Chapter One

It was too bright to realize what the lights heading straight towards us were at first. The bright headlights of another car were racing towards us. Before I knew what I was doing my seatbelt was off and I threw myself in front of my friends cushioning them from the blow, leaving my seat beside Andre the eldest Dragomir sibling.

That's when my dream went weird; I was no longer seeing it from my point of view. It was when her fear was felt before hearing her scream. The scene was no longer of us in the car, my nightmare instead her nightmare flashed before my eyes. Her images, her memories tumbled through my mind: fire, blood, the bodies of Lissa's parents and guardians, bodies of her brother and me. The smell of smoke, the twisted metal remains of a car. The images were the aftermath of my own nightmare.

This wasn't my dream. I forced myself to wake up. My forehead was damp with cold sweat, my breathing was ragged. Lissa was in her bed thrashing and still screaming, Rose was already at her side trying to shake her from sleep.

Her screams faded but I heard her whimper her brother's name. I felt a pang of guilt shoot through my heart if I had stayed in my seat Andre might still be alive.

Rose gave me a quick glance to make sure I was alright before consoling Lissa. This dream was something we both went through quite a lot. I rolled out of bed and joined my friends, my breathing wasn't quite normal yet but Lissa was more important.

"It's okay." I said gently.

"Everything's okay." Rose told her just as gentle.

"I had that dream."

"We know." Rose said leaning over and turning on the light on the nightstand. I felt Lissa's emotions start to calm down though we remained silent for a few moments. Our housemates damn cat was attracted by the light, he rubbed his head against Lissa purring and I felt Lissa calm further.

"When did we last do a feeding?" I asked noticing that she was paler than normal. "It's been more than two… three days? Why didn't you say anything?" I asked. Lissa just shrugged without giving me an answer. I moved closer pulling my hair away from my neck.

"I'll do it Dina." Rose offered but I was already shaking my head.

"No you did it last time." We had worked out a patterned to feed Lissa it was a way to keep us from losing too much blood and also to keep Rose from getting addicted to the endorphins in her bite. For some strange reason though the endorphins never fazed me all I ever felt was the pain of the bite.

"Dina…"

"Come on, it'll make you feel better." I said, I saw her hesitate but she was in need. Her fangs bit into me, hard, and I cried out in the brief pain. It had taken less than a minute. She pulled back, wiping her hand across her lips as she studied me.

"You okay?"

"Yeah." I lay back on the bed, dizzy from the blood loss. "I just need to sleep it off. I'm fine." Her pale, jade-green eyes watched me with concern, she stood up.

"I'm going to go get you something to eat." Before I could even protest her and Rose left in search of food.

Our housemate's cat was sitting at the window trying to stay as far away from me as possible. His hiss pulled my attention to the window. I forced myself to sit up, my world spun I waited for it to right itself before trying to stand. The dizziness set in again and this time refused to leave. I stumbled to the window and peered out.

I was just able to make out a man standing by a tree in the yard. The cat hissed again and said man shrank back into the shadows, movement from others followed. "Shit!" pulling on some pants and grabbing all of our wallets I stumbled my way out of our room, fighting the dizziness to get back to my friends.

Downstairs in the kitchen I found Rose and Lissa by the fridge, our housemate Jeremy was sitting at the kitchen table studying. Lissa regarded me with surprise.

"Dina, you shouldn't be up." She said concerned, with reason too I was instable on my feet.

"We have to leave, they found us." I said giving Rose that look that said grab her and let's go.

"Lissa get him to give is the keys to his car." Rose said taking charge. She was good at leading. I knew Lissa didn't like using compulsion but this was an emergency. I could feel her fear through our bond but also faith, she knew we'd protect her. Lissa nodded went to work; once the keys were obtained we were out the door running for the car. With Rose and Lissa supporting me to stand our speed was hindered.

The car was in view just up ahead, we were going to make it. Then the man I saw before steps in front of us, if this was any other circumstance I probably would have thought her was hot, but that aside I noticed we were surrounded by almost a dozen guardians. I pulled Lissa behind me towards Rose.

"Get her out of here Rose!" I knew I wasn't strong enough to fight all these guys alone but Lissa needed someone at full strength to protect her right now.

"Lea" he took a step forward, it made him too close. I attacked him; I already knew this was going to end badly for me. I swung the first punch hoping to get all the guardians attention on me. The guardian before me dodged and I lost my balance, after regaining it I lunged at the guy, he stepped to the side and attempted to grab me. My movements were sluggish but I was still able to avoid him. I felt the bite on my neck rip open with the movement but I didn't let the pain stop me. I righted myself before throwing another punch, he caught my wrist and shoved me, not enough to do any damage but enough to get me to back off. But he wasn't counting on my weakened state and I lost my footing falling back in an ungodly position. This was going to hurt.

Just as quickly as he blocked my attack, the man gracefully caught me. I noticed he was staring at me, well more precisely my neck and that's when I felt the blood sliding down my neck. I knew he had saw what had happened, he probably thought I was a blood whore.

"She can't go back, she's not safe there." I whimpered as the blood loss got to me and my world faded to black.