Disclaimer: I do not own Bloodlines or Vampire Academy. They belong to Queen Richelle Mead of the amazing gingers. I do, however, own signed copies of the Bloodlines series which is good enough for me.

Breaking Spirit

Chapter One

Rose Hathaway was a force to be reckoned with when she didn't get her own way. I had always thought her to be the kind, driven-by-duty sort but now that I had spent more time analyzing her character, I could see that I was wrong. For one, Rose was selfish. If things didn't go her own way, she'd make it so that they did even if it hurt the people that she so-called "cared" about.

I was one of those unfortunate beings, not that I'd admit so much aloud. Rose had come into my life a great while ago but it was only months previous to this moment that I really began to see who she truly was. Rose was a heartbreaking machine, full of power and deceitful lies that she used to curve innocent people to do her dirty work. She was disgusting. She was… The only person I could ever love. I was lost without her. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't!

"Jill?" The aforementioned girl herself broke me out of my trance-like state, calming the thoughts that weren't my own so that they were mere whispers in my mind. "Are you alright? You've been glaring at me for quite a while now."

"I wasn't even looking at you." I responded almost instantly, trying not to seem like the cruel hateful person i was quickly becoming. "I was looking at the wall behind you. Red is such a yucky color, you see. It reminds me of Queen Tatiana and Royal Court and… And blood. Gross." Yes, Jill. Great job. Make it seem like you're the only vampire who cant do with the color of blood after it hits oxygen. That will surely fool them into believing you to be normal.

"Ah, yes," The man whom the house belonged to spoke, his eyes crinkled in humor, "I remember the days of my youth where I felt bad for my actions regarding fragile human life. But we are not the devils that we think we are sometimes. There is a balance that needs maintenance, little one." I gaped at the elder, feeling my face begin to heat up at the attention he was giving me. "If you'd so like, we can paint the sitting room a new color of your choice. Maybe a nice shade of jade to match your…"

"Father, please." Clarence's son interrupted him, an embarrassed expression on his face. "Look at the girl's face! She almost as red as the walls!" If he had meant to save me from his father, Lee Donahue had only managed to embarrass me even more.

"Oh, don't worry. That's Jill's normal shade. I'm sure it'd be odd to see her without the blush on her…"

"Nobody cares what you think, Rose! Why are even here? Just go bother Dimitri; Everybody knows he's the only one who can actually trust you anyway!" I jumped up from my seat and rushed out of the stupid red room. Footsteps sounded behind me and I had only gotten to the front door when a hand touched my shoulder.

"Jill," Eddie began, his voice full of false concern, "Why are you-"

"I won't apologize if that's what you want. I have so much more that I'd like to say but I won't because I, unlike Hathaway, will not force my opinion onto those who don't want to hear it! This wouldn't be fair to any of you who don't actually care about anything that I have to say!" I yelled, whirling around to face the Guardian who was somehow taller than me despite his being a Dhampir. His hazel eyes were full of many emotions that I couldn't place as I stared angrily at him and soon my resolve faded. Eddie Castille hadn't done anything to deserve being yelled at by me. He hadn't been anything but kind to me ever since we met and he had been the only one who had tried to… to… "I'm sorry."

He opened his mouth to respond but halted as he took in something behind me. Somebody cleared their throat and Eddie pulled me towards him protectively. "I assume that you're the one Abe sent for. I could've sworn that S- the blonde one was coming too."

That piqued my interest. Abe Mazur was Rose's Moroi father and probably the closest thing that we vampires had to what the humans called a Mob Father. He was cruel and powerful, and mostly interacted with those who were equally as well-out. Turning, an unfamiliar young man came into view. He looked like any average human if not for the… I gasped, putting a hand to my mouth in horror. He only had one real eye; In the other socket was an unmoving glass eye.

"What happened to you?" I asked before I could stop myself. His real eye narrowed at me in response, obviously either angered or offended by my inappropriate question. "I'm sorry," I amended quite quickly, "But I've never seen such an injury anywhere but on my television. We don't really get injured like that. Any injury we get either heals almost instantaneously or, well, kills us."

One-Eye nodded crisply, "Don't worry. I know of the easy life your… kind… faces. One of them is the one who caused this very injury, in fact." His voice carried with it an obvious tone of disgust at having to put up with us and I noticed the tattoo that I should've before: A golden lily on his left cheek. The tattoo symbolized that he was an Alchemist, one of the humans that knew we existed and carried the responsibility of… Well, I'm not sure what they do. All I know is that they're not very fond of having to be around us.

"A Strigoi did this to you?" Eddie questioned, not sounding the least bit like he believed the Alchemist. The Strigoi were the most vicious of the types of vampires, with their chalky white skin and undead hearts. They were killers and thrived off of their murders. They were the monsters that haunted every Moroi's dreams, the ones that Dhampir Guardians trained to protect us from.

"That's what I said." One-Eye said just as a blonde stepped up behind him and closed the front door with a bang. I recognized the girl almost instantly and a smile spread across my face.

"Sydney!" I exclaimed, fighting the urge to wrap my arms around the human. I hadn't known her very long but she was perfectly kind to me in Michigan and had helped me get to Royal Court. Then again, maybe that wasn't a good thing. Royal Court was the start of every single problem.

"Princess Dragomir." She nodded her greetings at me, her body somehow more tense than it had been months ago. "Guardian Castille. I see you've already had the pleasure of meeting Keith here."

Pleasure? Meeting One-Eye was supposed to have been a pleasure?

"Not formally, Ms. Sage, but now we have been. He was actually just telling us about the Strigoi who took his eye. Quite an odd occurrence if you ask me." Eddie made his disdain for the Alchemist quite known, "Strigoi arent normally so-"

Eddie's words faded away as I was tugged from my own surroundings and into the world of the infamous Adrian Ivashkov.

He was standing outside of the Donahue house, smoking what was probably his hundredth cigarette in the past hour and a half since we'd arrived in Palm Springs, California. Adrian could feel somebody standing right behind him so, after taking one last swig of the smoke, he threw the disgusting object onto the Alchemist's car. It seemed that he too wasn't very fond of One-Eye.

"Killing your lungs isn't going to make your troubles go away." Rose Hathaway stated, her voice cutting into Adrian's every nerve. "You can't escape the past, Adrian. It isn't going away anytime soon."

Adrian laughed, the sound rumbling in his chest. "I don't think I ordered an under-educated psychologist so you can go back to your stupid undead or dead or whatever boyfriend and annoy him instead."

What were the anti-Strigoi classified as? Had anybody ever actually tried to kill them or was this one of those things where you wait forever to find out actual information?

"I think you're being really immature, Adrian." Rose said, stepping in front of the car so he was forced to look at her. "Look, I get it." Her dark eyes were smoldering and kind. "I broke your heart and you have every right to dislike me but… It's affecting Jill, Adrian. Your wallowing in despair is ruining a fifteen year-"

"Do you seriously believe that anything you say will alter how I behave? How I feel?" Adrian demanded, "I'm not one of your little dogs. You can't tell me what to do anymore! You are not my keeper!"

"But I sure as hell am Lissa and Jill's! I don't care what you think of me, Adrian. I only care about how the fifteen year-old inside that house is dealing with all of this shit!" She pointed at the house angrily and Adrian deflated a little bit.

No, please, Adrian. I'm fine. Just deal with things the way that you need to. Don't listen to her.

"I care about her too, Rose. Possibly more than anything else right now." Adrian stated, making my heart break into tiny fragments. He already saved my life; I couldn't possibly deserve more than that. He deserved to live his life the way that he wanted to, not the way that would keep me safe from whatever. "But I can't change my life. This is how I live, how I deal with things. And I'm sure… I'm sure that she can live to deal with that fact…"

Adrian turned, beginning to walk back toward the house with his mind set on getting away from the beautiful Dhampir who had broken him in more ways than what seemed possible. But she wasn't through with him.

"Adrian, stop!" She commanded and he did, because he just couldn't help it. "You're being incredibly selfish right now. Think of Jill!"

He was thinking of me, though, not that she knew that. Adrian kept me in his thoughts for most of the day. I was his adopted little sister with access to his everything. I could ruin him but I wouldn't and he knew that. He viewed me as his complete opposite but I disagreed. We were more alike then he knew.

It was that thought that propelled me into my next involuntary action. First, I moved my hand- Adrian's hand- and reached out to touch the doorknob. His hand wrapped around it and I pulled the door open, faced with the sight of my own body standing as if paralyzed.

Sydney and Eddie looked at me- at Adrian- and I- Adrian- smiled before reaching into my bag and pulling out the water bottle I knew was in there. I opened the bottle just as Rose walked in and turned to face her.

"This is what it feels like when somebody thinks they have the right to control you." And then I extracted the water from the bottle and wrapped it around her body. She barely had time to open her mouth before I froze her drenched body. Soon after, everything went black.