Hello guys, I just finished the first book "Vampire Academy" in Dimitri's point of view (Vampire Academy: Dimitri's Story), and now I am going to do the second book, due to the overwhelming feedback I got.

So please, Enjoy and tell me what you think! (:

As usual, Rose was late. I was standing by the campus issued car, a Honda Pilot. Rose came rushing into my vision and I gave her a looked that said You're late.

"I know, I know," She said. "Sorry I'm late." We stood there for a moment, the massive brick building casting long shadows over us, looming like some great beast in the dusky predawn light. I watched the light, crystalline flakes of snow drift slowly down. Several landed and promptly melted on Roza's long, dark hair.

"Who else is going?"

I shrugged. "Just you and me." Guardian Alto would have gone with us, but I insisted that it would be more efficient if it were just Rose and her mentor. Kirova finally agreed, not really fond of Stan either, I suppose. Rose's face instantly brightened up, a wide smile spread over her face.

"How far away is it?" She asked anxiously.

"Five hours." I wish it could have been longer, but I guess we'll have to make a few rest stops. There wasn't a lot of time where it was just Rose and I- besides practice.

"Oh." Rose looked a little disappointed.

At that, we got into the car and started the long drive. The roads were dim and snowy. It would have been difficult for a human to see through the snow, but our Dhampir eyes had no problem seeing the road. I stared at the road, trying to think about the smell of Rose's shampoo that filled the car.

"Don't they usually come to the academy?" She asked me about an hour into the ride. "I mean, I'm all for the field trip, but why are we going to them?" I was all for the field trip, too.

"Actually, you're going to a him not a them," I told her, trying to contain a grin. She was going to have a heart attack when she found out who was going to be doing her Qualifier. My slight Russian accent laced my words, one that I tried very hard to demolish. "Since this is a special case and he's doing us a favor, we're the ones making the trip."

"Who is he?"

"Arthur Schoenberg." I said.

Rose's gaze jerked from the road and she stared at me with wide eyes. "What?" she squeaked. Arthur Schoenberg was one of the greatest Strigoi slayers in living Guardian history and used to be the head of the Guardians Council- the group of people who assigned Guardians to Moroi and made decisions for all of us. He had retired a few years ago and gone back to protecting the Badicas. But even retired, the man was lethal. Some of his exploits were actually part of the Academy's curriculum.

"Wasn't…wasn't there anyone else available?" She asked in a small voice.

I myself could barely hold back my grin. She was being such a worrywart. "You'll be fine. Besides, if Art approves of you, that's a great recommendation to have on your record." Rose was quiet as she bit her lip in thought. I could tell she was actually nervous about this. "You'll be fine." I repeated, trying to comfort her. That was something I wasn't very good at. "The good in your record outweighs the bad." She smiled slightly and peeked out of the corner of her eye at me. Rose took a deep breath before looking back at the road.

"Thanks, Coach." She teased, snuggling back into her seat.

"I'm here to help," I replied. My voice was light and relaxed- it was only like that when I was with her. Whenever I was with Rose, all of my dark feelings and negative emotions drained from me and I instantly felt like a heavy weight was lifted off my shoulders. Only two things in the world had that much influence on me: My family and her. Roza.

"You know what would really help?" She asked, not meeting my eyes. Uh-oh…what was she gonna do…

"Hmm?"

"If you turned off this crap music and put something on that came out after the Berlin Wall went down." I suddenly found myself laughing. Laughing. Like one of those real, ab-clenching laughs that almost hurts, but it's a good kind of hurt. "Your worst class is history, yet somehow you know everything about Eastern Europe."

"Hey, gotta have material for my jokes, Comrade." Well, if she was going to complain about it, let's just see what she has to say about this…

Still smiling, I turned the dial to a country station I frequented. Rose's eyes went wide and made a disgusted face. "Hey! This isn't what I had in mind," she exclaimed. I was on the verge of laughing again. Rose had to be the cutest girl I'd ever seen. The most beautiful.

"Pick. It's one or the other."

She sighed, "Go back to the 1980's stuff." I flipped the dial back and saw Rose cross her arms over her chest. If looks could kill, the radio would have exploded already.

Art and the family he protected lived in a small town along I-90, not far from Billings. The general Moroi opinion was split on places to live. Some argued that big cities were the best since they allowed vampires to be lost in the crowds; nocturnal activities didn't raise so much attention. Other Moroi, like this family, opted for less populated towns, believing that if there were fewer people to notice you, then the less likely you were to be noticed.

Rose had convinced me to stop for food at a twenty-four-hour diner along the way, and between that and stopping to buy gas, it was around noon when we arrived. The house was built in a rambler style, all one level with gray-stained wood siding and big bay windows-tinted black to block the sunlight, or course. It looked new and expensive, and even out in the middle of nowhere, it was about what I'd expected for members of a royal family.

Rose jumped out of the Pilot, her boots sinking into the soft powder seemed pretty fresh. The day was still and silent, save for an occasional breath of wind. Roza and I walked up to the house, cutting through the front yard. Even though the car ride here had left me in a cheerful mood, I was slipping into business mode. We'd both kind of taken a guilty satisfaction in the pleasant car ride.

Rose's foot slipped on the ice-covered walkway and I instantly reach out to steady me. I had a weird moment of déjà vu; flashing back to the night we'd met, back when I had saved her from a similar fall. Freezing temperatures or not, her skin welt warm under my hand, even through the layers of down in her parka coat.

"You okay?" I asked, releasing my hold on her, even though all I wanted to do was hold onto her hand.

"Yeah," she said, casting an accusing glare at the ice on the sidewalk. "Haven't these people heard of salt?" Yes… why was there no salt? I saw a salt barrel by the garage. Wouldn't they have used it by now? Come to think of it, there weren't any tracks in the snow. The snow had been here for at least three hours. I became alert and ready to strike at anything that might pose as s threat. Something was off here. I turned my head away from Roza to search the plains surrounding us before settling back on the house. I could practically feel Rose's desire to ask what was going on, but she stayed silent. For once.

I studied the house for almost a full minute, looked back down at the sidewalk, then glances back at the driveway, covered in a sheet of snow that was only broken by our footprints. I cautiously approached the front door, and I was vaguely aware of Rose following me. I stopped again, this time studying the door. It wasn't open, but not entirely shut either. Probably closed in some kind of haste., not sealing. Further examination showed scuffs along the door's edge, as though it had been forced open at some point. Only the slightest nudge would open it. What had happened here? I lightly ran my fingers along where the door me the frame, my breath making small clouds in the air. When I touched the door's handle it jiggled a bit, like it had been broken. Strigoi.

"Rose, go wait in the car." I said quietly, they were probably gone already, or still hiding in the shadows. Whatever was behind the door, I didn't want her to see. There were two possibilities; either there was nothing behind this door and Arthur had protected everyone by evacuating, or there was going to be an ugly mess. I braced myself for the worst.

"But wh-"

"Go." I used my Guardian voice, a tone that I had never used to speak to Rose, but this was not the time for Rose to be Rose. She needed to simply do as I said, or this could end with both of our lives being taken. Rose slowly backed up, walking down the snow covered lawn rather than risk falling on the ice again. I stood where I was until I was positive that she was in the car with the door safely shut. Then, I took a deep breath and with the gentlest movements, I pushed on the door and braced myself for what could be an utter devastation.

Even though there was no living soul in the house, I made sure my face held no emotion as I gazed that the massacre that had happened here. Bodies of both Strigoi and Moroi were strewn about on the floor. There was a woman that lay on her back in front of the T.V, her dark hair spilling on the floor around her. Her wide eyes stared up at me, blankly. Her face was pale- even for a Moroi. And for a moment I though her hair was spilling over her neck too, until I realized that the darkness around her neck was not hair, it was blood. Dried blood. Her throat had been ripped out.

The horrible scene was something that I had prepared for, but preparing and actually seeing are two very different things. Then I took in another body: a man on his side only a few feet away from the backslider door that had been broken into. His dark blood had seeped into the carpet around his head and neck. Another body was slumped against the couch. A small girl- only a child. Her blond hair was matted with blood and her head was almost completely severed. Across the room was another. Ant another. There were bodies everywhere, bodies and blood. I ripped my eyes away from the scene in the living room and searched the rest of the house, my stake poised and ready for any attack. There were none. As I scouted the house, I realized that there was nobody here. I sighed in relief, but it did little to ease the pain and loss that I felt for what happened here.

I found a larger body by the doorway to the bathroom. He was face down on the carpet, a dark pool of blood surrounding his neck and chest area. Realization dawned on me as I gently turned his head to one side. Arthur. I closed my eyes. Arthur had been a close friend of mine. He was gone. And the damned Strigoi were to blame.

This was an ambush. It wasn't just an attack. It had been planned, skillfully so. It didn't make any sense though. Wards had protected this house. There was no way a Strigoi could have gotten in, nevertheless a band of Strigoi. And by the looks of it, it was a large band of Strigoi. Damn humans.

Suddenly, I heard a noise from the other room. There was nothing to think about, just do. I stalked over to the back slider, where the noise had come from and say a small figure with a stake in her hand standing in the doorway. A figure I would know anywhere.

Rose.

What the fuck was she doing in here? What part of 'stay in the car' does she not understand? My anger subsided when I saw her expression. Rose looked like she was about to have a heart attack, she was breathing heavily and her eyes were wide with terror. She kept glancing around the room, looking at the different bodies with disgust, sympathy, and fright. It was like watching a fat person eat; it was disgusting and disturbing, but you just couldn't look away.

Just as she was about to open her mouth and let out, what I was sure was to be a blood curdling, ear-splitting scream, I reached her and covered her mouth with my glove-encased hand. She started to struggle, kicking and wiggling, probably having a panic attack. Then suddenly, she relaxed into me.

"Why," I asked, trying to get my temper under control again, "don't you ever listen? You'd be dead if they were still here."

Rose didn't answer probably due to shock, and the fact that my hand was still covering her mouth. After about a minute, when I was sure she would stay quiet, I removed my hand from her mouth. Finally, she turned towards me.

"It's daytime." She whispered in a small, scared voice that was so uncharacteristic for her, it had me worrying about her state of mind. It was her first time seeing such a tragedy as this. I'm sure she's seen a dead body, but I'm positive she's never seen death to this magnitude. I had only seen something like this once before, and it was still disturbing. It was devastating. And I'm sure, this is worse for her. "Bad things don't happen during the day." There was a certain desperation in her voice that made her sound like a little girl how lost her mother in the grocery store. It was like a plea for someone to come and say that this was all just a bad dream and that it would be over soon, all you had to do was open your eyes. The only problem was that her eyes were already open and this wasn't a dream. It was reality.

"Bad things can happen anytime," I told her. "And this didn't happen during the day. This probably happened a couple of nights ago." Rose dared another peek at the bodies and looked at them. Two days they had been dead. Two days. Two days to be dead, to have your existence wiped out- without anyone in the world knowing that you were gone. Her eyes rested on the body of Arthur Schoenberg. I saw the question in her eyes.

"Arthur Schoenberg," I said quietly. Rose just stared at him.

"He's dead." She stated, as though it wasn't perfectly obvious. "How can he be dead? How could a Strigoi kill Arthur Schoenberg?" Even though he seemed immortal, he wasn't. Arthur was mortal, therefore was susceptible to death. I didn't tell her that, I don't think that's what she wanted to hear, but it is what it is.

I didn't answer her. I let my hand close around the hand that held the stake. Rose flinched.

"Where did you get this?" I asked. She loosened her grip and let me take the stake from her hands.

"Outside. In the ground."

I held it close to my face, studying its surface as it shone in the sunlight. "It broke the ward."

"Strigoi cant touch stakes," she told me after a moment. Rose was using a lot of cant and don't statements. I could see that it wasn't easy having everything you believe in change right before your very eyes. Rose had been taught that daylight was safe, that nothing bad ever happens during the day, and now, that was being challenged. Thanks to the humans. "And no Moroi or Dhampir would ever do it."

"A human might."

Rose met my eyes. Her face said that she had never even thought about the humans.

"Humans don't help-" Rose stopped when she realized that that is exactly what they had done. I couldn't help but feel sorry for Rose, everything she knew and believed was changing and not for the better. I watched her as she waged her mental battle.

"This changes everything, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," I told her, "It does."

So, what did you think! tell me! I really do want to know! I love getting feedback from you guys and hearing what my readers have to say. I also take criticism, so if there are any grammatical mistakes please don't hesitate to point them out. Sorry if there are any spelling mistakes etc.

Please drop me a little review!

Much love,

~Brittany3