From the Ashes

Chapter 1

Walking the shadows of the city, no one sees me. To the world I am a shadow, if someone does notice me they take a double take and look again but by time they look again I am gone. Most put it up to a trick of their eyesight, but some guess correctly, that it was nix they say slinking like a cat in the shadows.

I watch the city that was once gonna be my people but now not as a princess but as a protector, times have not been kind the the people and the city itself, the new head family are doing what they can but the murders did a lot of damage in the time they were in charge, the reason they was not head family to begin with.

The new scourge being what we are fighting now, to stop the unknown force either pushing young women to kill themselves or being killed.

Walking into homebase I am greeted with stern nods and head bows as I walk past fellow assassins in the common areas, still in my gear no one on this level knows who I am, safer for me if they all think I am just Nix, the nightmare of their dreams.

It's been busy lately, something has sparked a spate of dark dealings and a feeling of dread going through the underbelly above us, so we have been containing it and taking jobs to keep the level of the city.

Walking through the air tight transfer between the common area to the higher level using my dna sign in and fingerprint, which is changed from time to time. All I hear is Lucian shouting and chewing someone out by the sounds of it, walking to the com centre. I lean on the frame and watch my trainer, who has still not aged a day since when I was fourteen, where I am now a deadly woman and not the young girl I once was. Rumour was that Lucian was once a prince in the old days and he had royally pissed off a witch who cursed him to live forever till he meets his true mate and only then if she or he, no judgement here, accepts him and takes his mark. If that does not happen he will have to wait years again for her to reincarnate , blaugh blaugh blaugh. Bunch of crap really, fated mates are a fairytale mothers tell their daughters to make them wait for adulthood instead of jumping at the first boy that winks at them.

"What the ever loving fuck do you mean another prospect girl for them fuckers has gone and fucking died?" Lucian Swearing like this is showing just how pissed off he is.

"I,I, I don't know Sir!" the young but seasoned assassin in front of Lucian stammered out as he shook in fear, I know this boy, he is new but well trained and rose fast in the levels here. "She, she urm turned up naked in the dungeons with her neck snapped right round, she was Prince Hughs first choice of the woman."

"Fuck, Bugger and twatting motherfucker!" Lucian growled out low. "How many is that now!"

"That would be the fourth woman now, Lucy!" I answered as I walked fully into the room, undoing my mask and hair binding, Shaking out my long white blonde hair till it flowed down past my shoulders. Over the years my footsteps have become silent from the training, making Lucy jump slightly.

"Oh for fucks sakes, someone put a bell on her fucking neck when she comes home!" Lucy growls at the room, some people on the computers around the room snigger at the thought of someone putting a bell on me, and living to tell the tale. "And stop calling me fucking Lucy!"

"Oh come on Lucy you know you like it when I call you that!" I pout at him, causing him to frown at me.

"God save me from Fucking woman!" shaking his head, turning back to the young assassin. "Go dig up more info on the fucking deaths of yet another innocent!"

As the guy scuttled away, Lucy turned to me and nodded for me to follow him. Following I think back to all the years of being with this man who has become my de facto father figure, and find that I can't imagine a future without him around.

"What did you find out from your hunt?" Lucy asked as we entered his office, closing the door behind me.

"Hired thugs, they are hiring thugs to kill women that the princes get close to. No idea why!" I answer as I wander to his fish tank and look at the many colourful fish in it. "This one got lucky the woman had left the grounds unguided to go to her favourite hairdresser apparently!"

"Apparently?"

"mm , yep. Odd thing to do when they have an in-house hairdresser and makeup people in that palace they have made." I say to Lucy as I turn to him. "My take from what I gathered and from what the thug let free, the woman had a lover on the outside of the competition!"

"Not a competition!" Lucy said offhandedly as he sat at his desk. "It's a wife scenting ceremony to find mates!"

"Not that myth, the women get trussed up and prodded and poked till they look nothing like themselves to try to win a prince's hand in marriage. Most are pushed like that young woman who committed suicide, into joining by their parents in hopes of becoming royalty by association." I all but growl.

"Well yes many of the young women are pushed by their parents but it has worked in the past, your parents met this way!" I flinch at his words, thinking about my parents hurts to this day. " But we digress, who is doing this and to what end?"

"That I have not been able to ascertain!" I say as I lean on his desk. " I can go hunting again tonight, but it's probably not gonna help, we really need to get inside and see what's going on!"

"That's true, from out here we just see what they want us to see!" Lucy looks deep in thought, that's scary.

"I could go through the tunnels, they should still be working!" I ponder, thinking of breaking back into my family home, which is now the palace to the new head family.

"No, too risky and not deep enough!" Lucy says with a dark gleam in his eyes. "We need to go deeper and more in depth. We need to put someone on the inside, they'll be adding new women to the pool soon.!"

"That's a great idea, send a siren in!" I think this may be a great plan.

"No, they'd smell a siren a mile off, they want good little wolf brides!" Lucy says as he looks me deep in my eyes.

"Then who do you suggest we send in then?" I can not think of a female wolf assassin that could pull this off.

Lucy looks at me and with an evil smirk on his face he says the word I dreaded him saying as it clicked in my brain what he was thinking "you!"