Chapter 1
I was the first one to leave the class after giving my paper. Today was the last exam of the semester and I realized how happy this knowledge made me. It was eight months since Lissa and I had started to attend Lehigh University. It was not a very prestigious one which made it a much safer place for Lissa than Howard of Cambridge or any other famous universities. Also, it was less than an hour's drive from the royal court from where my best friend and the moroi queen Vasilissa Dragomair conducted her queenly obligations.
As being Lissa's guardian I had to enroll as a student at Lehigh. I was no more interested in political science and world history than a six year old but I had to study all of them for the sake of Lissa's safety. As being the queen, she had a lot of safety issues and so she has four guardians rather than the common two. Serena and I were her near guardians whereas Shane and Ian were the distant ones. It was more like a bodyguard system. Two of us were to protect her from any direct attack while the other two had to make sure that the surroundings were threat free. Life was fun but assignments and exams were often a pain in the ass. I was not really bad at academics or anything. I just didn't have any interest in all this. It would never ever help me in my life or maybe it could if I became the president of the United States or something but that was unlikely to happen. My job was to protect Lissa from strigoi, the evil vampires, and I had full training in that.
I waited outside the class for Lissa's return and soon the entire corridor was flooded with students who had just finished their long tiring exams. Lissa and Serena came out of the class and soon Shane and Ian joined us.
"I am so happy that finally these holocaust days are over", I said. It was kind of an height of exaggeration to compare exams to holocaust but Lissa and the others brushed it off excusing it as something from Rose Hathaway playbook.
We walked out to the parking lot and saw over two identical Porsche parked next to each other. I moved towards our car but I could see someone in my periphery. My mind was confused and my heart was beating loudly. I so wanted my conjecture to be true. And I screamed with joy when I turned about and my guess proved right.
I could see a very tall man gracefully leaning against a yet similar car. His long brown duster going so well with his dark brown eyes and soft shoulder length hair. Dimitri Belikov was staring at me with a huge smile and for a second I was too caught up in his beauty to react. Then, I quickly ran towards him and threw my arms around his neck. He held me just as tightly and his fingers ran through my long dark brown hair.
It has been a month since I had seen the love of my life and my heart skipped a beat when he cupped my cheeks and kissed me long and deep. After a few more minutes of mingling I realized that Christian and Lissa were in a similar embrace.
Dimitri, my boyfriend, was Christian's guardian, Lissa's boyfriend. It was a good mix. Dimitri was seven years older than all of us so he could not enroll as a student at the college which Christian attended but he always followed Christian as a shadow after the college hours. I could see Meredith, Christian's other guardian, and all the guardians of Lissa looking in different directions and avoiding the lover's reunion.
"What a pleasant surprise", Lissa said without breaking the embrace.
"Dimitri wanted to be with Rose on her birthday", Christian said.
I completely forget that I had my twentieth birthday tomorrow. The knowledge of celebrating my birthday with Dimitri and Lissa amplified my happiness. I was the happiest woman on this planet.