Snow was beautiful.

Lyra had always loved the snow. She loved the innocent beauty, but she also loved the fact it could kill the unprepared and the unknowing. Beautiful, and yet so very deadly. Silently, she wished she could be a little more like the snow, though she was fairly certain she could easily apply the latter half to herself. She had killed before – many a times – and that fact stained her very soul, or so she thought.

There was an art to strangling a person to death with ones thighs whilst slicing another's throat with a butter knife, and it was those arts which had been taught to her ever since she'd turned the tender age of eight. Now, at the not so tender age of eighteen, she wished she'd never learnt them. Nothing was fun about assassination and war, especially not when one had been kidnapped and moulded into such a soldier against their will.

Irritated, Lyra pressed her hand up against the cold glass and wished she could open the window to feel the soft icy flakes drifting from the fluffy white clouds above. The bars across the window made that feat rather hard to accomplish – as did the fact there was no latch nor hinges. It was just a moderately thick piece of glass made to taunt her with a view of the very thing she could never have.

Freedom.

Or so they thought. Lyra smirked, glancing down at the key in her hand as she promised herself. "Soon."

Soon she would be free.

Her fingers curled around the piece of ornately carved metal that would lead to her freedom. It was the last item she had needed to carry out her plan, and it had been by far the hardest to obtain. A master key like the one she held was only given to select members of the organisation, and it had been sheer luck, and perhaps just a hint of skill, which had landed it in her lap. Members of the upper echelon who were given master keys were annoyingly strong. They had full control over their goddess-given ability, which was far more than she could say about herself.

She had watched, waited, and struck as quickly as she could like the opportunist she apparently was. Remembering how her fingers had closed around the wolf head on the bow of the key made her shudder. She had pulled it from the pocket of the cooling corpse at lightspeed under the red-eyed gaze of the alpha who'd just dealt with the man trying to kill his subordinates. He'd killed him, not that it bothered Lyra. She had seen enough death to last a lifetime, and the Children of the Night always lived a long time, bound to the earth and the moon eternally.

Those red eyes haunted her dreams, burning at the back of her mind as she tried to figure out why they unnerved her so. They brought her vague memories of head pats and happiness, but she couldn't for the life of her figure out why. She had only met those cold blood red eyes for a single instant, barely able to swallow as the alpha stared back at her so flatly with those eyes from underneath a messy fringe of ash blonde hair. It had only been sheer determination which kept her legs moving when she'd ran back to the relative safety of Omega Taurus' base.

Alphas were terrifying beings, and even more so for her since she was technically on the opposing side to them. She had barely escaped from the last one she'd had the misfortune of bumping into, and she had doubts she could do it again. The red-eyed alpha had hesitated for a split second upon spying her there, and that split second was all she needed thanks to her own ability.

Lyra glanced down at her hand, pulling on the hum she could always hear in the back of her head. It was like the buzzing of bees, and it was always there no matter what she did. She pulled it to the surface now, sighing as the faint sensation like pins pricking her skin came. Red sparks erupted over her pale skin, the air crackling for a few moments before she pushed the sparks back. They were always present, simmering under her skin, ready to be unleashed in a few moments notice.

Abilities, or gifts as some liked to call them, were rather common amongst the werewolves. They were the Children of Night, beloved of the Moon Goddess, and their fates were woven by the Weaver himself. It was said the presence of the white thread in each of their tapestries determined whether one had the potential to wield a gift, and that was decided solely by the Weaver. But it was also said the Weaver had given the white thread back to its owner – the one whose hair from which the thread had been spun – that honour belonged to none other than Lunaria, Goddess of the Moon, Patron Deity of the Aria Religion, and it was she who determined who received which ability.

With a smile, Lyra glanced over to the near empty bookshelf tucked in the corner of her room, eyeing the little book of lore and myth on which that particular religion was based on. She'd received it when she'd been sent to infiltrate one of the towns in which the Aria Religion had prominence. It had been an easier assignment than most, and she had been oddly sad once it was over. Though she'd long since learnt not to show such emotions on her face.

Tools had no need for emotion. It would only hinder in their duties. They simply needed to serve – to bend to the rule of their unseen leader. It was for that purpose she had been taken, and for that purpose she had been trained into what she was.

An assassin.

She was no good when it came to fighting opponents head on. Her gift was aligned with speed and agility, with the power to allow her to move at fast speeds. There were almost no drawbacks to it, unless she pushed herself to the limits and needed to recharge herself. Then, and only then, it became a problem. But Lyra had long since learnt to never push herself to those limits. Not when she couldn't trust a single soul around her.

Not that she was going to be pushing herself to her limits then and there. Her plan had been designed specifically so she wouldn't have to do just that. Like all plans she'd ever followed, it was a simple one, because simple plans were far more likely to succeed. The only problem she'd had was her method of reaching the nearest unalarmed window – a problem now solved by the master key.

She palmed the key in her hand, smiling at the feeling of the cool metal. It felt better in her hands than the handles of the various knives and daggers ever had. She still remembered how the weapons had been given to her – still remembered the cold voice in her ear that whispered. "Kill him, Eighteen."

Eighteen. That was her name there. A number for a tool.

How she'd hated that name. She'd loathed it whenever she heard it being called... but now it might have been her salvation. She was going to be eighteen when she escaped that place.

Sighing to herself, she glanced back outside the window, watching and waiting as the moon rose higher and higher. It occasionally peaked through a gap in the clouds, and Lyra grinned as it reached the appointed height. Her bare feet were silent on the ground. Noiselessly she made her way over to her door, heart pounding in her chest as she pressed her ear against the cold wood. She strained to hear as much as she could, a toothy grin splitting her face when she heard the silence beyond.

The silence was soon broken though, as she twisted the key inside the lock. It opened with a click loud enough to make her heart race that much faster.

Her hand went to her chest, breathing strained as adrenaline rushed through her. It was finally happening. She was finally escaping. "Calm yourself," she whispered, reminding herself of her training. No matter how much she'd disliked the killing of innocents, she could hardly deny how useful the training for those very acts had just become.

Waiting was the key lesson she had learnt from there. Patience was key, as was one's information. Lyra had gathered enough of both.

Slipping the key back into her pocket, she opened the door silently, glad the hinges were always well oiled. This was it. There was no going back now she had left her room. If she were caught there would be no escaping the cell below.

Terrible things happened there, but the memories of that place had long since blurred into a painful mess of the red of her blood and the eggshell white of her bones poking through her pale pinkish skin. Though it hadn't been very pinkish when her blood was mostly spilled around her in large puddles.

Pushing those memories to one side, Lyra crept forward, ignoring the sheer coldness of the tiles beneath her feet. It would be far colder out in the snow, she knew that much. Though that would only affect her before she shifted. Furs and paws were tougher for the elements to affect than feet and skin.

Her fingers scratched at her neck, the phantom pain of her non-existent scars coming to life and whispering of what the consequences of defiance would be. "But only if I do not escape," she breathed, padding along the corridor, sticking to the shadows as best she could. She drifted like a silent ghost befitting of the nature of her job. Arriving outside another door identical to the one she'd just left through, she inserted the key and opened it with another loud click.

The sudden slapping of feet against tile made her wince. Lyra resisted the overwhelming urge to grimace. "Keep quiet," she hissed lowly, her brown eyes meeting the gaze of two so dark they looked almost black. Her hair matched, an inky shade of black, which only served to make her own brilliantly red locks stand out like a sore thumb. "Or do you wish to get caught?"

Gwen, otherwise known to her as Eleven, smiled sheepishly as she spoke far too loudly for Lyra's tastes. "Sorry about that."

"Keep it down you blithering idiot," she snarled almost silently. "Don't think I won't leave you or the other one behind if you make a racket."

In all honesty, Lyra wasn't sure entirely what made her want to bring along the other two captives Omega Taurus held. Actually that was a lie – they'd serve some purpose as a distraction should they get caught, and that was the only reason she'd allowed them onboard with her little plan. There was no way she was risking her chance at freedom for two idiots. Though she supposed she could hardly blame them for all their lack of stealthy abilities. The pair of them were grouped together when given their assignments, and more often than not they were those of melee and direct combat instead of the sleuthing she did in the shadows.

"Did the Weaver twist the threads in your knickers or something?" Gwen asked, still smiling like a fool, and Lyra wasted no time in wrenching the girl's scarf away from her neck.

"Talk too loudly, and we will all be caught," she said, all but gagging the irritating fool with her well-worn white scarf – a sharp contrast against her umber skin. "So don't bother untying that if you know what's good for you."

Gwen nodded, mumbling something but it was lost to the layers of fabric wrapped around her mouth.

"Now, let's go and get Three, whatever her real name is," Lyra grumbled, ignoring the pointed mutter of Gwen. "You have all your things packed, yes?"

Gwen nodded, blurting something else out, and Lyra stared back at her blandly, glaring daggers at the taller girl as she simply stood in the middle of the corridor. Stealth with her around was apparently a lost cause, though it was of no great matter. She'd already taken into account the plan for the melee imbeciles.

"I smuggled my supplies out weeks ago," she answered quietly, reaching the third and final door they needed to unlock. "They're stashed out by our exit point, now shut up and keep your damned lips shut."

She pulled the door open with barely a sound, revealing a shivering blonde who stood even shorter than herself. Lyra was about average height though, so it wasn't saying much.

"Come on then," she hissed, glaring down at the blue-eyed blonde who was simply standing on the threshold of the corridor with a stupefied look on her face. "We haven't got all day – there's a twenty minute window, and we're already five minutes in."

Three did nothing.

Lyra felt her face twitch. "We need to leave now," she said, but Three was still frozen and shivering in her metaphorical boots. She was wasting time they didn't have, and Lyra couldn't find the patience to deal with her at that moment in time. They needed to be decisive. Indecision let targets get away, and if Lyra's targets escaped, then it meant punishment. Indecision had been beaten out of her, though it seemed Three hadn't had the luxury of that treatment. "Get out, or I will shut the door and lock you back inside."

Gwen clamped a hand on her shoulder, all but shoving her out of the way to rest her hands on Three's shoulders. She mumbled soothing sounds underneath the scarf, and Lyra fought the desire to leave them behind and be done with it. It hardly mattered to her that one of them would no doubt take her place as the plaything of that man and all his schemes. It didn't matter at all.

"Move it," she hissed, the sound of a ticking clock invading her ears as she waited for Gwen to pull Three out of whatever stupor she'd wound up stuck in.

It couldn't have taken longer than a minute for Gwen to persuade her, but to Lyra it felt like an eternity. Her patience was worn thin, as were her nerves. Every slap of their feet against the tile beneath them made her want to leave them there. They knew nothing about stealth, and Lyra was only thanking the gods their luck held out as they reached the exit point she'd decided on so many moons ago.

She pulled the window open, nearly sighing in relief when no alarms sounded. They were still in the clear, and still safely on their way to freedom.

Gwen wasted no time in leaping out into the icy winds, landing lightly on her feet. The sound was still far too loud for Lyra's tastes – though it was barely a whisper compared to the squeak and thud made by Three as Lyra grew tired of her indecisiveness. Shoving her out the with her foot made everything that much faster, even if the quivering idiot made too much noise. A small bit of noise was a tiny price to pay for not missing their window of opportunity.

Lyra clambered out onto the windowsill, quietly pulling the window to before she jumped down to join her companions. Snow crunched under her bare toes as she landed even more quietly than Gwen, breath misting in the chilly night air. "Shift," Lyra ordered, her voice carried away on the howling winds as she pawed through the thick layer of snow until she found the small waterproofed bag she'd stowed there so many weeks ago. Hurriedly, she peeled off her thin layer of clothing, stuffing the threadbare clothing into the bag. It wasn't much – just a simple grey shirt and white trousers. They looked more like pyjamas than anything substantial.

Wind and snow pelted against her bare skin for a few brief moments before the change took over. Porcelain white skin was concealed by a thick hide covered in brilliant red fur, hands becoming smaller paws, her line of sight dropping to half of that of her furless form. She became a wolf, though there was no possible way she could be mistaken for one of the moon-born natural wolves. Werewolves were larger, with a far more intelligent gleam to their eyes.

A low growl rumbled in her throat, dark brown eyes narrowing on the slightly smaller black wolf and the even tinier blonde wolf staring back at her. Lyra ducked down, picking her bag up with her teeth, inclining her head towards the pair before she slunk into the neat row of bushes between the building they'd jumped out of and the road still between them and the forest.

Her paws were even more silent in the snow-covered ground than her feet would have been. They were that much warmer too, and Lyra padded through the thicket. Her eyes were narrowed, ears pressed flat against her skull as she poked her nose out from under the cover of the bright green leaves. Clear. The road was clear, and it would be for another three minutes.

Lyra wasted no time in slinking out from the bushes, glad the snow had been cleared otherwise their tracks would've been that much more obvious. As it was, Lyra darted over the road, diving into the bushes overhanging the road ever so slightly. It would be enough the cover their tracks going to and from the road – at least until they realised they had escaped.

Her measures would never fool a trained tracker, and those were who would be sent after them. But by that time they would be far away from there. Sparing a glance behind her at the quivering blonde wolf and the black one all but dragging her along by the scruff of her neck – Lyra only sighed. Well, she hoped they would be.