Black Rose (Rose Kisses #1)

7

Isaline Winter

Rewritten/Edited: 05/10/2019 at 5:40am

*****

I wasn't sure when the tradition began but as soon as it had started, it stuck.

When I started out as an Assassin, I wanted all of the attention that came with it. I wanted to strike fear into the very core of everyone I came across. I wanted to be  the monster that they told their children about.

My first couple of kills started out horribly. I was messy and careless, leaving evidence where there should've been none and constantly switching up my MO. Assassins were a fear tactic, the embodiment of your worst nightmares personified. The whole point was to send a message of warning to both the target and the audience watching. Assassination almost always had the same message: This is what happens when fucking with the King and Queen. This is why you don't fuck with the King and Queen.

Assassinations came in all different forms for all different reasons. There were set methods to kill according to the crime but rarely did any of us actually abide by those ways. Each Assassin learns to perfect their craft from an early age and each Assassin learns to leave their own mark.

Winter's were considered to be top-tier Assassins. We were the best of the best, the strongest of the strong. Our line was forged directly from the blood, sweat, and tears of Michael Drake Winter, the Assassin who started it all, and we were expected to live up to the name like it was our only purpose in life. To be a Winter was to be an omen.

And so an omen I became.

At the age of five, I discovered my affinity for death. I was naturally gifted in the skill of killing and rather than scare most parents like it should have, it excited my father. If he couldn't have a son, he might as well have his own version of the perfect Assassin.

There were certain perks from my mother's bloodline that rendered me immune to certain weakness of the human body like sickness. Being an Assassin also added to the perks because essentially, we were upgraded humans. We were faster, stronger, smarter. We could do things that humans couldn't and wouldn't do.

I, on the other hand, could do more.

When I was six, I killed my first victim by stabbing her through heart from her rib cage in a single flick of the wrist. She was ten and she'd been my training partner since I could walk. I was devastated but my father was ecstatic. He'd only shown me the move once and I had been able to execute it perfectly.

As the years went on, my skills only grew. My skill rivaled that of my parents but my father was never satisfied. I was messy and careless. I wasted my talents on pure recklessness. The first few years of my Assassin-hood were dominated with gore. I tore my victims to shreds and scattered their remains across the country for everyone and anyone to see. Sometimes I slashed big W's into their chests just to get a kick out of letting everyone know just who had done the deed.
At some point, the Council of Assassins had deemed me unworthy and unfit to be an Assassin, let alone a Winter. My methods were in disarray and I was too wild to be tamed. They told my father that if I didn't clean my act up, I'd never be given the Assassin title.

I'd be a killer.

After the death of my parents, I came into adulthood and earned the Assassin title. I became the most feared Assassin because I liked to play with my food. My kills could be dragged out for as long two to three months because there was nothing more horrifying than knowing that death was coming for you and you couldn't run fast enough to escape her. I became more than just an Assassin. I became the end, the harbinger of death. I became the things that go bump in the night, the chill that fills your veins as your heart begins to pound with fear. I became everything my father wanted and so much more for where black roses grew, the Black Rose would follow.

*****
filler chapter