Sinjin, A Vampire Romance

Chapter One

###
Bryn

he wind rattled the windowpanes of the room in which I was being held prisoner. I sighed and stood up from where I was sitting on the bed and approached the window, finding the view of the tumultuous sea outside surprisingly serene. It was almost comforting. The moonlight reflected the white caps cresting the waves, occasionally highlighting the drops of rain that bled from the sky.

There was a knock on my door, but I didn't bother turning around. This being the second night of my captivity, I couldn't say any visitors were exactly welcomed. I didn't respond but heard the sound of the door opening and footsteps entering my makeshift accommodations.

"Bryn." It was my sister's voice. My teeth clenched as I tried to remember that even though she and I shared the same blood, as far as I was concerned, we were anything but kin.

"What?" I asked, my eyes still riveted on the view outside my window. It was easier to look at the raging storm than it would be to look at Jolie. Just the thought of her sickened me.

"I've brought you something to eat," she announced, her voice tentatively soft, yet encouraging.

"I'm not hungry," I answered dismissively, while my stomach growled in audible protest. Suddenly annoyed with myself, I made a big show of leaning my forehead against the glass so my back was toward her. Hopefully, she'd get the message that I wanted to be left alone.

"You haven't eaten in two days," she continued, her tone of voice strikingly familiar, almost exactly like mine. I doubted if I could ever get used to our similarities. Even though we were fraternal twins, I'd only recently discovered that I even had a sister. Truth be told, I preferred the days when I didn't know she existed. Life was much easier then.

"So what?" I retorted, feeling as mature as a thirteen-year-old. But, there it was.

"If you're trying to starve yourself, I have other ways of coercing you to eat."

Her threat meant she would use the magic inherent in her species to force me to eat my dinner. My sister was a witch. And although I also possessed magic, mine was of a different sort. I was an Elemental; and Elementals and witches were as different as night and day, although Elementals were descended from witches. But, in the words of our Supreme Elder, just as the spaniel was a descendent of the wolf, such was the full gamut of the similarities between a witch and an Elemental.

"I'm not trying to starve myself," I replied, deciding to act my age by engaging my sister in an adult conversation. I turned to face her, crossing my arms against my chest, but frowned, letting her know in no uncertain terms that I wasn't pleased to be in her charge.

She was wearing a pair of faded blue jeans, Nike sneakers and a thick, white, wool sweater which was damp with rain. Her wet blond hair was pulled up into a ponytail, which only drew more attention to her very pretty face, a face nearly identical to mine. But there was something in Jolie's face that mine lacked—hers was softer. Maybe it was because she was pregnant and, therefore, padded at the moment. Or it could have been that she was more naïve than I was, in her general belief that the world was a good place.

I knew the world for what it was, and it was anything but good.

Unlike Jolie, I hadn't enjoyed a normal childhood with two average parents and a regular two-story house with a goofy dog and a white picket fence. No, instead, I was raised by no one in particular, since all Elemental and Daywalker children were regarded as the responsibility of the tribe as a whole. Nothing in my life was what I now considered "normal." From the moment I could understand language, it was drilled into me that I was first and foremost a warrior. As such, the sole purpose of my life was to defend my tribe, my own kind. And defending my tribe revolved around destroying the creatures of the Underworld. And as fate would have it, my sister just happened to be the queen of the Underworld ...