Checkmate

Prologue

I've always hated my name. It was so uncommon and too long. And at this moment I hated it even more as Brian taunted me with it.

"Charmeine, Charmeine, Charmeine." He chided in a patronizing tone. "When will you learn to obey me?"

My ex-boyfriend and his minions kept advancing, looking at me like a pack of wolves look at their prey. With the way this situation looked, that is probably exactly what I'll end up as.

"S-stop! Don't come any closer or I'll scream!" Damn it, I had meant for my voice to come out strong and defiant, not weak and scared. My protest did nothing to make my oppressors back off. If anything it encouraged their advance.

"Aw, is little Char scared that the big bad wolves will eat at her?" Brian taunted me, flashing a sick grin that showed his canines.

I backed up slowly until my back hit the trunk of a tree. Shit. I decided to change tactics.

"What do you want Brian? Name it and it's yours. Just leave me the heck alone!" His grin widened impossibly more.

"Sorry princess, but it's you that I want." With that, he pounced. I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the impact, but it never came. It took a few more minutes for me to gather up the courage to open my eyes. As soon as I did I shut them again. What was I doing 20ft above the ground?!

A gentle breeze of air swept over me from behind, and when I started to turn around so I could feel it full on, I saw something out of the corner that took my breath away.

Wings. Beautiful maroon angel wings the color of my hair. For a few seconds, I stared at them in wonder. Then I screamed.

I couldn't have wings! Everyone would think I was a freak of nature! The military will capture me and scientists will run tests on me like a lab rat! With these thoughts consuming my head, I didn't realize my wings stopped flapping until I found myself free-falling back to earth.

You know that moment when you're confronted with death? That time when you either choose to live, or give up and die. If you give up, then you see your life flash before your eyes in a last ditch effort to change your mind. If you choose to live, you experience an adrenaline rush that turns you into an animal, with every instinct used for survival.

I got the adrenaline rush alright. My wings snapped to attention and started beating like crazy. But I was too late. I wasn't experienced with wings and the ground was approaching too rapidly for me to evade it. The last thing I saw before I slammed back to earth were four birds, circling me from the sky. Just as they started coming closer, I blacked out.

***

I woke up because of a lack of sound. With my three older brothers, quiet was a cause for alarm. I sat up in my bed, only to lay back down again when a painful throbbing racked my head.

"You might not want to do that." An amused voice said from the back of my room. I sat up again and turned so fast I'm surprised I didn't get whiplash. The throbbing got worse but I didn't care about it at the moment.

"Who's there?" I asked towards the general direction the voice came from. A figure slowly stepped out of the shadows. Around 6ft tall with rippling muscles, the guy who came into view reminded me of a real-life Adonis, but what really caught my attention were the black wings folded behind his back. Suddenly all the events of last came crashing back. I wasn't in my room after all but in some kind of clinic. White walls, white beds, no windows.

"I'm Nathaniel. I'll be your trainer as of now."

"Nathaniel? As in the Angel of Fire?" I asked, eyeing the wings that made his name so ironic. The guy- Nathaniel - raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"That's what you took from that sentence?" He asked, the amusement in his voice intensifying. I shrugged, and he shook his head. Muttering something under his breath that I didn't quite catch, he walked to the door, pausing for a second to turn back to me.

"The reason you weren't able to react fast enough to avoid hitting the ground is because you aren't used to fighting for your life. It's my job to change that." I definitely didn't like the sound of that, but Nathaniel refused to give me time to think.

"There's Tylenol and a bottle of water on the table beside you. Come to the gym when you feel better. Down the hall to your left. Hurry up." With that, he turned abruptly on his heels and left me gaping after him.

As soon as the door closed and the lock clicked back into place, I sighed in relief that he hadn't asked me for my name. I hopped off the hospital bed and used it to gain my balance as spots blurred my vision.

I wobbled on shaky legs to the table Nathaniel had pointed out. I grabbed the Tylenol and threw it back before chasing it down with water. I figured if he had rescued me he wasn't planning on poisoning me any time soon. Then I wobbled back to the bed and laid down. It was going to take a while to digest this new information, and my brain works best when I'm asleep. The last thought I had was why he didn't find it strange that I knew the origin of his name.