The Queen's Guardian

The strigoi went for Winter but Jacin was in between them in a second. The strigoi tried to punch Jacin, but he stopped the attack and gave a roundhouse kick to her stomach. The kick was powerful enough to make the strigoi falter, but not collapse. Jacin took the opportunity and punched the strigoi's nose. She collapsed on the ground and Jacin drove his stake through her heart. Her eyes went wide and her mouth opened and then, she was dead.

"Yeah!" Winter hollered, "You slayed it Jacin."

"She was clearly turned recently." He strained his ears, using his heightened senses, "Come on, I sense more, let's get out of here."

"Ugh. Aren't you going to kill more? It's so entertaining!"

"I can't risk your life just because you're bored."

He grabbed her wrist and led her back to the palace.

"Go to your room," he said once they were inside, "I am going to go inform all other dhampirs about these strigoi so that they can go and hunt them down."

"Okay." She huffed, clearly disappointed from not being included in the excitement, "Just—please don't go hunting with them." No matter how much Winter trusted Jacin's fighting and strigoi hunting skills, she would never risk his life until it was utterly important.

"I won't, trust me." He kissed her and then left only after she was inside her room with another dhampir, safe and sound.

Jacin's life wasn't exactly normal. It was as normal as it could be, which is very less considering his best friend/adolescent crush was a vampire and he himself was a half-vampire.

He was a dhampir, born from interbreeding of a human and moroi, but now that vampires don't interact with humans anymore, dhampirs and moroi interbred to give birth to more dhampirs.

So, no, his life wasn't exactly normal. But then, again, wasn't everyone's life as normal as it could get?

Dhampirs were given the duty to protect moroi, the good vampires, from strigoi, the bad vampires. Moroi die (after a long time), strigoi don't. Strigoi kill the humans/moroi/dhampir they feed on, moroi only feed on humans and don't kill (the feeder just becomes addicted to the endorphins in the moroi's bite).

Dhampirs were given training in protecting moroi since their primary school. And, lucky for Winter, Jacin was one of the best dhampirs of his generation, so, of course he was assigned to Winter, given the fact that she will be the next queen of the moroi-dhampir community.

He entered the dhampirs' headquarters in the palace. There were always a few dhampirs there to monitor the activities going on in the palace or for other emergency situations, such as this. There were strigoi very near to the palace. Dhampirs had to go to hunt them. But, the headquarter was empty.

He went into the lounge area and released the breath he hadn't realized he was holding, relieved that the head of the palace's dhampirs was here along with some other high authorities.

"Princess Winter and I were in the woods and were attacked by a strigoi. I killed the strigoi, but I sensed more in the nearby caves. Since I was alone, I fled the area, but they must be heading for the court."

The dhampirs had stood up into an attentive position the moment Jacin had finished the first sentence.

"Do formation 108," said the head of the dhampirs to others, "Gather other dhampirs to hunt the strigoi down."

"Yes, sir." They exited the headquarters to follow the order. Jacin started to leave with the dhampir troop which was to form the formation 108 when their head grabbed his forearm.