Wellllllllll, I got Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and I absolutely love it! Ezio is as sexy as ever and LEONARDO HAS A BEARD! No one else understand how excited that makes me... love a good beard...lmfao.

I also wanted everyone to know that I am just gonna answer any reviews I get on the newest chapter. So please leave me reviews! :3

BriarX: Thanks for the review! I honestly haven't even paid attention to those codex pages :S That is something I definitely need to do next time, lol! But this story isn't going to completely cannon anyway, soooo, lets just all pretend that Leonardo just decided to get creative with Ezio's blade! XD Just kidding... but really... I have no idea what to do about that :S

Sweet Candy Rain: Heheh, you crack me up! I'm love dragon age as well and honestly, that Zevran has a pretty sexy voice... I am a COMPLETE sucker for men with sexy accents! And that's why I try not to go out of the country, lmao. Love the randomness of this!

brittany: I'm glad you're enjoying it!

spoiled2theCore: I love this idea! I definitely might try to fit something like that in there in some chapter in the future! But it will take me FOREVER to think of pranks (I am usually the one getting pranked :| lol).

Shelleythesnail: I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling the chemistry between the two of them!

Xenocanaan: Haha, yes! Glad you like the story :3

The third chapter! Please R&R let me know how I am doing and if I need to fix something. Or even ideas for chapters because I always get writers' block. Also, this is pretty heavy on dialogue. xoxo.

Disclaimer: Yada Yada Yada... I don't own anything... Sadly...

If I Surrender

Chapter 3: Nothing is real, Everything is permitted.

Ezio and I trained for the next couple of weeks from dawn until dusk. Some days it would be regular swordplay; learning how to dodge, counter, and the like. Other days, I would take him on a free-running tour of the city. I would never admit it to Ezio's face but I actually was enjoying myself as we raced across the rooftops.

He worked hard and only complained a little; which, honestly, surprised me the most. I had expected the pretty boy to be afraid to scar up his handsome face.

I also gained a few scars from him. One on my cheek where he accidentally nicked me during a counter. I was fine with it; it gave me a reason to punch him in the face. Another was across my chest and that one even managed to ruin one of my favorite pairs of clothes. Claudia was annoyed when I asked her to mend and kept asking why I had cared so much since they all looked the same anyways. I ignored her and took the clothing to mend myself.

One evening after Ezio and I were finished training, we had a friendly race to the top of the villa. Ezio would have beaten me if the ledge he had a hold of hadn't broken off. I was proud that he had come so far under my training. I had been worried that it would be difficult to train him.

"Bella." Ezio addressed me. He had refused to call me anything else, except for around my father. I turned; pushing my hood off and raised an eyebrow at him. He smiled and did not answer (he had recently found out that this annoyed me to no end).

"Yes, Ezio?" I asked, trying not to let the annoyance show through.

"I was wondering something." He said. "If you'll indulge me, that is."

I gestured for him to go ahead as we both sat down on the edge of the roof, letting our legs dangle off the side.

"Did losing your finger hurt?"

I looked down at the missing finger and moved the stub that remained. I saw Ezio reaching for my hand before looking up at me to see if it was okay. He had learned very quickly that I did not take to uninvited touching after I punched him in the face for getting inappropriate during a fight. I let him hold my hand as he studied the missing digit.

"It did for a little while." I answered and looked over at him. "I was curious to see that you had a hidden blade but still had your finger."

"Leonardo Di Vinci updated the designs of the blade so I could keep it." He rubbed my hand gently and smiled at me.

I removed my hand from his quickly after that moment. Something in his eyes made me a little uncomfortable. I turned my gaze onto the city below us. We sat in silence for a long time; the day was almost over and the darkness of the night was setting in. I looked over at Ezio and saw that he was watching me.

"What?" I asked quietly.

He smiled mischievously and ran a hand through his hair. "Oh, nothing. Just thinking."

"What about?" I asked, ignoring the alarm in my head telling me to just leave it be. He smiled even wider and I knew then that I was going to regret asking.

"How soft your skin is." I blushed immediately and looked towards the ground so far below us. He continued, "And how it would feel underneath my own."

I scowled and went to smack him right across the face but he captured my hand before I could land the strike. Ezio kissed the tips of my fingers moving down to the palm of my hand and then the soft side of my wrist.

My whole face was in a blush from the attention and I allowed him to kiss my hand until I finally snapped out of the daze he had placed me in. I brought my free hand out to punch him in the side, which caught him off guard as he was distracted with my other fingers. He grabbed his side and cursed as I pulled my hand back from him quickly and stood. Running to the side of the roof, I jumped off, performing a leap of faith and landing safely in the haystack Ezio and I had moved there earlier in the week.

As I scrambled to get out of the haystack, I looked up at the roof to see that Ezio had disappeared from sight. I sighed and tried to ignore the burning of my skin where his lips had touched as I headed to my room for the night.

The next few practices had been awkward for Ezio and I. We had not spoken a true sentence to one another since the incident on the roof of the villa. I usually kind of missed him until he did something idiotic that got on my nerves; which was more often then not. My father had decided to attend a few of these lessons to teach Ezio how to dodge and counter with an assassin's efficiency. I was partly glad that my padre had decided to come to these training. I did not want to be left alone with Ezio and the awkwardness more than I had to.

Ezio was asking my father about his own father during one of our training exercises and I could see that he was becoming frustrated with all the new information. His counters were half-hearted and sometimes he wasn't able to dodge my attacks at all. My father was telling us to run it again and again until Ezio was able to execute it.

Feeling sorry for Ezio, I allowed myself to slip up once allowing him to counter me correctly. Mario rejoiced but I could feel Ezio watching me closely. I realized that he knew all my moves by now to know that I had let him counter my attack. I kept my eyes on the ground as the men talked. I was hoping to make a quick getaway when my padre told us that we could stop for the afternoon.

I turned towards the villa and started walking behind my padre before I felt a hand touch my shoulder. Looking behind, I saw that Ezio was standing there with his arms crossed.

"You didn't have to do that." He said, his voice was low and sounded mildly angry. I couldn't see his eyes because the hood was hiding them but I could feel that he was irritated with me.

"I know." I answered honestly and he looked up at me in surprise before composing himself again.

"Then why?" Ezio asked.

"You needed a break. Time to process all of this." I reach out and patted his shoulder; trying to be comforting to him.

"All this talk of Assassins and Templars reeks of fantasy." He replied with a grimace on his face.

"Like an old parchment covered in strange, magic writings?" I laughed, wiggling my fingers at him and as he questioned how I knew of that.

"Mario told me about them once. He also mentioned that he thought you had obtained one that your father had been holding. The Assassin's call these pages the Codex.

"Codex?"

I jumped up to sit on the side of the training ring as Ezio leaned against the wall of it.

"Si. It's like a guide to the workings of the Assassin's order - it's origin, purpose, and even techniques. Mio Padre said that your father believed the Codex held a powerful secret."

"What secret?"

I shrugged, "I don't know. But it is believed to be powerful enough to change the world."

"Assassins, Templars, Codex pages… This is a lot to take in." Ezio looked very stressed as he put his head in his hands.

"I know it is." I answered. "But remember this: Nulla è reale, tutto è lecito."

Ezio looked over at me with a small smile on his face that even I could not help returning.

"What a beautiful smile." He said and my face flushed instantly. He grabbed my hand and began tracing the palm with his long fingers. "Tell me, bella, why you seem to dislike my company so much?"

"Because you're pig-headed?" I returned and playfully poked him in the chest with the hand he was holding.

"Ah, you wound me!" Ezio grabbed his chest and acted like it pained him so. I rolled my eyes and jumped off of the training rings wall and started to head back to the villa but Ezio grabbed my arm and pulled me into his chest for a hug.

I stood there wondering what exactly he wanted with me. He had a different girl on his arm every time I saw him go off into the city. Did he really expect for me just to fall in his bed like all of the others? That a simple hug would woo me so easily?

"Ezio?" I asked, my voice sounded muffled against his chest.

"Yes?" His voice rumbled deeply.

"Get off of me."

Ezio laughed and released me immediately. "As you wish, bella. But you will not be able to resist me for long!"

Mario was standing in the doorway when Ezio and I finally made our way up there; with a friendly race to the door, of course. He asked for Ezio to come to his office and speak to him of very important matters. They bid me a goodnight but I could not resist following to see what they were going to talk about.

I ran outside and crouched beneath the open window of my fathers office. They had not made it to the office yet so I waited. After a moment, I heard footsteps and voices. I strained to hear what they were saying.

"I see you are taken with my daughter." Mario's voice was low and lethal. I had to put my hand over my mouth in an attempt to stop the laughter. I wondered what Ezio would say to such a thing.

"É bellissima." Ezio replied easily, he did not seem at all fazed by Mario's tone of voice.

"Sí." Mario said. "I know how you are with women, Ezio! So, it will be good for you to know the truth about her."

I stopped breathing. He wasn't going to tell him that… was he? Ezio must have asked what the truth was but I was still in shock that my father was going to tell him.

"She is engaged."

I almost let out a sigh of relief that he didn't tell him that I was raped before I came to the Auditore family but remembered that it wouldn't go over well if they caught me eavesdropping on their conversation. I grimaced to myself, thinking of my future husband. A Templar.

"To whom?" Ezio's voice sounded lower than before.

"A son of a Templar; which, of course, means a future Templar."

"A Templar?" Ezio exclaimed.

"Sí." Mario answered calmly. "She lives for the brotherhood and has offered to be a spy for us. It would bring us very valuable information to use against the Templars."

"No." Ezio said firmly and I rose an eyebrow at that. Who was he to decide what I was to do? "It's too dangerous."

My father laughed. "She is capable of handling herself, Ezio. Or have you not noticed the beatings she gives you every day! Besides the boy is not even a man yet. She will be here for awhile."

"How did you manage to get a Templar to marry their son off to an Auditore?" Ezio asked after a time of being silent.

"Ah, you see, I have a couple of friends that are very high up in nobility and they said that she may pose as their own child." Mario answered and then laughed. "She even looks like them!"

I had only met the family myself one time but Mario was right. The mother had the same color hair as I and the father had a darker shade of green eyes. They were slim and in good enough shape that I could easily pass as their child.

Mario and I had went to Venice so that I could meet my future husband. We went to the people who are pretending to be my parents to get ready for the meeting. They seemed like a nice couple and the mother fawned over me the entire time. They fit me into a dress that was too tight and heels that were too tall and whisked me away to meet the Templar's.

First, I met the father. His name was Emilio Barbarigo. On the outside, he was a very wealthy merchant with a huge palazzo but on the inside, he and his entire family are Templars. I studied the man while clenching my fists and fought not to kill him outright. The man studied me back, although his eyes lingered on certain areas far too long. He deemed me worthy and then sent me away, telling my 'parents' that he will call on me once his son is old enough.

I felt a small poke on the head that caused me to break out of my day dreaming and looked up to see who it was. My father was leaning out of his window, smiling at me. I jumped up immediately and started apologizing. He held up his hands and I became quiet.

"It is no worries, little one." He said and turned to walked back to his desk. "Come here."

I jumped through the window easily and crossed the room to his desk. He looked up at me and smiled briefly before looking down at some papers.

"Vieri is making life very hard for us lately." Mario started. "I think that we are going to have to execute a full scale attack against him at San Gimignano."

"When?" I asked, already thinking of the layout of the city.

"Tomorrow."

Thanks for reading my story!

Nulla è reale, tutto è lecito - Nothing is true, Everything is permitted.

É bellissima - She is very beautiful.