Page 2 of Empowering the Wolf's Heart

For it was that werewolf that killed him.

PART ONE

Change Is Painful

TO GAIN YOUR WINGS, YOU MUST FIRST ENTER YOUR CHRYSALIS.

CHAPTER 1

Curo

ALIA

TEN YEARS LATER

Getting your head ground into dirt, rock, and unidentifiable objects that looked like cacao nibs but smelled worse than a stable was not my idea of fun.

It all started with the scent of a werewolf. We Reds trained for years to enhance our senses to be the best killers. We would never outmatch a werewolf’s senses, but if we could sniff out a werewolf before they even noticed we were human? Huge advantage when werewolves were stronger, faster, and overall had the constitution of a dragon.

My ear scraped a rock, drawing blood, and I hissed in a breath. “What are you doing here, Red?”

The freakin’ dolt. My grasping fingers reached the blade resting in my boot—that twisting and pulling while getting my head ground into the dirt by the guy above me was an act of contortion—and drove it behind me.

The man hopped back. I twisted around, spitting out dirt and the odd, crunchy rock. “Baiting werewolves?” I said, casually spinning my dagger while wiping my chin on my shoulder.

Baiting was something I abhorred. Personally, I wouldn’t lay out a scent to bring a werewolf running to protect their territory just to kill it. But the more pelts you brought in, the quicker you rose in the ranks, which were the First through Two Hundred and Fiftieth Blades. I was Second Blade. Despite my aversion to baiting I still killed my fair share of magical creatures.

The guy stood from his crouch, his blonde hair messy from ambushing me. His eyes brightened and his smirk was downright heart-throbbing, if you were you into self-absorbed jerks.

“Aren’t you on a mission?” Brandt, the Third Blade, said, his smirk growing.

“Aren’t you supposed to be hunting unicorns?” A hint of bitterness colored my voice. He’d received the mission I liked; unicorns were fun to hunt. Most times we were dispatched because a unicorn had eaten a villager or some such. It was black and white: they were evil.

Not all of us,my bond whispered in my mind.

Fine, notallof you are evil. Some are just semi-evil,I replied to her in my brain. She snorted, and I wondered if the brain could get an infection from unicorn snot.

While most unicorns were evil, other forms of magic… Well, I’d seen a mage heal a woman who would’ve died in childbirth. I’ve seen weather mages stop a massive tsunami off the coast of Verbi, a seaside town thirty miles east of the capital of Mongolia, where I was currently on a mission.

Brandt was given the mission of hunting unicorns. They gave me the mission of assassinating the assassin Hood.

Great idea, right?

Grandma said this was how I would cement my bid as heir since I’d refused baiting. That was the only reason I didn’t turn it down; I didn’t enjoy killing. It was a simple thing to take a life physically, but looking into someone or something’s eyes as itpassed—it stole a portion of your soul. Not to mention each one felt like a scalpel taken to my innards because of my so-called Gift.

I had trained since birth to replace my grandma as matriarch of the tribe of Reds, the assassins who protected humans by destroying magic. That was my mission, to lead them after Grandma retires. But more than that, I wanted to make my family proud and bring them honor after my failure resulted in my grandfather’s death. And there was another thing… something that was changing inside me.

“Hood’s a ghost. You may as well give up now,” Brandt said.

“Lay off it, Brandt. She’s the best of us. If anyone can get that Sixth forsaken creature, it’s Curo.”

My cheeks grew slightly red at the mention of my nickname. “Thanks, Graham,” I said, my voice low.

Graham stepped up beside Brandt, his smile reaching his eyes. “Nothing but the best goes after the best,” he said with a wink.

Brandt rolled his eyes. “You know she isn’t the best, dude. She’s good, yeah. But Hilda can beat our butts any day of the week. Why doesn’tshego after Hood?”

Graham stared at Brandt as if he’d grown a second head. I checked my blades, making sure each one came out of their sheaths with gentle pressure. “Hilda is six months pregnant,” I said blithely.

---