I Kill Killers

by S.T. Ashman

The inspiration for this book came from women history tried to erase. One of them is Jean de Clisson, the Lioness of Brittany. In the 1300s, after her beloved husband Olivier IV, a rare love match in an age of arranged marriages, was betrayed and executed by the French king, Jean’s heartbreak hardened into fury. She sold her lands and gathered loyal men, striking down the nobles who had conspired against him and burning their homes to the ground, leaving survivors to spread her warning. Then she took her fight to the sea. With black ships and blood red sails, she hunted the king’s vessels for more than a decade, sinking his wealth, choking his trade, and turning the crown into a public embarrassment. Though legend says she always left one witness alive to tell the tale, she was never captured. Jean’s story, fierce and relentless and born from love and loss, reminds us that some of the greatest revenge stories began long before fiction gave them a voice.

on most days, I simply felt nothing—as if my inner world was a merciless desert devoid of even the slightest hint of life. Feeling that warm flicker inside me meant everything. Eventually I realized what it was: It was hope.

didn’t address his own looks—or more the lack of them when compared to his pictures. Many of his kind were like this. Manipulative, dishonest, and yet with an air of entitlement, always prepared with an excuse to justify their self-serving actions.

So.... Men

“It’s amusing that most of your kind share the same traits. Not one of you keeps going when I laugh. You need the screaming to feel powerful, don’t you? But the truth is, there’s nothing powerful about you.”

“You and I are not the same. You kill people. I…I kill killers.”

He had to see her. His villain. His nightmare. His salvation. His doom. His promise of a new beginning or worthy end.