Sharing A Cup Of Blood With Death

Shadows

Author's note: And I'll be publishing a chapter every Monday. Please tell me what you think.

Disclaimer: I disclaim the idea and rules of vampires created by Stephenie Meyers. I only own the characters that I created (which is practically all of them) :P

Chapter 7: Shadows

I was gliding on the night thermals. The full moon shining on my back. Everything was stained in silver and black. Everything stood in high relief. The stars twinkled overhead. My silvery wings flapped silently. All, I could hear was the music of crickets and the soft whistles of the wind. Dreaming creatures rested in their homes. All was perfect.

What's that?! A shadow passed over, killing the moon's light, pitching the gentle world to blackness.

Talons ensnared my wings. Snapping, bending, and breaking many graceful feathers. The warm thermal turned to an icy wind. I turned my harvest moon eyes upwards to see what had captured me.

A massive bird with feathers darker than the deepest corner of a cave. The raptor was blacker than the midnight sky, while the eyes were red, blood red with flasks of black splinters thrown about.

"Hello, Little Bird." It sang when it open its duller black beak. The talons tightened their hold, stopping my flight. My weight was too much for the black bird to carry. We started to fall. The bird's grip kept tightening to an unbearable degree, talons digging into the flesh of one of my wings, crimson dyed the broken pinions. A flicker of movement by the nightmarish aviator, and the fragile bones snapped in my left wing.

"Auhha!" An agonizing screech pierced the night's quiet. My screech. The ground rushed ever nearer, ever faster. The pressure was released from my crushed, useless wing. The ground raced to catch my body.

Frantically, I flapped, trying to gain some altitude, trying to slow. The shattered rumble in the left screamed in protest at every jarring move.

I was going to die crippled and broken, forced out of the beautiful sky by the red eyed creature.

Fifty meters until impact. Twenty meters. Ten, five, four. Three. TWO!

I woke with a start. At first, I didn't understand where I was. I was still the crimpled owl. Only after blinking in the dark stupidly, did I realized who I was. My left arm ached at the wrist and at the spot the nightmare had broken it.

An odd shadow caught my eye. A figure sitting on my table under the window. A scream caught in my throat. He's here! I can't let anyone in this house get hurt because of my lack of self-control to not to scream.

I quickly covered my body with my sheets, my head and all. I felt a bit safer like when I was little when I was scared at night. The sheets would protect me from the ghosts and monsters of the night or so I thought as a small child.

Suddenly, I felt a pressure through the sheets. Startled, I flinched away, hitting the wall the bed was pressed against.

"Lily. It's me, Stephen."

I peeked at the form with the familiar voice. He had pressed the snooze light button on my alarm clock and an eerie blue glow lit his face. His colors were undistinguishable.

"Turn on the light." I whispered. He did and sure enough his eyes were that beautiful gold. I attacked him, jumping onto him like a puppy who was left alone at home all day. Tears fell like rain. I was so relieved, the tears held back when fear had me suddenly burst forth. Tears that were so uncharacteristic of me.

"Stephen." I sobbed, the blankets draped over me still. He seem taken aback at first. His body was stiff, unsure to what to do. Then, his stone body melted to mine. One of his hands commenced to rub my back in a comforting way.

"Sh. Sh. It's alright. I'm so sorry."

"I thought you were Him." I admitted, getting the salt water flow under control.

"Erik will never get close enough to you. I'll be here or one of my family when I cannot. I'll never let anything happen to you." I had released my out of characteristic hold on him, sitting back on my bed.

"I hate him. He infested my dreams."

"Are you saying that nearly breaking your wrist, drinking your blood, and landing you in the hospital didn't get you to hate him?"

"No, that got him in the dangerously- yawn- dislike category."

He chuckled at this and said. "Time for the human to go to sleep." Stephen tucked me in as if I was a small child, making sure that no drafts could creep in to chill my back. "Don't worry Erik will not get pass us."

"So many guardians for one little human." I whispered sleepily.

~~~

"For the first being in a long time that I care so much for." He whispered back, but she was already asleep, thinking it was only in her dream and was soon forgotten as the true dreams began.