Chapter 5

• Mack's P.O.V.
• After Maleah has disappeared into the house, it only takes a moment before Diego tells Alpha Bradley they are free to go, and he doesn’t forget to mention that those were Maleah’s exact words.
• "Your Mate’s papers are signed, and her file has been retrieved from the archive. You can get them in the Alpha office. After that, make sure you leave the territory immediately," I say as I look at Alpha Bradley.
• The Warriors follow them toward the Pack-house, and once I am satisfied with the distance between them and the house, I turn to Diego.
• "Dinner on the Alpha floor tonight, and bring Maleah with you. No excuses," I say, but the look in his eyes tells me he is as surprised as the rest of us.
• I walk back to the Pack-house deep in thought, taking my time getting back there, still in awe at Maleah’s strong aura.
• The moment I step into the office, I see our former leadership sitting around, and the current leadership is staring at me.
• "Okay, why did Alpha Bradley look as if someone kicked his ass?" my Dad asks, and everyone chuckles. I grab a bottle of water from the small fridge in the office and walk over to an armchair to sit down before I tell them anything.
• "I told Diego to bring Maleah to dinner on the Alpha floor. He is as clueless as the rest of us, but Maleah is not Wolfless," I say before chugging down the water.
• "I don’t have any answers, but I will tell you what happened," I say before I start to tell them about Maleah and how she handled her Mother and Alpha Bradley. "She didn’t release her aura full force, and I bet if she did, it would be stronger than mine," I say as I look at my Dad.
• I hear gasps all around me because we all know it is nearly impossible to have a stronger aura than mine, but I am not afraid to admit it was amazing to see the look on Alpha Bradley’s face.
• Everyone knows that Dad and I come from a long line of Assassins, going back for centuries. Dad once explained that in our bloodline, at least one of the Wolves or Lycans in a Mated couple was an Assassin by birth.
• I have no idea what Maleah’s bloodline is like, but I think it is safe to say that in her bloodline, a lot of Mated couples were both Assassins by birth. There is no other explanation for the strength of her aura, but what will be the most convincing hint is the age of shifting.
• Assassins from an almost pure bloodline are known to shift between fourteen and fifteen years old. Other Assassins shift at the age of sixteen, like every other Wolf or Lycan. I know from Diego’s file that he shifted two months before turning sixteen, and that should have been warning enough for us to question her being Wolfless.
• I tell them how the bloodline of Assassins works, and the more I tell them, the wider their eyes go.
• "If I have to make a guess about Maleah, I would say she comes from a very pure bloodline, but only Diego and Maleah can confirm how pure that bloodline is," I finish my explanation, and I am met by dumbfounded faces. It seems that no one ever learned all there is to learn about Assassins.
• Dad explains that if a bloodline holds mostly Mated Assassins, their offspring will grow stronger with each generation. Their offspring will shift between the ages of fourteen and fifteen, and in very rare cases, at the age of thirteen.
• "The purer a bloodline, the bigger the chances are of having offspring with multiple abilities. The most common abilities are masking your scent or the fear aura.
• I read about Assassins that had both abilities, but there have been Assassins with abilities I have never seen before. The ability of hearing is a bit more common; it is an ability to hear from a longer distance and can be very handy for an Assassin. The ability to sense a Wolf or Lycan is a rare one; it only appeared twice in recorded history, and one of those cases was a Royal Assassin," Dad says, and I have to admit that I didn’t know this about Assassins.
• We talk a bit more about Maleah and her Assassin background before Luna Elyse walks in and sends us all to our Quarters to freshen up and change into some other clothes.
• Maleah's P.O.V.
• I walk into the bathroom to take a long shower. I turn on the shower before taking off my clothes, and when I stretch out my hand, I feel that the water has the perfect temperature. I step under the water to let the stress of the last week and a half wash away, and as I feel the water cascading down my body, my mind wanders back to the first time I ever set foot in the Pack-house.
• It was my eighth birthday, and as every other time, Dad was on assignment. I woke up in an empty house; my Mother had done this every single time after she rejected Dad. She would disappear a few hours after Dad had left, and she would somehow always return before he got home.
• She always made sure an Omega would bring meals to the house, but she never cared about me being left alone, and I was always glad if this happened during the week because I had school, and that meant I wasn’t alone the entire day.
• I had finished my breakfast that morning, and after getting dressed, I had gone off to school. I had been feeling off ever since waking up, and it didn’t go away during the day, but the biggest surprise for me came when school was finished.
• Alpha Max had been waiting for me at school, and he told me that I would be staying at the Pack-house until Dad returned from his assignment.
• He had guided me to his office, and when I walked in, I was surprised to see a birthday cake on his coffee table.
• "Happy eighth birthday, Maleah," he had said as he lifted me in the air to place me in an armchair. Luna Elyse had been there with the Beta and Gamma couple.
• After we had eaten a piece of cake, Alpha Max handed me a present and told me that Dad had asked him to give it to me if he wasn’t back on my birthday.
• Dad had gotten me the sketchbooks I wanted for my drawings, and I hoped I would be able to do some chores for him to earn some money for the skin-tone pencils and the one-hundred-piece pencil map I wanted.
• I loved drawing very much, but I only had the basics at that time, and I wanted a few high-end items for my drawings. I wanted to practice for my current career.
• I spent most of my time in the Pack-house after that day, even if my Mother was at home, and I enjoyed every moment of it. The only training I got was at school because my Mother didn’t believe a female should train, but I trained in secret, and it became easier after my eighth birthday to do so.
• My stay at the Pack-house is how I met Ariel and her friends. We could both draw for hours and hours, and her friends would just sit there and talk to us.