Chapter 1:

She stood in the darkness, hidden in the shadows of the alley, a single flicking streetlight some feet away casted a dull, dirty, yellow smudge on the ground barely enough to call light. She had been there for hours, silent, unmoving as she waited. Her intel was good, she just had to be patient, it was this key factor that got maybe of her 'coworkers' killed on the job. They lacked patient and made rash decision wanting to move things along only to find themselves cold on the pavement.

Movement in the alley drew her dark eyes but she moved nothing else, other movement would have called attention to her hiding spot, another lesson one needed to know in this field, never give your position away. Two figurers slunk into the alley, dressed in dark colors, they muttered softly to each other almost arguing but not quite then they suddenly stopped, their heads jerking around as if searching for something.

She cursed softly, she had positioned herself in so she could see down the alley and was covered on two sides but she could feel a breeze from her exposed side and with that breeze her scent wafted down the alley towards her two target, giving herself and her position away. Patience and caution out the window she slipped out of her hiding place and out into the open.

"Hello boys, its a nice night for a walk don't you think?" She asked with sass, cocking her hip to one hand, her hand on that hip, she gave them a wide smile.

"Buzz off!" the one of the left said, the right one twitched, looking around for escape.

"That is no way to treat a lady, especially after she waited so long for you."

"We want no trouble."

She moved forward slowly and spoke as she walked towards them, "well you see that is the problem. I don't want any trouble either however it seems the two of you were very very naughty a few nights ago. You two seem rather flushed for your kind. I don't recall such a rose complexation on BVs and I have seen my share of them. However on RVs, well that is another story."

They lunged at her, she whirled catching the punch of one and ducking the other, while shoving her hand through the straps of her dagger on her right thigh, the blade secure in her hand, sliced through the night. She slipped under their defense and into their personal space, in a matter of seconds only a pile of ash laid at her feet, that and four sharp teeth. The teeth she scooped up and slipped them into pocket on her thigh holster. The ash she waved her hand over, muttering softly before they melted into the asphalt.

The sound of clapping filled the dark space of the alley and she turned around annoyed to look at the figure heading towards her.

"Impressive."

"I don't remember asking you. What are you doing here anywhere, Devon?"

"Now is that any way to greet your brother?"

"No but this is, go to hell," she growled and tried to push past him but he grabbed her arm in a steel vice.

"I suggest you be nice Awendela while I have the patience."

Her head snapped up to look into her brother's face. She felt a twinge of sadness, the once dark golden brown skin was now a pale version, his cheek bones sharper, his smile more cruel, his eyes colder. She had loved him dearly once but then he had turned his back on her and their family for power or the illusion of it. Awendela took a deep breath only their once fondness of each other and the fact she would be in huge trouble kept her from killing him right then and there.

"What do you want?" she asked softly.

"To talk. We haven't spoken in a very long time."

"Who's fault is that? Now let me go before I turn you to ash," she hissed.

He smiled coldly, "you wouldn't and you couldn't. I know you have orders preventing you from staking me right where we stand."

She seethed and he laughed as he let her go, taking in the scent of her rage and the underlining fear she pretended wasn't there.

"What do you want to talk about?" she rubbed her arm which she knew would be bruised in the next few minutes.

"How are you?"

Awendela pushed her bangs from her face and shifted, moving until she could lean against the alley wall but watch him as well.

"I am fine."

Silence filled the void for several heartbeats, Devon arched an eyebrow at her.

She huffed, "How are you?"

He grinned, showing of his extended canine, "Couldn't be better! Living the best of life. Really little sister you should let me show you how wonderful life is on the other side."

Awendela pushed off the wall, "we're done."

"Ah come on little sis!" he said cloyingly moving towards her, her twin daggers were out and flashing in the dull light.

"Enough. I am not playing games with you. If you come at me, I will kill you and I will tell everyone you attacked me. They'll believe it."

Devon lifted his hands in mock defeat, "easy," he said softly his teasing nature a mere shadow of what it once was vanishing and turned into something dark and ugly.

"You should listen to me little sister. I am giving you a chance. Don't say I never gave you that."

Awendela watched her brother stalked off in the night before sheathing her daggers and making her way to her bike a few blocks away, thoughts of her brother's words ringing in her ears. She shook her head, he was crazy, mad for power that he felt vampirism gave him. He had always been ambition, he knew he was destined for greatness and felt he would inherit what should be his, as the eldest in the family, but when their parents had started to look to her as their heir he became angry and jealous though not towards her. He had always loved his little sister probably beyond what was proper, it border hatred and lust. He had decided to take power another way, and would make their parents rue the day they thought to take his birth right from him, by becoming the very thing they hunted, a vampire.

It had been a devastating blow to their entire family but especially to Awendela who had admired and looked up to her elder brother, always running to him for every scrape, bump and bruise she had gotten or every time she had achieve something or learned something new, she would run to him to show him. He had been around more then her parents has been, and he had been more father and mother then he had been brother. Now he was a stranger, a shadow of the man she had once held in high esteem.

She shook off the dark emotions that filled her, driving through the empty streets that would soon begin filling up with cars of early morning travelers heading to work in the pre-dawn hours. It took her two hours to reach the large rolling hills of her family ranch, a huge estate, that many outsiders believe to be a horse farm. This was true in a sense as they raised horses as their primary source of income, champion thoroughbred horses of a variety of breeds.

This however was a cover for what the sprawling lands really were, the headquarters of the Night Watch, an organization that supervised and controlled the Supernaturals all over the world. There were thousands of HQs but this was the hub station, the beginning of everything and in many ways the end as well. In the center of it all was her family, the origin of the Night Watch, her great many times over grandfather had started it in the late 1800s, when the supernatural world, mainly vampires, started to overflow into the human world and threatening their way of life and the supernaturals as well.

They controlled every species on the planet but Awendela's department and origin story was vampires. She rolled her bike into the garage, looking around as the wide span of bikes, cars, vans, trucks, SUVs just to name a few. These were owned by her family not the Watcher's, that was another section all together.

The land held over 500 members and their families in this location alone. The land was divid by departments, the main house was the central office for the headquarters as well as the vampire department and sat smack-dab in the middle of the land. It was here that Awendela entered passing through security and nodding at the four women behind the reception desk, each chatting away on the phone, their hands busy on their keyboards. The house was divided into three wings, the right wing was the vampire department, the left wing was the central office and the middle wing of the personal residence Awendela's family and any special guests such as ambassadors, leaders, etc.

"Dela!"

Awendela turn to see Min Ho Lee, friend and former lover. She grinned at him, as he leaned forward to give her chaste kiss on the lips, "good hunt?" he asked her as he looped his arm into hers, leading her towards the fang registry department where she had been heading.

"yes until Devon ruined it."

Min Ho wrinkled his nose, "he showed up again?"

"Yup."

"Same thing, come join me?"

"Same old, same old," Awendela said pulling out the teeth and dropping them into a glass jar, typing into the computer screen at one of many stations of the fang registry department, other hunters were also at a station, registering their hunt and teeth.

Awendela entered her mission code, dropped the jar into the slot, the DNA took 15 seconds to run and confirm her hunt before she received a mission complete receipt that was automatically attached to her mission file. She signed the mission log as completed and it was filed away, then the screen turned black.

"Hey, wait what about my next mission?" she asked the blank screen.

"Break?" Min Ho asked her, shrugging.

"Wouldn't surprise me if my parents blocked me from taking a mission, I haven't had a break in over six months."

"A rest would do you some good."

Awendela sighed, "said the immortal winter fae."

Min Ho grinned at her, "have I ever lied to you?"

She scoffed, not bothering to answer that question which she had a feeling was meant to be rhetorical anyways, she felt her pocket vibrate, and grabbed her cell from the back pocket of her leather pants and saw it was her father. She showed the screen to Min Ho before answering it.

"Hi Dad," she said cheerfully, "You have perfect timing, I just finished a mission and saw no new one. Did you block it? I seriously don't need a break yet. Can you please unblock me?"

"Hello honey, yes I am doing well. It is good to hear you are doing well too. You mother is fine by the way."

Awendela cringed as the monotone of her father's voice, "sorry sorry! Hi dad, how are you? How is mom?"

"We are fine. The reason you don't have a mission will become clear soon enough. We have a very important dinner guest. I except you to be dressed properly, be on time and be on your best behavior. You have two hours, the gold room."

"Yes, sir."

Click. Dial tone.

Awendela sighed rubbing the bridge of her nose before stuffing her phone into her pocket, "if I get stuck on baby sitting duty again for some sniveling ambassador, I am seriously running away or feed him to a gremlin!"

Min Ho laughed heartily, "that isn't very nice. That last guy was kind of charming."

"Now you are just playing with words. The last guy was an idiot human who shrunk away from everything, thinking it was out to get him."

"Aren't you human?"

"Really asking me that question? I'm a Nephilim," she growled as they entered the residence wing, heading towards her rooms.

"Half human, half angel."

"In the beginning yes but we continued to breed with our own kind, so technically I am a pure-blood Nephilim."

"Which is half human, half angel."

"Oh do shut up, Min Ho!"

He laughed as he dropped onto her bed, she kicked him gently, removing her clothes as she went, he watched her with half hooded eyes. They had been lovers long ago, losing themselves in each other to ease the pain of loneliness. Now they were best of friends, the physical lust having long been extinguished.

"Can you pick me something to wear for this extremely special guest that apparently deserved the gold room?" she asked as she turned on the shower.

Min Ho went into her walk in closet while she showered, shifting through the clothes before deciding on something, he pulled it out along with accessories and shoes. Awendela came out wrapped in a towel and glanced at the clothing.

"Huh...interesting choice."

"Special guest remember."

Awendela gave him a sideways head shrug and sat down to dry and style her hair. Min Ho chatted with her and helped her get ready and before long she was done. She noticed the burning ember within Min Ho's eyes as he studied her from top to bottom. Winter Fae were notorious for when they finished with something they were finished so to see the burning ember in his eyes told her she must look damn good if he was possibly interested in her again physically.

"I should leave," he said calmly before exiting, Awendela knew better then to stop him and watched him walk out of her room, leaving a very very cold presence behind.

She wondered if she should be concerned or not but a Fae was a Fae and she knew better then to pry, he would tell her, leave her or do her, depending on which was more important to him. Awendela shook the thoughts from her mind and steeled herself for whatever foreign supernatural guest was here. She headed to the Gold Room, music drifting into the hallway, laughter and murmuring of conversations wafting over her. Awendela stopped just outside the doorway, she glanced down at herself. Min Ho had chosen a black evening gown with small sequence and beads sewn all over the dress with strips of veil showing off her dark skin. It was a dress she had purchased during a trip to Milan but had never worn. It was been stunningly beautiful and she had to have it when she saw it and she had never been one to buy dresses. All the dresses and gowns in her closet had been from her mother.

Awendela took a deep breath, plastered a smile on her crimson red lips and entered the ballroom, she looked over the room, it was filled with people of every race and species but it was the vampires that made her skin crawl. She bobbed her head to people she knew and offered smiled and a nod of her head to those she didn't. She saw her parents on the far side speaking with someone who had his back turned from her. She knew he was a vampire instantly, partly from instinct, partly by the way the man held himself and the vampire guards hanging around near by in the fringes.

She carefully made her way towards them, her mother noticed her first and smiled, her hands extending gracefully towards her daughter.

"Your majesty let me introduce to you my daughter, Awendela Shemihaza. Awendela, this is his royal highness Xia Junsu Kim."

The man turned towards her and Awendela look into the grey eyes of the Vampire King.

Notes

Please leave me comments/feedback it is what keeps me going! I hope you enjoy!!

I re-read then many times, I hope I got all the spelling and grammar errors fixed!