Authors note: So, I was going through Frostbite and what do you know the royal family that starts with a C is named Conta! My bad. Also I was re-reading and my computer changed every Lissa to Lisa and every Kyra to Kara. If you see this please don't kill me. Oh, and thanks for everyone adding this to his or her favorite list. I feel the love.

Chapter 2

I followed Kyra through the front doors. They were a set of double doors of pure glass. Looking through them made everything on the other side look distorted. Inside there were two large grand staircases that were a dark mahogany wood, along with the rest of the house. There was a dark red rug that stretches from the front to the far far back of the house. The walls were the same dark red at the rug and were bare of any photo frames or mirrors. It was a typical vampire style house with dark reds and whites.

The queen came to the top of one of the staircases. She had on a golden dress on that flowed on the ground.

"Guardian Carter, please take our guests to their rooms please."

Kyra nodded and waved her hand in a direction of the staircase to the far left. The staircase was matted with the same red rug. At the top the Queen called Kyra over. Turning both of their backs to us it was clear the Queen's dress was cut low in the back exposing a large crescent moon tattoo with a star dangling off, the royal Czech mark.

Kyra placed an open hand over her heart and bowed before setting off to us. God, that's so annoying.

"Follow me please." She had a large smile on her face. "Princess, I hope you don't mind rooming in the Guardian wing. The Queen believes you will be safer surrounded by us."

Lissa nodded. "I don't mind."

"Okay. I'll give you a room that will be connect with Guardian Hathaway's room. Does that sound good?

Lissa nodded again.

"Oh, Guardian Hathaway-"

"Call me Rose."

Kyra shook her head. "I'm sorry but until you pass the Queen's test I must call you Guardian Hathaway."

I groaned.

The hallway stretched into the building that was connected on the left of the main house. The walls were a dark blue with marble flooring. The doors were a lightwood with a symbol on them, birds, swords, swirls, and even a heart with wings. We climbed a set of stairs to the level above; the walls were pink with a dark red boarder.

"This is the girls hall. See pink walls means girls. The floor under us that we went through before were the boys. This building is made up of four floors, two bottom ones are boys then girl then a boys hall above us." She stopped in front of a door that had a symbol of a moon that was combined with a sun. "This is my room. If you need me I'll be in here…usually. And this is yours."

The door opposite of hers was symbol less. She opened it. The room was huge, larger than our apartment. The walls were a dark red with tan carpeting. Two windows were tinted on the wall across from the door. White lace curtains covered them. A bed was pushed up against the wall with four pillars reached the ceiling at each point of the bed. White bed sheets covered the bed and a single stuff animal was placed on the pillow.

"Princess this will be your room and Guardian yours is right here. Sorry about the stuff animal, guys down stairs thought it would be hysterical. You can totally kill them if you want to."

Lissa smiled. Her smile is like a domino effect; whenever the ends of her lips turn up mine do too. "I like it. It's cute."

Almost twenty and still thinks teddy bears are cute.

She walked trough Lisa's room to a door on the left. It was a white door with a simple red streak going down it. My room was similar to Lisa's.

"The Queen told me before your test will be at night…well morning. So take a nap and I'll get you later. Princess will you like me to get you up later to watch the test?"

Lissa glanced from me to Kyra. "Sure. I guess."

Kyra turned around and stopped. She turned around on her heels; "on the bottom floor between both this and the middle building is the kitchen for guardians. In case your hungry." She left and closed the door behind her.

As she left I realized I was tired. I said my good night to Liss and stumbled over to my room. We left the door open.

I fell asleep right away. The sheets were silk. Oh, it was a heaven. The past couple months I've been sleeping on the sofa letting Lisa have the bed for herself. Our apartment was made for only one person, but with the money we had it was all we could afford. I didn't mind it kept me more alerted to sleep on the sofa than in a nice big soft comfortable bed.

I rolled onto my side. My hand slipped under my head and the other one was placed under the pillow. God, I could stay in here forever.

Something scuffled in the room. Automatically I thought of Lissa walking into the room.

"Liss," my mouth was dry. "What's wrong?"

There was weight at the side of the bed I wasn't laying on.

"Lissa?"

Something covered my mouth. I started a muffle scream and my fingernails dug into their skin. My wrists were grabbed and tied together. There were move scuffling around the room and some mummer. Something covered my head making it hard for me to breath and see out of.

"I'm going to kill you! Kill you!"

I was dragged out of bed and into light. A slamming door set my alarms off in my head. Guardians are doing this. Hands pressed hard against my back forcing me to walk. I followed whatever lead they were making.

From a nice heated place I was walking out in the cold. My socks were becoming soaked from the snow. I was pushed and fell to my knees. The cover around my head was removed.

"You guys are bastards." I spat.

In front of me was the surfer boy, Caden. His arms crossed his chest holding a pillowcase. Someone behind me cut my writs apart.

"Welcome to Guardian hell." He smiled. It was an innocent smile. "I grabbed an extra pair of socks and your sneakers for you."

I rolled onto my butt and stripped my wet socks off. Caden walked over and handed me a new pair and my sneakers.

"Here's a sweatshirt. I didn't want to go through your stuff so, here's one of mine." It was a black sweatshirt…under amour.

Caden reminded me of Mason. They had the same smile the same blue eyes. This is how I pictured him in the future, still playful but at the same time when every thing is on the line he would get serious.

Than something hit me. "Where is all my stuff?"

"In your closet." He smiled and held a hand out for me. "Some of the servants put it in there."

I grabbed his hand. His fingers were warm but the tips were ice. He helped me to my feet. I pulled my hair into a messy bun trying to keep everything out of my face.

"Come on." He tilted his head over.

I followed him to a large field behind the houses. Large lights filled the field and parts of the woods lining the property. All the trees were died except for the evergreens that stood proud in such harsh weather.

"Here are the rules." We stopped walking. "The object is to get the flag in the middle." He pointed out in the field to a small neon green flag. "If you do end up getting it you have to run into the woods and find a small gazebo."

"So, whoever gets it there first wins?"

Caden shook his head, "it's not over till the Queen says so. Give or take after someone gets the flag in the gazebo then like two minutes later it will end."

I sighed. "What happens then?"

"You two battle it out."

My mouth dropped. "Who am I going to have to face?"

"You were suppose to go against P.J. but I think it's Kyra now." He looked up into the starless sky and nodded. "Yeah, its Kyra."

I looked away. It was freezing out that exhale of breath you made, little clouds of whiteness formed in the air. I pulled his sweatshirt close to me. It smelled of laundry detergent.

I heard him chuckle. "You know in the car we told you to stay to the left before?" He wouldn't let me answer. "Forget that and just run like hell."

My eyes searched the field, guardians were lining against the house and some on the patio. The queen was standing between two guardians and a girl in a dark purple dress stood on the outside of them. I sent my senses out to find Lissa. She was inside somewhere…a kitchen?

"Whose with Lissa?"

"P.J.? I'm sure it's P.J." He looked around. "Yeah, its P.J. Kyra got her up before we got you and took her down the kitchen. P.J. was down there do K left the princess with him."

Lissa was laughing at whatever was going on in the room. I smiled.

Across the field I spotted Kyra, she was dressed in all black like she was on duty. She was pulling her hair into a bun. A man stood next to her helping with her hair. I couldn't make out his face just his hair was a jet black. She was laughing and pushed him away. He came back and wrapped his arms around her.

"Who is that guy with Kyra?" I pointed across the field.

Caden tilted his head letting his blonde hair block his view. "David Czech." His voice was a monotone as he said David's name.

We didn't say any thing else to one another until the test was getting ready to go. He told me where to stand and told me again to run like hell.

Nearby bells ringed ten times on the last one Kyra took off. I followed her led and began sprinting as if a Strigoi was behind me. It was a little of half a mile to the flag. The flag got caught in the wind and began to wave in a serpentine motion. Kyra was running with a smile on her face she looked at me and dropped into the snow. She began sliding. Her hand wrapped around the flag and before I could react her feet hit my legs taking me out.

Laughter from the guardians echoed through the field.

My face hit the ground. That's when I realized we were running on ice. Standing up my blood was staining the snow/ice. Kyra was reaching the edge of the woods when I began running again, than she disappeared.

I can still outrun her to the gazebo and get the flag and win. Doubt it.

The woods were dark as hell. I slowed my run to a walk and searched around; being half-vampire I was easily able to spot the gazebo. It was white and running down. Shingles were missing from the roof and the wood from the stairs was rotting.

"You're not trying."

Turning around Kyra was standing there. She walked passed me with a hand on her hip.

"Lets say, I was a strigoi and this flag was something you need for example it was a Moroi. They would be died by now 'cause you're not pushing yourself. When I knocked you down before you laid there long enough to get a better nice start before you and you walked into the woods. You walked!"

I began running to get her. She sprinted and jumped over bushes gaining more space between us. She reached the gazebo and threw the flag in.

"I'll give you a head start to the field."

"No we start now."

She smiled, "you really want to start now? Huh?"

I went at her. She grabbed my wrist and twisted it. Pain shot through my body.

"You really want to play this lil' game, huh?"

She kicked me in the stomach making me stagger. Looking up she was gone. What the hell! I stood keeping an arm wrapped around my stomach. Sending out my perfect hearing I got nothing back in return. I took off running to the field.

That's when it hit me. Literally.

Kyra came down from the trees landing on my back. We both rolled into the snow. I moved onto my all fours and coughed. Blood was still trickling down my face landing in the snow.

"Are you done yet?" Kyra was hovering over me. "Caden should have warned you about me being a tree monkey."

She was close to me so I did the most practical thing I could think off. I grabbed an ankle and pulled. She fell into the snow. I got to my feet and stared down at Kyra.

"You better run."

I backed away. She got to her feet and began at me. I stayed on the defensive side blocking her hits. She threw a punch; I grabbed her wrist and a kick impacted with my shoulder. I let go and stepped away from her.

"Giving up?"

I shook my head, "I don't give up until someone's down for the count."

"I like your thinking."

This time I threw the punches and kicks. I got her on the thigh and forearm.

"Girls. Girls. You can stop." The Queens words made even the guardians stop chatting.

I stopped my fist and inch away from Kyra's neck. We were both breathing hard. Our breath was making thicker clouds in our face. Kyra stepped away and placed a hand over her heart and bowed.

"I would like to officially welcome you to the house Rose." She straightened her back. "Let the stars shine down on you." She kissed her index and middle finger and placed them in the space between my eyes.

As she walked away my head became dizzy. The world was moving and my feet became unstable. My legs began to wobble and I titled over.

"Let's get you to the infirmary."

Slowly closing my eyes Caden picked me up and carried me like his bride. The lights hit his face making his blue eyes shimmer.

"You know you have verrrrrrrry pretty eyes."

He laughed.