Chapter 1
"Isaiah? Isaiah?" I shook him harder; I knew there was no point. His head was no longer attached to his body, even though it was trying to deceive me by sitting so close to the rest of him. He was covered in hack marks, chunks were missing from his torso and blood covered him and the surrounding area.
I knew I had come just after the Guardians had left, the Alchemist were probably on there way here to clean up the mess. I didn't know what happened, not exactly, and I couldn't believe that Isaiah was dead. It just wasn't possible. He was so strong, so smart, and so cunning, how could this have happened?
"Isaiah?" I shook him again. I just wanted him back. I never realised it before, but I knew it now, now that it was too late, I finally realised that I was in love with him. Why else would I be here, why else would I constantly put myself in danger by leaving court to come visit him? "Isaiah!" I shouted it this time, hoping it would reverse everything. That's when I heard it, a moan.
"Isaiah." I whispered. I began to look him over again. I began to realise that his head really was attached, and that his more severe wounds were begging to heal.
I sat and watch for a long time as he moaned before me and slowly came back to life, well undead life. It took what felt like forever before he was back to normal. Blood still covered him, but he was completely healed.
"Isaiah?" I asked, gently putting my hand in his.
He shot up with a start, a growl erupting from his lips. "Rose!" He growled in an undertone. He began to look around the room for something, he was furious!
"Isaiah! No ones here!"
He stopped and turned to face me slowly, as he took me in and began to realise what was going on, his face began to soften. He gave me a brief smile before getting back to business. "What happened?" He demanded.
"I'm not sure. All I know is that you were killed. I think the guardians just left, so Alchemist are probably on their way."
"Right, we should leave here." He strode towards and pulled me to my feet in one swift motion. He started walking towards the door, still holding my hand when he came to halt. I walked into the back of him, not expecting his sudden stop.
"What's wrong?" I asked tentatively.
"Are…are you okay?" He sounded worried.
"Yes. I'm fine."
He turned to face me, and his gazed burned through me. I stared right back; unable to look away, something in that gaze was fierce, yet at the same time it was gentle…protective. Finally, he smiled and pulled me into him. That was probably frightening for you." He remarked.
"When I thought you were gone…it was. But now…I'm okay." I smiled back at him and put my head against his chest. "I love you."
His response was barely a whisper, but it had so much depth, that I knew he meant it. "I love you too."
It had been awhile since the incident in Spokane. Isaiah had adapted well to his new life at Court. After leaving the house in Spokane, Isaiah told me all about what had happened, about what he had done, and I scolded him for it, which he didn't like, but there was nothing he could do about it.
We discovered that Isaiah was a spirit user. It was such an unknown phenomenon that we considered it possible that spirit could be the one elemental magic that could be carried over when you were turned into a Strigoi. And it made a lot of sense. It explained why Isaiah had come back to life from being 100% dead, why he could cross wards and hold charmed silver, and why he had so much charisma despite being a Strigoi.
Most of all, it explained why he was capable of love.
After pondering it for some time, we realised that spirit had the opposite affect on Strigoi than it did on Moroi. A Moroi spirit user is infected with a kind of darkness that follows the use of spirit. A bad side-affect I'd experienced many times.
As Strigoi are already filled with darkness, and are void of any humanity, it only made sense that the use of spirit would increase their level of humanity. The more they used spirit the more human they became, or the more Moroi in Isaiah's case.
However, considering spirit is so rare, I imagine it to be even more of a rarity to find a spirit using Strigoi.
When I first brought Isaiah to Court, I kept him hidden. Since then I have introduced him to my mother, Queen Tatiana. My mother was aghast at first. She nearly had a heart attack upon meeting him, but after a lot of talking and persuasion, I finally got her to deal with it. At first she decided it would be best to keep Isaiah a secret until she was used to him. Once she had grown accustom to his presence, then we would introduce him to the rest of people at court. Word would be spread round to the guardians so nobody tried to stake him, and the Moroi at Court would just find out when they saw him or heard about it.
Mother decided that he was my responsibility, I was in charge of him, and responsible for everything he did. If he went to far he would be killed and I would be in a lot of trouble, but nothing to serious, after all, I was the Queens daughter.
After awhile my mother did get used to him, they even talked to one another. In the end, despite feeling slightly uncomfortable around him, it seemed like she had begun to like him a little. And I was certainly glad to see them getting along. I may have fought with my mother often, but I still loved her and we were actually remarkably close.
When we finally allowed Isaiah to travel around Court out and about in the open, people were shocked, horrified, terrified, stunned, frozen, or began screaming for dear life. After a couple of weeks, everyone at Court were all too aware of Isaiah's presence, and they weren't very excepting, however, they had grown used to having him around, and no longer jumped upon spotting him.
The guardians in particular were starting to like the idea of having a Strigoi around; they found many uses for Isaiah. They got him to tell them were big groups of Strigoi were, tell them about things they didn't know about Strigoi that could be useful, but most of all, they enjoyed having an actual Strigoi to practice sparing with.
"Isaiah?"
"Mmm."
"You…you do like it here, don't you?"
"Here's not that great. But I love the company." He smiled.
"But you're not unhappy?"
"No. I'm fine."
"Good." I started beaming absent-mindedly and quickly turned away and frowned when I realised Isaiah was watching me with an amused look on his face. "I heard Lissa Dragomir was coming to Court today for a visit. I think she's bringing a few friends too." I said trying to change the topic and alleviate my embarrassment.
"Really? Well, isn't that interesting."
"Hey! You have to behave." I said sternly. "As a-matter-of-fact, you should try and be on your best behaviour!" I said huffily.
"Yes, yes. I will." He said practically waving me off.
"You will." I stated.
He turned and grabbed me by the shoulders holding me still. He smiled and leaned down to me. He gently brushed his lips against mine before whispering in my ear, "I'll try." Pulling away from me a little, he stared into my eyes before placing a kiss on lips and strutting away.
"Ass." I mumbled before hurrying to catch up to him.
