Disclaimer: I do not own Assassin's Creed or any material related to Ubisoft in any way or form.

A/N: I believe the reviewers of my other La Volpe/OC story Tesora requested more love for the mysterious Fox, and I sincerely hope I managed to deliver what they wanted. Here's to you all Death Escapist, Bloody White Rabbit, Shae, xXAngelOfSweetDeathXx, and Karrua *tilts champagne glass*. Credit also goes to my two wonderful betas Lightning4119 and ThE HiT-SmAsH TeChNiQuE for putting up with my ridiculous writing.

This will most likely be the biggest endeavor I have attempted, and I do not intend to give this story up for lost after a few chapters. However, I beg your pardon and patience in advance because I do not know how often these updates will be spread apart and I am pretty busy. I do have the story vaguely written out almost to the end, but I need to flesh it out and make it better. I might also be going back and revising things, because one, I do not speak Italian and so I've been using Google Translate, and two, I've been doing a lot of calculations regarding ages, years and other chronological events to make this as realistic a fanfic as I can write it, so please bear with me.

Constructive criticism is, as always, greatly welcomed. If you flame, all I ask is that you kindly not use vulgar language. Thank you!

.-.

Florence, Italy - 1493

It was dark when Nerina finally walked home from the Mercato Vecchio, carrying a bundle of choice fabrics in one arm and a basket of food in another. She decided to take the shortcut home through a series of alleyways, unaware of the group of guards that decided to follow her, thoughts of things decidedly unwholesome running through their heads. At first, they left her alone, allowing her to believe she was safe, but all too soon, they moved in for the kill, until they knew she could hear them.

Nerina heard the heavy clacking of their boots and clutched her packages tighter to her body, quickening her pace. She could see the end of the alley and the safe pools of light from her home beyond.

"Ehi, bella ragazza!" called one of the guards. "Hey, pretty girl!" The young woman faltered briefly, a thrill of fear running through her, and she automatically broke into a run toward the end of the alley. The guards ran after her, catching up to her in seconds. One of them pushed her into a wall and she dropped her packages. She heard them clattering away from her in the darkness at the same time a rough man's voice whispered huskily into her ear.

"Come now, bella," he said. "Come play with us…" Nerina heard the sound of breech laces being undone, and a cold horror washed over her. She struggled, crying out.

"No! Aiuto! Per favore… aiuto!" she screamed. "Help! Please, help!" The guard holding her forced her head against the wall with a sharp crack, and Nerina's vision distorted into a cloudy blackness filled with white hot lancelets shooting across her vision.

"Stai zitto, you whore," the guard hissed, turning her around and violently pulling up her skirts. "Shut up, or I'll-" The rest of his sentence was lost in a liquid garble as blood filled his lungs. Nerina shrieked through her own pain and shied away from the man as he fell forward to his knees, resting against the wall with a silvery throwing knife embedded in his back. The guards gasped as a dark hooded figure swooped down from the rooftops, neatly impaling a spearman through the gap between his chest plate and helmet with a longsword. Nerina screamed again and gathered her wits about her, rapidly crawling away on her hands and knees as the remaining two guards turned their attention to the newcomer.

"Correre, lady!" he yelled at her, parrying a lunge from one of the guards with a deft stroke. "Run!" Nerina tried to get up, but she was so frozen with fear that she could only manage to crawl faster, scrabbling for a handhold to pull herself up. She heard the violent clash of blades ricochet off the alley walls, and when she looked back, she saw the guards cornering the cloaked man against a wall. She covered her mouth with a muddy hand when she saw one of the guard's blades slice cleanly through the man's side and she heard a sharp cry of agony escape him. Through his own pain, he shouted at her to keep running, and in a blind panic, she finally scrambled to her feet and fled. It was only when she was at the front door of her home, La Rosa Colta, that she realized the packages she had bought were still back in the alley. She banged on the door frantically.

"Alessio! Alessio, apriti la porta! Open the door!" The door was yanked open by a young man with short pale brown hair and deep blue eyes staring worriedly down at his sister.

"Nerina! Grazie a Dio! Thank God! We thought something bad had happened to you!" Nerina shook her head, tendrils of chocolate curls coming loose from the veil that kept her hair back.

"Alessio, there was a man… some guards they… the packages…"

"Nerina, sorella," Alessio tried, "Sister, please calm down. Breathe first, then tell me what happened!" The young woman clutched her brother's shoulders as she gasped for air.

"I was… walking home from the market with… the things Paola had requested… some guards they… cornered me in an alley… tried to force me, and a man… he dropped from the sky… told me to run…" Nerina looked up at her brother. "Alessio, I was so frightened, I did not realize I had dropped the packages! We must go back and get them!"

"What is all the fuss down there?" Nerina and Alessio looked up to see Paola's inquisitive face over the banister.

"Signora, mi dispiace! I'm sorry, I was attacked by guards on the way home and I dropped the packages in an alley…" Paola immediately ran down the stairs, snatching a shawl from one of the many lounge couches about the place and draped it over Nerina's shoulders.

"Hush, now, cara,you are safe. No harm will come to you whilst you are here." She turned to Alessio. "Wake Ilario and afterward, please come to kitchen." Alessio nodded, and squeezed his sister's shoulder gently as he disappeared into one of the bottom-floor rooms off of the foyer. Paola guided Nerina to the kitchen, where she prepared the young woman a warm draught to calm her nerves. The girl took it gratefully and sipped at it, trembling. Paola knelt beside her and cupped a hand under her chin.

"Cara, dear, look at me," she murmured softly. "Where were you when this happened? Tell me everything." So Nerina retold her story, the drink Paola had given her slowly quelling her fear although it did nothing to stop the tears. When she'd finished, Paola looked to be deep in thought.

"Can you tell me what those guards looked like?" Nerina nodded, giving her their descriptions as Paola wrote them down on a piece of vellum. She swiftly folded the note and placed it into a small satchel at her waist as Alessio came in followed by a tall, lanky, dark-skinned man dressed in deep crimson.

"What seems to be the matter, Paola?" Ilario asked, wide black eyes taking in Nerina's disheveled, frightened appearance with concern.

"Nerina was attacked by a group of guards in an alleyway west of here not twenty minutes ago, and they caused her to drop the packages I'd asked her to get," said Paola. "I need you two to retrieve them if at all possible. If there are guards still there or the packages are nowhere to be found, then leave them for lost. I will get more."

"Va bene," Ilario said, and then he quickly left with Alessio. Paola turned her attention once more to Nerina, who had finally stopped trembling, although there were still tears on her face. She gently took the cup from the younger woman's hands and placed it on an adjacent counter before taking up a dampened cloth and wiping away the dirt and grime on her face and hands.

"Cara… I am so sorry," Paola murmured regretfully into the girl's hair after she'd finished cleaning her off. "You'll never have go out that late again, I promise." Nerina closed her eyes, taking comfort in the elder woman's kind, motherly embrace. She'd seen Paola with the other Courtesans, and they always looked up to her with genuine respect and adoration. One of the better things about being a Courtesan in La Rosa Colta—or any worker there, for that matter—was that everyone knew that the headmistress would always keep her word. Nerina was almost lulled to sleep by Paola's hand stroking her hair when a sudden realization had her bolting upright.

"Dio mio…" she murmured, covering her mouth. Paola sat up, concern written all over her face.

"Cara, what is the matter?" she asked. Nerina turned to her slowly.

"The man who rescued me was injured… by the guards…" Paola's face grew pale as she mentally ran through the few possibilities of who the man could have been, when a loud crashing sound was heard outside in the foyer, accompanied by a loud shout.

"Madonna!" Paola and Nerina ran out of the kitchen into the foyer, and were greeted by the sight of Alessio and Ilario breathing heavily, packages dumped on the floor beside the open doorway, and a semi-conscious hooded man slung between them. Nerina stared at her rescuer, taking in the sight of the dirtied brown, hooded cloak, the mustard-colored striped tunic ripped through and soaked with blood, the rust-colored sleeves and leggings, and the short cloth boots that came up to just above his ankles. She felt a horrible dread crash down on her, and she prayed that this man wouldn't have to die on her account. She just wasn't worth it.

"Nerina! Get some towels, quick!" Alessio said, already moving the man toward the room he shared with his sister. Nerina dashed through the kitchen and into the linen storage room, grabbing as many clean cloths as she could handle before running into her room.

"Alessio, put him on my bed!"

"But-"

"He saved my life, I owe him that much!" Nerina replied, helping Paola to strip off the man's clothes so they could attend to his wounds. Alessio and Ilario left to fetch medical supplies as the women went to work on the injured man. The headmistress' mouth was drawn into a tight, thin line, and her eyes seemed pinched in anguish as she removed layer after layer of cloth, revealing a deep gash in his left side that extended from the floating ribs to just below his navel, and several other smaller, shallow cuts along the front of his torso. Nerina flushed as Paola turned to undo his breeches, and the younger woman pointedly looked away, instead reaching to remove the man's cloak. She pulled back the hood, revealing a strikingly gaunt, handsome face with a strong jawline and surprisingly full lips that were white as he groaned softly in pain. Nerina couldn't guess the man's age: his body looked to be that of a young man's, but the lines around his mouth seemed to belong to someone much older.

Deciding that further investigation of who exactly this man was would have to wait, she continued to help Paola attend to his wounds. A great deal of time later, Nerina sat beside the man, asleep now, in her bed, trying her hardest to stay awake should he need anything. Alessio slept in his own bed behind her as she dabbed at the man's forehead and neck with a cool cloth. Paola had left some time ago, claiming that she was tired, and left Nerina to care for the man, but the young woman knew the headmistress had gone to send for a doctor. Or so she thought. By the time Nerina drowsily realized the sun was lighting the window above the sleeping man, she felt herself being lifted from her chair by her brother, who gently tucked her into bed and continued watching after the man as she drifted into exhausted slumber.

.-.

A/N: Updated from last night's horrendously short chapter. Second installment should be on its way shortly.