ones, but not ones that were allowed to stay with us for long.”

His features curled into a terrifying brand of disgust. If I had not known him, I would have run, recoiled at what his expression held, what it promised. 

“Looking back now I realize how calculated, how brilliant that move was. We could not get attached to anyone bar him.” His voice was made of gravestones and of death, but there was hurt under it, firey and burning.

I placed my hand on his arm, it vibrated under my fingers, but started to calm as I rubbed my hand up and down his honed muscles. 

“The only affection I knew had to be earned, and it was still fleeting then.” He swallowed. “My brothers and I—we were pitted against each other. It was strategic really.” His jaw hardened, and I grabbed one of his hands, tracing my fingers up and down the back of it.

“We formed a bond later, even though he did everything to stop that. It was the first time I learned what friendship was. What unconditional love was.” He blinked at the ceiling. “That was about ten years of history there.” He laughed once—it was hollow, it rang out of him and through the room.

I squeezed his hand tighter as my throat constricted.

“My brothers and I eventually formed a plan to extract us from him, but it was not that easy. We had to remove him, or else we knew we would never be free,” he admitted. 

“This scar.” He shifted to sit up and pointed at it. I could not make it out what it was, what it was meant to be. “It was a brand from our master, given to us when we were children. I was so young I had no other memories from that year, or the year after, besides this.”

I stopped breathing.

Half of his lips tugged up, but it was empty, and wicked, and unlike him. “We struggled against the pain.” His teeth clenched. “As we grew, the brand contorted with our changing bodies.”

“Ezra,” I breathed, squeezing his hand I had re-taken.

He blinked a few times, and finally looked at me before he continued his story I was unsure if anyone else had heard in this detail. I was honored but more than anything I wanted to comfort him, comfort the boy he had been, the one he was never allowed to be.

“Now, it is a reminder. Of what we have done. But there is now remorse when I see it that took hold after we realized we were actually free. I wasn’t expecting a part of me to still be trapped.”

I moved his hand to my other and let my fingers hover over the scar he had been forced to take as only a child. “Trapped?” I asked, lightly tracing it. 

He closed his eyes but did not tense. “Trying to figure out why part of me is left back there—with him. The part of me that fought for affection, that did not understand it could be given willingly, but only earned.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath through my nose, trying to calm my own torrent of emotions thinking about the boy he had been and the boy he still was. One that had to fight for affection. 

It was cruel, wicked, and heartless, and I wanted nothing more than to show him he was worthy.

I did not know how I could show him he was worthy just for being him, just for existing. It made me feel even more unworthy of him, but we had gotten past that, even if that thought still nagged at me.

You are both worthy of each other, you are worthy of everything just for being - Aksala reminded me - You do not have to earn love or affection from those worth it - she repeated the thoughts I had about Ezra.

You’re right - I replied. 

So I traced his scars, his body that was honed to kill, forced to. 

I traced his scars on the outside hoping that it would translate to the scars he held within. 

“I was worried I would not know how to be affectionate,” he admitted. “The love I feel for my brothers helped me figure out what true affection could be. But when I met you, that was different. Terrifying.”