Liam

I expected it, saw the intention in his gaze. He thinks I’m one of the hunters. Yet, I am so much more lethal. I don’t need to band with

men to make a kingdom fall. I’m not called the King’s Executioner for nothing. Nobody crosses me and lives to speak about it, and if this young boy believes he will be my downfall, he is surely mistaken. I rock back on my heels, the blade barely grazing my neck as my hand seizes his. His eyes fly open. I then stand, and the boy kicks and thrashes as he dangles from one arm.

“Drop the knife,” I tell him. He refuses, so I shake the wrist I am holding. The boy cries out and tries to kick me, but his little legs don’t match the length of my arms. Sighing, I set him on his feet. He tries to pull away from me, but I can tell this kid wants blood. I can see the gleam of revenge in his eyes that only a brutal loss can bring. He wants them to pay, and nothing I say will convince the boy I am not one of them; he’s mad with his own conviction. So instead, I yank on him, pressing his blade above my heart. The tip pierces my skin, and I press deeper.

“You want to kill me? Do it... but look me in the eye when you do.” The boy looks at me and grits his teeth. I hold his gaze until his eyes start to turn teary. The next second, I hear the creak of a floorboard. The boy’s eyes dart over my shoulder, and I see a figure standing in the doorway reflected in his hazel eyes. Swiftly, I turn, pulling out my blade and tossing it. It hits the man straight between the eyes before he can take another step.

I growl, rising to my feet, and strode over to find it is a hunter. Some stragglers were late for the party they hosted, coming to see if there were any survivors. “Is he dead?” the boy asks.

“I think so...I can’t be sure. The brain matter spilling from his ears obscures my view,” I tell him, and the boy stops beside me. He stares down at the man and immediately vomits.

“You killed that man, yet seeing him dead makes you puke?” I question, and he wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. “I didn’t have to see his face,” he says, pointing at the man he killed.

“Ah.. see, now that is the difference, boy. Killing someone without seeing them is one thing. All you see is a target. But staring them in the eye is another. Because you watch their life flash before theirs. And let me tell you... There is no greater fear than knowing you’re going to die.”

I pull the boy’s blade from my chest and pass it on to him. He shakes his head. “I thought you were a stone-cold killer?” I ask him. He looks at the man dead on the floor behind me and then at me. “But you’ll make me look you in the eye,” he tells me, and I smirk.

“Come on, we need to leave in case any more come,” I tell him, and I leave out the door. A second later, he rushes out behind me, his hand slipping into mine. I stare down at his hand, yet the boy’s gaze is on the doorway that leads to the living room.

“They’re dead, aren’t they?” he asks.

“Not if we pretend,” I tell him, scooping him up. He looks at me, his face smeared with blood.

“Close your eyes and don’t open them,” I tell him, and he does. I step into the room with his dead relatives, just to hear another sound of a commotion when four men enter the house, their distinct voices reaching me instantly.

“I need to set you down, but you be a good boy and put your fingers in your ears and keep those eyes closed. You’ve seen enough death today. You don’t need to meet the reaper,” I whisper, and he stuffs his fingers in his ears. I stand him on the kitchen counter as the men fan out.

Pulling my blades, one in each hand, I move toward them. “Ladies, shall we dance?” I ask them as I toss the first blade.

The doe-eyed child I found among the massacre sits still as a statue on his cot by the fire. He is a timid thing. Usually, I would walk away and let the king’s warriors handle the children, the look on his face when I

found him in the closet, knife in his shaking hand, I knew I was not leaving without him. In spite of his fear, he yielded the blade. Eyes that saw too much stared back at me. At first, I saw a scared boy. Then I saw a warrior when he tried to cut my throat.

“Ah, ah, not that one,, boy, that is not water,” I tell him, reaching for the flask just as he’s about to take a sip. For four days, I have been stuck with the child whose name he wouldn’t give, so ‘boy’, it is. He stares out the window of the hotel we are in. I was waiting for Damian to come back for us. I’d wandered off when I saw the smoke, and now I am stuck with the kid. Curiosity killed the cat, Liam. You should know better by now.

“Here,” I offer him a leather bottle, and he takes it. He drinks greedily, as if he hasn’t had a sip of water in weeks. I eye him as I sip my flask. Children, I’ve always found fascinating, but not in a creepy way. I wasn’t fucked in the head. But their resilience and their ability to adapt and morph to whatever the situation demands have always amazed me.

“Why can’t I drink from that one?” he asks curiously.

“This is not for boys,” I simply tell him. Sometimes, I wonder if it is even for men. The shit tastes like the ass of a buck that sweltered in the sun for days before its innards exploded.

“But you drink it,” he says, resting his chin on his hand and peering out at the street below.

This kid is too inquisitive for his own good.

“It helps me rest,” I say, moving toward the fireplace. I toss a log into it before retaking my seat.

“But you haven’t slept,” the boy tells me.

“Not all nightmares exist in the realm of sleep. Some live in our waking minds. Up here, they walk alongside us as reminders of our sins.” I tap my head, and his brows furrow, and his tiny nose crinkles.

“Like the bad guys, do they scare you, too?” he asks. I chuckle. If only he knew the monster he spent the last few days following.

Looking at the crackling wood in the fire, I murmur, “Man doesn’t scare me.”

“I see the man who killed my brother in my dreams. He scares me,” the boy exhales, and my eyes dart to him. “Is he in your dreams, too?”

I shake my head, and he turns his inquisitive gaze to me.

Thick dark locks fall in eyes that once would have sparkled with innocence but are now void. I wonder briefly if mine share the same dark hollowness he emanates now.

“Then who stars in your nightmares?” he asks.

“I do, now lay down and get to sleep,” I tell him. He huffs but curls into a ball before quickly turning back to turn the lantern off by the window, sending us into darkness except for the fire’s orange light.

“Liam?” he asks, and I sigh. The kid barely spoke for the first few days, and today he won’t be quiet.

“Yes, boy?”

He says nothing when I hear his little feet plodding on the creaking wooden floor. He hands me his bear, which has one eye missing and an ear.

“Boss helps me sleep. Maybe he will help you,” he tells me, dropping it onto my lap. My eyes focus on the ugly thing, then he scampers off back to his cot.

Shaking my head, I tuck it under my arm, hoping he will sleep. Tomorrow I will be rid of him. Clarice would take care of him. Then I could go back and hunt the men who killed his family. He sits up, reaching for the lantern again.

“Boy, I said sleep. That means shut those eyes and be quiet,” I snap at him. He quickly falls back down, smart. I undo the cap on my flask, taking a swig, when I see his eyes peeking out from under the blanket.

I growl. He is testing my patience, something I seem to have less and less of these days. “What is it now, boy?”

“My name is not boy,” he says, and my eyebrows raise at his tone. “It’s Dustin,” he sneers before rolling over. I smirk.

“Dustin, it is, then,” I whisper.

Liam

She is a traitor! Speak. You will confess or die!” my father snarls at her, gripping the back of my neck and pressing my face so it hovers just above hers.

“She said she didn’t do it!” I plead with my father, not wanting to kill her. Her fearful eyes peer back at me, her blood spilling over the sides of the table. It’s all I can smell in the castle basement.

She is accused of selling out the Valkyrie King and Queen to the hunters. Yet somehow, it’s hard to fathom she would. She was a friend of the queen, a servant in the castle, and a loyal one, from what I’ve seen. Even Clarice refuses to believe she would be capable of doing such a thing.

“Admit it! Admit what you did! You killed King Valor and Queen Clarissa Valkyrie!” he says, shoving me.

I stumble, barely catching myself on the wooden bench. The woman’s arms are strapped to the rack my father made. The rack torture device was an apparatus consisting of a wooden frame. However, my father improvised when making his own. Instead of using typical ropes and chains, he used razor wire; the wire wrapped up each of her legs to just above the knee, and each arm to the elbow, effectively skinning his victims under the pressure. It was a cruel and painful way of extracting a confession, slowly stretching the limbs and skinning them alive at the same time.

My father was the King’s Executioner; he was, for a time, King Layson’s Beta. But my father’s taste for blood and vengeance proved more useful in other ways, so he became the King’s Executioner. A hunter in his own right. One of her arms is now broken, and the wire cutting into her flesh holds it at an odd angle so it can’t heal. Her foot is twisted around the wrong way, the razor wire strangling the limb, the razors cutting into bone. Yet still, she will not admit fault.

“No...no...it wasn’t me. I swear to you,” she begs, and my father backhands her. Her face whips to the side, causing her lip to burst open and bleed.

“Lies!” my father curses, moving toward the end of the table to her broken ankle. He flicks the barbed wire around it, and she cries out, begging and pleading with him not to. I feel sick to my stomach. The only thing unmarred is her face, her tear-filled green eyes peering up at my father, begging him to believe her. He ignores her pleas, stepping up to the lever and twisting it. Her screams are deafening, and I use my hands to cover my ears, unable to handle the sound.

When her screams die down, I feel my father’s hand whack me up the back of the head. “Finish her. It’s about time you became a man,” he growls, thrusting a knife at me. My hand shakes as my fingers wrap around the bone handle. I try to pass it back to him, but he grips my hand punishingly.

“Your choice, son. The blade, or you pull her apart. Which is it?” he sneers. I swallow the bile that rises in my throat when he shoves me forward. I feel a sharp pain in my hip as I collide with the table. The knife slices through my hip. I grit my teeth, knowing it’s best not to show weakness to my father. He loves nothing more than to exploit it.

“Get on with it,” he snarls, and I turn slowly to stare down at the woman on the rack. Her eyes stare back at me, almost as if she is pleading with me to end her rather than leave her to my father, and his torture. Lifting the blade, she inhales deeply, her eyes on the knife. She exhales deeply as her eyes flit toward me.

“Mr. Liam.” The room shakes around me.

“Mr. Liam. Wake up!” I look around the dungeon and see my father flicker oddly.

“Dad?”

“Mr. Liam!”

I wake with a jolt. My hands clutch the leather lounge chair, and I peer around my surroundings, trying to figure out where I am when my gaze falls on the boy.

He stares at me with wide eyes. Just then, I hear a rhythmic bang on the door that sounds like it had been going on long before I woke up. Dustin’s eyes move over my shoulder, so I turn to look through the stained glass panel to see someone standing at the door. Pushing off the couch, I stride over and rip it open, finding Damian standing impatiently at the door.

“Fuck sake, Liam, I’ve been out here for ten minutes!” he snarls at me. “Morning to you, too. If you want to go back out, I’ll leave you out

there for another ten minutes,” I tell him, kicking the door shut as he strolls into the small room. He growls at me before moving toward Dustin, who backs up, staring wide-eyed at the man.

“This is the kid?” Damian asks.

“Na, another one I found. The other one was whiny, so got rid of him and kidnapped this one off the street,” I tell him, then roll my eyes.

“I can’t believe I have to sit in a car with you the entire way home,” Damian snarls, baring his canines at me.

“Watch it, pretty boy. You wouldn’t want me to damage that pretty face on you. It’s your only asset. Your personality ain’t gonna win you any ladies,” I warn him.

Damian is still pissy at me for chucking in the trials for King Kyson’s Royal Guard. I had him, and would have beaten him by a good hundred meters, but fuck having that kind of responsibility. Damian can be the king’s little lap dog; I ain’t got time to deal with royal tantrums. That is all his.

“You’re part of the King’s Guard...” Dustin says, staring wide-eyed at the royal blue Valkyrie emblem on Damian’s vest. His little heart is racing a mile a minute. Damian turns back and looks at him. Only for Dustin to kick him in the nuts.

Damian grunts, dropping to the ground on one knee, like a sack of potatoes. I would have laughed, but the brat races for the door. I step into his path, and he stops, glances around, and spots an open window. It’s in that split second I know he’s gonna leap out of it.

Dustin runs for the window, and I sigh. His tiny legs run quickly. Yet in two beats, I grab his ankle just as he throws himself out the window. He

squeals, when instead of jumping, he is suddenly falling head-first to the ground below. He hits the side of the building with a thud.

People in the street stop to see the commotion of the flailing boy who just shrieked loud enough to wake the entire neighborhood. A woman stops with her hand on her heart as he spits a very colorful display of words at me.

“Nevermind, love. Just airing out the brat,” I call out to her.

I yank him back inside the window, holding him up by one foot. Damian clutches his family jewels, glaring daggers at the boy as he gets back to his feet.

He snarls, stomping aggressively toward us. “Little shit, I should kick you up the damn ass for such behavior!” he snaps. Dustin swings wildly and blindly. I must say the boy has quite the vocabulary; he could teach me a few new words.

“I’m not going. You can’t make me!” he spits at Damian. Damian and I share a look, wondering what he is on about.

“Going where?” Damian demands.

“To the king. I am not being chopped up into little pieces by the King’s Executioner and eaten!” Damian scoffs, then laughs a deep, throaty laugh. He folds his arms across his chest. Well, that is a new one; I can actually say I haven’t heard this rumor. I’ve heard many, but never any quite this fascinating. I’m intrigued. But now I have a couple of questions: Did I cook whoever I ate, or did I go full cannibal and just take a bite?

“Don’t laugh at me! We’ve all heard the rumors. No one who is brought before the king leaves!” Dustin states.

“Right, is that so?” Damian asks, raising an eyebrow at me. “Yes, he killed my cousin!” the boy declares.

“The executioner did?” I ask curiously. Damian smirks.

“Yes, my brother told me! He said papa took him to the King’s Executioner for shooting Mrs. Pattie’s ducks, and the executioner ate him! So I am not going!” Dustin screeches.

“And how old is this cousin of yours?” I question, and Damian tries not to laugh at the boy. Dustin silently counts his fingers.

“Nine!” he declares, and I scoff. Wow, I am a kiddie gobbler, apparently. Rumors don’t bother me, but they should at least be accurate.

“Did you kill any kids recently, Liam?” Damian questions.

“Not that I know of. I will have to check my little black executioner book when I get home,” I tell him. Dustin pauses his thrashing and peers up at me. I tilt my head, watching him, and he squints his eyes and purses his lips, about to say something, when I pull the neck of my shirt down revealing the Valkyrie emblem burned into my right pec.

Just like Damian’s emblazoned shield shows he’s part of the King’s Royal Guard and the king’s second in command, mine shows I am also part of the King’s Guard, but one of his assassins. Only two of us have this added to our shields: myself and my only real friend, Gannon.

“He must not have been very tasty. I don’t recall eating a nine-year-old, but if your brother said it, it must be true,” I tell him.

“You’re the executioner?” Dustin asks.

“Yep! So can we get breakfast now? I’m starving for nine-year-old blood, but since I have no nine-year-olds around, I guess you’ll do,” I tell him, tossing him on the couch.