Alya
Charm him? Me? Alya Corginei? And charm?
The thought alone made me scoff loud enough to turn a few guards' heads. Me, charming someone? That was as likely as Siege suddenly deciding I was worthy of being his daughter.
I had never needed charm, never had a reason to use it. The only men I had ever come into contact with were either my enemies or my training partners and neither of those situations required flirting. It was always blood, bone, and battle. No softness. No warmth. And certainly no seduction.
The last time a man had looked at me with anything other than hostility, his body had been found three days later. Face unrecognizable. Nose gone. Skin sunken and gray. So no, charming someone wasn't exactly on my skill set. Not when my very existence meant a death sentence to anyone who lingered too long in my presence. Yeah. I wasn't exactly winning Miss Congeniality anytime soon.
And yet, here I was, ordered to gain the trust of Wan Isamu, the illegitimate son of a powerful crime lord, as if I were some honey-tongued vixen instead of a trained killer. I ran a hand through my tangled hair in frustration, my fingers tightening around the crumpled photograph in my other hand.
Dark eyes. Sharpened features. A scowl that spoke of a lifetime of distrust.
Great.
I squinted, bringing the photo closer to my face, but the dim light around the warehouse made it impossible to make out any more details. Not that it mattered. I would be seeing him soon enough.
"Why does Siege need you?"
The sneering voice cut through my thoughts, dragging me back to the present.
Hule.
Of course, it was him.
I forced myself to keep walking, my gaze fixed ahead toward the dense treeline bordering the warehouse. The wind howled through the trees, whipping against my wounds beneath my clothes, but the sting was nothing compared to the irritation clawing at me.
Hule wasn't finished. He stepped in front of me, blocking my path, ducking slightly to meet my gaze. His golden hair was messy, strands falling into his sharp eyes that held that same insufferable smugness as he stepped in front of me, pushing his hair back impatiently from his face, blocking my view.
"Why are you here?" he asked again, this time with more demand.
"I would ask you the same thing." I smiled sweetly, though the urge to claw his smug face off was overwhelming.
His lips curved slightly, amused. "Wrong question."
I scowled.
"Where else would I be if not here?"
His arrogance was suffocating. I opened my mouth to snap at him, to cut him down with words the way he had cut me down in the ring countless times, "you—
BOOM.
The world shattered.
A violent, concussive force slammed into us, sending us both hurtling backward.
I hit the ground hard, the impact rattling through my bones, knocking the air from my lungs. The world blurred for a moment, my ears ringing, the taste of dust and blood thick on my tongue. Smoke slithered through the air, curling like dark fingers against the night sky. But what caught my attention was the explosion. It bloomed. A massive, roaring inferno swallowed the warehouse whole, a monstrous blaze of reds, oranges, and golds licking the sky like it was hungry. For a moment, I forgot about the pain. Forgot about the mission. Forgot about everything except the way the fire moved. It was alive. Writhing, devouring, consuming. Heat slammed into me, a wave of suffocating intensity that burned against my skin. I pushed myself up onto my elbows, transfixed by the destruction. I would have been dead, ripped to pieces by the rage of the explosion if I lingered inside the warehouse long enough.
A hand grabbed my arm, yanking me upright. The haze of awe shattered, reality snapping back into focus as I met Hule's gaze.
"We need to go!" he barked.
His voice was nearly drowned out by the chaos of the pounding footsteps, the panicked shouts, the metallic clatter of weapons being drawn for any threats. And they were right. Bullets tore through the night like thunder, a deadly rhythm of destruction. The guards fired back, their silhouettes barely visible through the thick smoke. Hule dragged me to the ground again as a fresh rain of bullets shredded through the air, hitting metal, shattering glass, piercing bodies. The scent of gunpowder, smoke, and blood mixed together into something almost nauseatingly familiar.
A gun was shoved into my hands.
"Focus!"