Chapter One
I fought with a fierce intensity and cold focus, blocking the fists and kicks that were aimed to render me unconscious. My arms burned with the weight of exhaustion that pulled at me, trying to make my moves sluggish but I fought against that. I didn't stop, only getting stronger and faster. It was only when a hard knock to my head, which blurred my vision for a few seconds, allowed me the extra dose of anger and fury that I needed to get the extra push against my attackers. I came at them with controlled rage pulsing through my veins.
I was down to my last attacker, finally having them pinned as I punched and delivered elbows that dizzied them, arms up, trying to block the onslaught of my attack.
"That's it, stop!" I paused mid-punch, fist centimeters from delivering the final blow which would have knocked them out. I glanced up to where my trainer stood a while away, voice crossing the distance easily.
"What—why? I was doing so well!" I asked as I stood up from my straddled position. I leant a hand to the man I'd held to the ground, who'd accepted it grudgingly, stumbling slightly as he made his way over to the medic.
My trainer walked over to me. He was lean, lithe and one of the most patient men I've known to date. How I managed to find him as my trainer was hard to tell. He had buzzed brown hair, fair skin, whiskey colored eyes and was slightly taller than me, freckles dotting his skin. If you saw him in everyday life, with the baggy jeans and hoodies—no matter the season—you'd never picture him to be as skilled as he was. That was the whole point, I supposed.
"Yes, you were. And if you did any better you would have killed Sean." I went to protest, to say that I could control myself before I noticed the six other students, either limping away or resting back on the grass, groaning and in pain. Control was definitely something I needed to better myself with.
"Sorry," I bit out, face with the same mask I've had since I arrived.
"There's no need to apologize, you did well. If that was four Strigoi, instead of six Dhampir's, you would have survived. However, I want you back here with a mat in half an hour, Belle, not a minute later." I nodded, calm mask completely enforced, although I was annoyed.
I'd been training at this tiny institution for the last five months, living in the South. I'd found my trainer, Wyatt Watts, the last time I went out hunting. It wasn't my proudest moment, but it was probably one of the best to happen, as I'd gained him as a mentor.
By hunting, I meant that I'd believed that, to regain my strength, the best way was to seek out the Strigoi and kill them. I believed, and in a way still do, that to gain the skill I simply had to fight more of them. The longer I survived against them, I had more a chance at winning this thing between Nathan and me. However, that night I almost did die—almost lost completely.
It was raining, and I now realize how stupid that sounds because of course it is. Of course I would die in battle with the somber sound of rain pounding around me, completely alone. To be honest, even I could have told you that it was going to end that way. People can speak about their fate and destiny but that was my fate, it was my destiny. To fight until some undead bitch caught me unaware and bit me.
That's what happened this night. I'd been trying to search for some lead, something on Nathan and who was behind the idea to kill off the bloodlines. At this point I'd found none. I was getting frustrated and I was still weak. I'd left the court only four months prior to this fight, but I'd made a name for myself. I'd headed to LA, where I knew many Strigoi roamed. Lots of places to hide and many unnamed faces that they could kill or turn. It was one of the placed Lissa and I had avoided when I ran away with her at the age of fifteen.
This night I'd taken on too much. With not enough sleep or food, I'd been cornered in a dirty alleyway, backed into a corner by three Strigoi who believed I'd killed enough of their kind. I was fighting and fighting, blind rage taking over every punch and hit I delivered. It would have been enough, I would have been able to stop them, to stake and kill them, if only one hadn't knocked the weapon from my hand, sending it flying underneath a dumpster as I hit the wet pavement. I was pinned, locked beneath one bastard as the bitch held tight to the sides of my head. Her blood red eyes stared into mine with elation, having believed that she'd finally caught me.
"This is brilliant," she hissed, hands forcing my head to the side as I closed my eyes, feeling her breath on my neck, "now to kill…or turn. We'll let you guess." I felt her fangs brush against my skin and braced myself for the initial pain of the bite but knew that it would be lost to euphoria. The only blessing that came with the bite of a Strigoi—or a Moroi.
It was sudden, feeling the fangs pierce slightly, that brief pain. I waited for the euphoria, but instead gained her body collapsing on top of me. I grunted, the puncture on my neck now throbbing. There was a loud hiss before another body fell on top of me, my arms now free. I glanced up as the bodies were kicked off, the weight disappearing, the man I now knew as Wyatt held a hand out for me. I frowned, however I noticed the stance of a guardian. I clasped his hand and allowed him to pull me up.
"Are you alright?" the anger still coursed through me, and I shook slightly, but I was alright.
"Who are you?" I demanded instead. He pursed his lips, arms crossing over his chest.
"The man that just saved your life." He snapped back, however not unkindly. I pressed my lips together to hold back a retort before nodding.
"…then, thanks." I said after a silence, limping over to the dumpster and pushing it out of the way to grab the only stake I owned at this point in time.
"You've been making a name for yourself in a way that guardians shouldn't." I stood up straighter, turning to look back at him.
"I don't know if I am a guardian anymore," one eyebrow raised, as if in shock.
"Rose Hathaway, rogue…Doesn't have quite the same ring to it." For a fleeting moment of worry, I thought that maybe Lissa or Dimitri had sent a guardian after me before I lifted my chin.
"Maybe not, but Rose Mazur does." He smirked and nodded.
"True, but how good does it sound when you're dead on the side of the road, or perhaps turned into Strigoi and chasing down the ones you claim to be protecting." I hesitated in retaliating.
"Why do you care?" I hissed, a deep bitterness covering my tone.
"I care because I agree with what you're doing, but I don't agree with the way you're going about it." I bit my lip. It was obvious he was skilled, simply noticeable with the way he stood, hand gripped around his stake, never faulting in being alert and aware.
"So what are you going to do about it?" I pushed the fringe out of my face, the rain making it stick to my forehead.
"I want to train you. To make you better than you are and ever have been. And then, when you're finished, I want to help you." I didn't know if I could trust him, but he was offering me everything I needed to get through this. He was offering me what I set off for; a chance to make myself better than I was and people that I could fight with. People that I won't have to promise to protect or blame myself for their deaths, if they do die.
"First, we need to get rid of your old identity."
When I'd later asked just how he'd found me, it turned out that there was a long line of bodies, with exactly my description, that the Strigoi had been killing. It seemed that, without knowing exactly who I was, a bounty had been set for me, to stop me at any cost. I'd followed him to a dumpster not a few blocks away and found a girl who had an uncanny resemblance to me, same hair (if a little more kept) and almost the same amount of tattoos on the back of her neck, slightly marred by the bite marks that littered it. He'd taken my duffle bag and wallet off of me, dragged the girl to a less hidden place in the alley before chucking them down beside her. Before I could save my bag, he'd poured some oil onto both the girl and the last of my items and set it aflame.
In a way I hadn't really forgiven him for that. The stuff in that duffle bag was the last that I had of my past and while I hadn't exactly taken much to remind me of the pain, a couple of pictures to get me through were in there.
He'd set strict rules about his training: to forget about my past as it was no longer mine; to follow his orders as they were in my best interest; and to let my past think that I was dead. The last one had been the hardest to follow.
As per Adrian's request, I'd been calling him every week at least once since I'd left, to let him know that I was alive. I'd told him where I was on the premise that he didn't tell the others, so when a couple weeks passed without my phone call he began to search for me. By the anguish that had escaped through the bond, I'd realized that they'd found the body of the girl in the alley. It was odd, watching your funeral first hand. More than odd, it was excruciating even. I'd spent that night sitting awake, watching through the bond as the ragtag group I'd once called my family fell apart.
It was two months after my supposed death, and I'd been calling Adrian's home number every week, just like I'd used to. However, from a different payphone each time which I'd made sure they couldn't trace, and without speaking. I'd simply assumed that they'd never guess it was me. I'd been wrong.
It was an off week, training had been hard and stressful and none of Wyatt's students and I had gotten along, so I'd called for the second time in four days. Adrian had answered, sounding tired and weary and like he'd aged too much too quickly. I'd closed my eyes against the onslaught of pain I'd felt, wanting to speak to him, to tell him that I'm okay and everything was going to be okay. Only I knew that I couldn't.
"I don't know who this is, but just cut it out!" he'd growled, with a fury in his voice I'd never heard, nor would have believed could come from him. I winced when he'd slammed the phone down, hanging up on me.
I'd rested my head in my hands, hoping to stop the pain. I glanced up when, not even five minutes later, the phone rang. It took me to take in a deep breath to answer, letting it out slowly when I heard her voice.
"Rose? Rose, if this is you could you just answer me!" she'd whispered angrily, obviously trying to not allow Adrian to hear her.
"Listen, I know that it's you and I know that you're still alive. All I ask is that if you aren't going to tell us you're alive than just stop calling, you're only making it worst for him and everyone else. We miss you, Rose, but we can't take it anymore. Let us be happy and move on." And then she hung up, a lot less violently than Adrian had but it hurt just the same. She was right. All through this I'd been thinking of myself, I didn't realize the pain that it would be giving them to keep calling.
So I stopped.
.
.
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Hey guys, this is the first chapter to the sequel of Broken Letters. I hope you like the beginning but I am sorry that it took so long!