Chapter One

An unexpected visitor threatens the hardwood.

A cloaked figure walked down the sidewalk, its hands in its pockets and its head down. Curling ashen hair escaped the hood, dampened by the light drizzle that had started only minutes ago. The girl, for her figure revealed her as such, tromped up the path that cut through perfectly manicured lawns to the front door of an impressive house. With three stories, light brown with darker trim, the unwitting would think it house of someone successful. They would be right, though not in the way they would expect.

            The girl shoved the door open, her stride purposeful as she walked through it. Blood dripped onto the mahogany floors, and the girl grimaced. She knew her partner would throw a fit when he saw it. She lifted the impressive sword she held loosely in her right hand, but the blood on it was long since washed away by the drizzle. With a frown, she put it in its sheath and rested it against the wall. Then she inspected herself from head to toe.

            “Austin!” she shouted at the top of her lungs when she realized where the blood was coming from. There was a gash in her arm, deep enough that the blood hadn’t stopped flowing in the half an hour it had taken her to get back to the house. Sighing, the girl reached into the pouch in her belt to retrieve her trophy. The eyeteeth rattled as she dropped them into a jar already full of such trophies: the eyeteeth of vampires, the canines of werewolves, the scales of nyads. It was a grisly sight, but it was that jar that determined their pay. It was the biggest jar that was offered, and it was almost full.

            “What?” a voice startled the girl out of her absentminded stare. Austin leaned against the doorframe, a book in his hand. He ran the free one through his dark hair, getting it out of his eyes. They seemed black as he looked at her, a faint smile twitching up sensual lips.

            “First aid kit.” The girl said tersely in answer. Austin rolled his eyes, but shoved away from the doorframe and made his way to the kitchen. When he got there, he rustled around in the cabinets for the first aid kit his partner wanted.

            “Can’t you take out one measly leech without getting hurt, Rose?” he asked his partner, finally finding the first aid kit hidden away in the bottom cupboard. He heard her indelicate snort and chuckled to himself as he brought the kit out to her. Rose held her arm out without comment. Austin shoved her back into a chair in the sitting room, and though it was her turn to roll her eyes, she didn’t say anything. They had known each other too long for her to take offense from his rough treatment.

            “I don’t know when the damn thing got me.” She said, biting her lip when Austin poured peroxide over the wound to clean it. Years after humans had turned on the Royals, the supernatural beings of the world, they still fell back on the basics.

            “How did you not notice a leech tearing open your arm?” Austin asked incredulously. Rose shrugged with an unashamed grin, but hissed in a breath as Austin probed at the wound, making sure it wasn’t a bite. Once he was satisfied, he pulled out the needle and thread to throw it up. Rose’s free hand clenched on the arm of the chair, and she averted her eyes.

            “All done.” Austin told her, his voice warm and affectionate. She let out a breath she had been very aware she was holding, and winced as he tied a bandage around her arm to keep it from getting infected.

            “Thank-” Rose’s sentence was interrupted by a pounding at their door. They looked at each other with alarm; nobody came to visit at the Capitol Guardian house, especially not so late at night. Rose staggered to her feet, her exhaustion weighing her down, but Austin pushed ahead of her. An odd feeling coiled in his gut, a sense of dread, almost. It set him on edge.

            “Just open the door.” Rose said, exasperated, when Austin stopped in front of it. He shot her a glare, but he swung open the double doors. They both gaped at what they saw.

            There was a boy about their age leaning against the doorframe, his arm wrapped around his stomach. He was streaked with blood from head to toe, and bleeding from more than one wound. Even his sun-bleached sand blonde hair was stiff with the stuff, tainted by the bright red of his own blood. He looked at them with brilliant blue eyes, half closed from the amount of pain he was in, and gave them a weird smile.

            “Hello Guardians.” He said, his voice queerly humorous. The boy stumbled into their house without an invitation, and they both got a good whiff of him. That musky, woodsy scent was just as distinguishing as the musty scent of a vampire. In seconds Rose was diving for her sword and leveling it at the boy’s throat.

            “Get out of our house, monster.” She snarled at the werewolf, her hand steady. The boy looked at her with undisguised astonishment.

            “Monster?” he repeated, his voice cracking. He coughed, and it was blood that spotted his mouth. He made a face at it and wiped it on his already torn, blood-stained jeans.

            “You heard me. Get out of this house before I do what I ought to and run my sword through your chest!” Rose lowered the sword so she would have a straight shot to the werewolf’s heart. He looked absurdly hurt, like she’d just stomped on the heart she was about to stab. The werewolf didn’t move, and Rose swung.

            One second the sword was whistling through the air, the next it was frozen in midair, the ring of steel against steel loud in the sudden silence. Rose looked at Austin as if he was scum on the bottom of her shoe.

            “What the hell?” she pulled her sword away and tried to get around him, but the look on his face said it would be a very bad idea.

            “Trust me, Rose, I’m all for killing the monster… but we need to help him.” Austin said reluctantly. The werewolf looked at Austin with pure astonishment, an echo of Rose’s expression.

            “You have got to be kidding me.” Rose scoffed. Austin met her glare with his own cool, level gaze, his sword held ready to defend should she attempt to slice the werewolf into the bits he should have been in, in her opinion. “Fine. Help the monster. But I’m not being a part of this insanity.”

            Rose stalked out of the hall back into the sitting room, plunking back into the seat she had occupied before the werewolf had tried to knock their door down. Austin followed behind her more sedately, the werewolf tailing behind him, every step making him wince.

            “He’s dripping on the hardwood.” Rose said snottily, crossing her arms. Austin shot her a glare that mollified her a little. She sunk back into the chair, watching them with hostile eyes. Austin reopened the first aid kit and started pulling out the things he would need.

            “Go get me a cloth and a bowl of warm water.” Austin instructed. Rose gaped at him, and he again gave her the same emotionless look. With a huff, she got out of her seat and stomped to the kitchen. Austin heard the thumping and clanging as she threw things around, searching for a bowl and making as much noise as possible while she did it.

            “Take you shirt off.” Austin directed, since that seemed to be where most of the blood was coming from. The werewolf listened, very carefully peeling off the tattered scraps of fabric that had once been a button down shirt. Rose returned with the bowl of water, dropping it down on the table with a resounding thump, and resumed her hostile glaring from her seat, arms crossed once again.

            “Aren’t either of you going to ask what me what my name is?” the werewolf asked, sitting very stiffly on the bar-stool Austin had dragged over, one of the stools that usually sat around the breakfast bar.

            “Why should a monster have a name?” Rose sneered. The werewolf looked at her, and contemplated how easy it would be to snap her in half if she wasn’t quiet. She was tiny, delicate, ignoring the curves that had him thinking about things involving a different kind of violence. She looked even more fragile with her long, ashen hair and those big, thick-lashed pewter blue eyes. But the sword she had held before was almost as tall as she was, so the girl must have had some muscle hidden beneath that pretty porcelain skin.

            “I’m a person just as much as you, Miss Priss.” The werewolf said snarkily. She arched an eyebrow at him, snorting again.

            “Just tell us.” Austin said, sounding horribly detached. Rose narrowed her eyes at him, but he was busy soaking that washcloth with hot water to get the already drying blood of the werewolf’s back.

            “Well now I don’t want to.” The werewolf muttered under his breath. Austin started to wipe the blood from his back and the werewolf whimpered, stiffening in his seat. After that first moment of shock, the werewolf didn’t make another sound. Rose eyed him, gaining a little bit of respect for the monster in her sitting room.

            “Tell me your name.” Rose said, her voice a little softer. Considering it had been steel before, that wasn’t saying much.

            “My name is Rowen.” The werewolf said. He searched her eyes, but there was nothing in them but the hint of disgust that still hadn’t left. Rowen couldn’t help but feel disappointed, even though he shouldn’t have.

            “Well, at least we know which pack to ship you back to.” Rose said, splaying her fingers to check her nails.

            “NO!” Rowen cried, making himself cringe in pain. Rose’s wide eyed gaze was back on him, her eyebrows almost at her hairline. Neither of them asked, focusing instead of each other.

            “We have to take you back.” Austin said calmly.

            “No. Isn’t that what Guardians do? Protect people?” Rowen asked desperately. That was why he had come here, after all. He’d heard tales of the Guardians from the old lady, the ancient, about how the Guardians were noble people given the powers of the Royals, his kind, to protect them and their lesser human counterparts.

            “People. We protect people. Not monsters like you.” Rose said scathingly. Rowen looked at her, confused and scared. “Our job is to hunt down all the abominations that think they have the right to walk our world. And you, wolf, are one of them.”

            “But… that is not what the Phoenix intended-” Rowen was forced to stop as a dagger flew only nanometers away from his face, shearing a lock of hair from his head.

            “Shut up, monster.” Rose said, white faced. Rowen snapped.

            “Well, damn. All I’ve done since I got here is try to get along with you! What right do you have to treat me like the scum on the bottom of my shoe because of some ridiculous human belief? Hate to break it to you, love, but you’re not any more human than I am!” he snarled. Rose only stared at him for a few moments before she whirled out of the room, soundless because she was only fleeing, not trying to make a point. When she was gone Austin let out a soft sigh.

            “I told you to never come back, mutt.” He told the werewolf, his eyes full of anger but none of the disgust that was in Rose’s eyes. He knew, in a way she didn’t, what real monsters were. He had been forced to learn, in the course of his job.

            “And you told me she wouldn’t remember me. You were right.” Rowen said sadly. Then Austin poured peroxide down his back and he was too busy howling from the pain to pay attention to his sorrows.

Reviews

[gcp]

Straight in to the action - I like that this gets going pretty quick :)

I'm not sure bout the use of 'its' in the first sentence though... I'm not sure you need to do that

"A cloaked figure walked down the sidewalk, its hands in its pockets and its head down."

You've got 'its' three times in that second clause - it sounds strange, and since you reveal 'it' to be a girl in a couple of sentences I'm not sure what you gain by avoiding the word 'her' - however, simply removing the word makes for a stronger first line (and keeps the gender hidden in the process)

A cloaked figure walked down the sidewalk, hands in pockets and head down.

Also there are a few cases where a sentence seems to order events in an uncomfortable way:

“Austin!” she shouted at the top of her lungs when she realized where the blood was coming from.

Order of events:
1) She realized
2) she shouted

Putting them in their chronological order subtly makes the sentence easier to read and understand.

She realized where the blood was coming from and shouted at the top of her lungs "Austin!"

Just little tweaks and thoughts - hope they're useful - if not - just ignore me ;)

Good stuff :)