Roses of Protection

This is my newest project and my first attempt at fantasy. It's going to be a very unique mix of real life YA problems, along with creatures from a different world. Secret lesbians, death of a parent, a haunting past, and trying to learn how to control blood lust. Yeah, that's a big mix!



Here's the prologue for those of you who'd like to read it:

Vampire fangs, wizard wands, werewolf growls, and pixie dust. That’s everything that surrounded me the day that my world fell apart. Of course, all of these things were, in one way or another, part of each of all of my best friends. Each fantastical object belonged to whatever creature possessed it.


The day for my life to come crashing down in flames (literally) had been set in big black letters for years, even centuries, before I’d realized it. It’d all been set in stone from the day my great-great-great-times-about-a-zillion grandmother was murdered by a mysterious creature. That mysterious creature would be a vampire. A vampire like me.




Anyway, I was talking about my impending doom, right? Well, back to that subject. Basically, since the moment I was changed into a vampire I’d had to deal with more crap than is really appropriate for a seventeen year old girl from Wisconsin to handle. Changing schools, leaving all my friends, seeing an old enemy, and getting attacked by a hoard of bitchy teenage girls. Yeah, that was only the normal part.

***

The swooshing sound of a sharp arrow whizzing past my head was the only thing I could hear as I was surrounded by them. The Darth Vader like breathing came from all around me, creating a circle that was tightening at an alarming rate. My body reacted automatically and drew the medieval-style bow from my back. I attempted to see through the shroud darkness around me, but the only thing visible was the moon peaking out of eerily-present clouds drifting through the pitch night sky.


“Come to us, Chrissie. We won’t harm you,” whispered a voice that sounded vaguely familiar, like a fake version of the original, and ear-scratching all at the same time. The voice of my best friend. I shook my head, taking a deep breath. That wasn’t my friend. That was what she had turned my friend into. And what my best friend had turned into was pretty damn scary.


“I don’t want to do this,” I said in a soft voice. The creatures around me laughed with a bitterness that showed how uncaring they were and I knew they could sense the different emotions boiling inside me. Hate, fear, sadness, pain, loss. Every single one played across the stage of my bright green eyes. They were pulling energy from the negative emotions surrounding me, trying to drain some of it from me.

Before I realized what was going on, I felt my arms reaching for one of the arrows that rested in the gold quiver slung over my shoulder. She hissed when she saw what I was doing and her royal pain-in-the-ass followers echoed her. My steady gaze traveled around the circle. Killers with grey wings, sharp fangs, glowing red eyes, and nasty snarls met my eyes. Killers, just like my best friend.


My choices were simple. A) Shoot my best friend, kill her, and escape with perfect grace from her evil minions. B) Don’t kill her, let her freaky-creature-things attack and probably kill me, then never save the world like I had planned. Or, C) Stand in the middle of the trap and try to think up more ways out of this mess. Obviously, there was not time for Option C. What would you have picked? A or B?

Sure, she was my best friend. She and I were like sisters. Key word: were. Now, she was anything but a sister. She was an enemy. An enemy that was trying to end my life as much as I was trying not to end hers.


My fingers locked around the silver arrow, securing it into place on the ready bow. I took a deep breath, squinted my eyes and looked to her one last time. She stood there, looking at me with brown eyes that seemed to say Chrissie, it’s me! Me! Your best friend! But I knew better. Those eyes would never look at me with innocence again; they’d be forever tainted with murder, hatred, and scorn. Her midnight blue-black curls would never be pinned up neatly again; they’d be let loose to whip about her body like pissed-off snakes. Her smile would never turn out of the snarky smirk it was pinned up in now. She would no longer be my best friend. She was gone.

“Chrissie,” the breeze around me filled my ears with her odd-sounding voice, “Chrissie, don’t kill me. You know you still love me. I’m your sister. You promised. Save me….”


“It’s better this way. I can’t save you anymore,” I managed to choke out between gritted teeth. Now or never, Chris, come on!

I pulled the string of the bow back, like I’d done a million times before. This was my only shot. “I’m sorry. Really sorry,” I whispered, meeting her eyes. For a moment, I swear I saw life flicker through them instead of the blankness they’d worn for so long. My mind was playing tricks again. I took one more deep, tear-filled breath and released the string from my fingers.


My arrow sliced the air and then the blackness came.