Prologue

"What are we going to do with her?"

"She's rebelling, I seem to recall you being the same at her age."

"No I ran away to protect my best friend, there's a difference."

"Regardless of that one incident, I seem to recall you being very much the same as she is now, parties every weekend, being disruptive in class, talking back to teachers, starting fights…it's exactly the same."

"That was freshman year for me, I was barely in trouble senior year. She has been like this for the past three years and if she doesn't improve her senior year her whole future is ruined."

"We don't know that it will be."

"We also don't know it won't be Dimitri."

"Maisy is a good girl, despite her so called rebellious streak she seems to be in, she is the top of her class. Maybe she can turn it around for her senior year."

"Or maybe we can ground her for her summer break in hopes that she will learn some discipline."

"You know as well I do that won't work Roza, we'll talk to her and remind her how important senior year is, she might turn it around. Remember that everyone knows that she might be different, she has our reputation to live up to, it's put a lot of pressure on her."

"And I had to live up to my mothers."

The tears silently rolled down my cheeks as I sat there on the stairs listening in on my parent's conversation, the famous Rose Hathaway-Belikov and Dimitri Belikov.

Junior had ended yesterday and I returned home today, straight away I knew my parents weren't happy with me I could see it on their faces but you try having them as your parents along with the stress of everyone in your community watching you like a hawk because of them and let's not forget the fact that I shouldn't even exist, I'm an anomaly. Everyone in my world thinks I'm the only one that exists but that is only because my aunt and uncle kept Declan a secret, claimed him as their own with fear of what would happen.

You see I live in a world filled with vampires, there are two types, a Moroi which is everything good about a vampire, they don't kill when they feed, they take blood from willing humans, they can wield magic and they can also go out into the sun. Strigoi are the evil vampires, the ones that hide in the shadows because they can't go out in the sun, they kill when they feed off humans and Moroi and they can only be killed by a limited number of ways.

A dhampir is a cross breed of Moroi and human, they have the best of both creatures but there is one downside to being a dhampir, they can't have children with each other. For the dhampir race to continue to exist we have to keep having children with Moroi, or so we thought.

My cousin Declan was the first one to exist, to be born from two dhampir parents but I'm the only one that our community knows about and they are trying to work out how I came to be and if there is anything different about me.

They believe I came to exist because my father was once a Strigoi, now up until he was turned back my people believe it wasn't possible, that once you were a Strigoi you couldn't return to your original state, whether it be Moroi, dhampir or human but it happened and as a result his DNA changed and whatever that prevent dhampirs to have children together was fixed within him and my parents were able to have a child.

I was told it was before even my first birthday when my parents decided that they didn't want to submit two children to what I already had. My parents didn't want another child to be put under the stress had been and I haven't even graduated from college yet, so can you blame me for being a little rebellious?

I wiped away the tears before standing up and quietly making my way back upstairs hoping my parents didn't hear me, the last thing I need is to add eavesdropping to the list of things I know I'm going to be chewed out for first thing in the morning.

I quickly pried open my window and climbed out, hoping that my parents saw me climbing down from my second story window, it was the one downfall of having my room on the opposite side of the top floor to my parents it meant that I was situated over the living room where my parents were sitting moments before.

I've done this on a number of occasions, sneak out, break into the garage where the Court cars were kept and stole one. It was something myself the small number of other dhampirs that lived at Court while we were novices, we were never stupid enough to take the Moroi with us because if for some reason we were caught and something happened to them then we would be in a hell of a lot of trouble.

I grab the keys for one of the many number of SUVs that were kept in here, I knew that if someone needed one of the cars then they would notice if one was missing but if one wasn't needed all night then I could be gone all night and no one would know that would happen.

Getting out of Court and away from the boundries wasn't exactly a hard thing because there were a number of Guardians that hated their posting at the Entrance Gate, they would never let strangers in but for the right offering they would let a small number of novices out and I just hoped I had some luck in my tonight.

It took an hour for my parents to realise I wasn't at home, that I had taken off by the number of messages that had come through from them asking where I was.

It was two hours after I left that they realised I took one of the Court cars because that was when the phone calls started.

It was 30 minutes after the phone calls started that my parents realised I wasn't going to answer to them and the rest of my so called family started calling me, they had even contacted the small number of friends I have at Court in hopes that they knew where I was heading.

Four hours was how long it took for Declan to call, my parents knew he was the only one I would answer because he knew what it was like to be in my shoes.

I hit answer, letting the call come through on the Bluetooth but didn't say anything at first, waiting for him.

"Maise you there?" Declan's voice filled the car and I had to choke back a sob.

"Dec…" I choked out.

"Maise, what's wrong?"

"They kept going on and on about how I'm disappointment to them and blah blah blah."

"Maise are you crying?"

"No," I scoffed in response and Declan laughed at me.

I didn't pay attention to what Declan said next due to the bright lights heading my way, I heard the horn and then it was all black.

A/N: Thank you for reading this, this was an idea I've had bouncing around in my head for the last couple of days. I thought of putting up here to see what you all thought of it so please leave a review and let me know what you all think, it will mean a lot to me!