Vampire Academy; Dimitri Belikov's Point of View

Chapter One

"Ready?" I asked various other guardians using a small headset. I received several confirmations from the others surrounding the two-story house where our 'targets' were supposedly sleeping. I remembered the day I was asked to take this mission. I was doing some light lifting in the empty gym at St. Vladimir's Academy; most of the students, teachers, and guardians were gone, visiting their family and friends during summer break. Alberta Petrov, head of the guardians at the school, strolled in, looking cool and composed, as usual, and holding a manila envelope. Knowing immediately that it was an assignment, I dropped the weights and wiped the sweat from my face with a towel and stood respectively, awaiting her orders.

"Stand down, Belikov," she joked as she came to a stop in front of me. Guardian Petrov was a close friend of mine and frequently teased me about my seriousness. She wasn't much older than me, maybe in her thirties, I'm twenty-four, but the lines in her face from hard years as a guardian made her look older. "I have a job for you. And believe it or not, it might be harder than the last one."

Harder than guarding an elite royal moroi, a race of vampires hidden from the human society that don't kill when they feed, from dangerous strigoi, another secret race of vampires that do kill when they feed and happen to love moroi blood? She now had my interest piqued.

"What is it?" I asked. Not much could be harder than my last assignment, especially when the person you're guarding dies, even if it wasn't on my watch.

She handed me the envelope and I slid out a folder labeled Dragomir.

I was aware that the Dragomir princess, Vasilisa, the last dragomir alive, had run away from the academy two years ago with her best friend and future guardian, Rosemarie Hathaway. How they'd pulled it off, no one knew. Also how they'd managed to stay under the radar was a mystery. Well, maybe they haven't slipped under the radar this time.

"Have you found them?" I asked. This particular case almost fascinated me. I'd always been good with intuition and solving mysteries, but the fact that two fifteen year old girls managed to slip off a campus guarded by dozens of trained killers and magical wards had stumped me. No one even knew why they'd left either, though some people had their ideas, such as maybe one of them was pregnant, or Rosemarie was trying to escape punishment for the stunt she pulled right before she'd left. Rumor had it she'd destroyed a moroi's dorm room for bringing a feeder, humans willing to give their blood for the high vampire bites brought them, to a party.

I opened the folder to the face of a sweet-looking young moroi girl with platinum blonde hair, jade green eyes, and sharp angular features. Vasilisa Dragomir, it read next to the photo. In the Background summary it stated that her family had been killed in an accident that both Vasilisa and Rosemarie were in. The reports from that night stated that Vasilisa was the only one that should have survived but Rosemarie also escaped miraculously with scrapes and bruises being the worst of her injuries.

"We believe we have. I'd like for you and eleven others to retrieve them and bring them to the academy," she said. It took a few moments for her words to sink in. And believe it or not, it might be harder than the last one.

"Wait, you're sending twelve guardians after two teenage girls? Royalty notwithstanding. That's more than the queen herself travels with. Can they really be that much trouble?" I asked.

"You obviously don't know Rose Hathaway," she replied. "We've failed to locate these girls for two years. I don't know how they've pulled it off all this time, but my money's on Hathaway. Her grades might not show it, but she was an exceptionally bright novice."

I flipped to the next page and my breath caught. The girl staring back at me was easily the most beautiful person I'd ever seen. Her skin was the color of the inside of an almond, her face surrounded by lustrous waves of brown hair so dark it almost seemed black. She stared up at me with piercing chocolate brown eyes that seemed to gaze into my very soul. She was very curvy for a dhampir, half vampire, half humans whose senses were better than a humans but speed and strength better than that of a moroi. Humans and moroi no longer fraternized; not only were relationships between the two frowned upon; they often disgusted the moroi society. Moroi and dhampir relationships are also frowned upon, but mandatory, seeing as how dhampirs cannot reproduce with one another. Like mules. Oddly enough, moroi and dhampirs produce more dhampirs. Moroi only have flings with dhampirs to keep the race going, and then settle down with another moroi. This particular dhampir could probably have anyone she wanted, seeing how beautiful she was. Dhampirs tended to have short, muscled bodies. Female dhampirs adored moroi bodies, which were usually tall and thin. This girl, however, though being very short, was almost not recognizable as a dhampir. She looked human with her curvy hips and larger than average chest.

Rosemarie Hathaway. So this was the infamous troublemaker. I looked up, about to ask Alberta a question, but the look on her face stopped me, her head was cocked to the right and she looked rather… amused at my reaction to the Hathaway girl.

"Yes, rather beautiful, isn't she?" she asked. I looked away sheepishly and hid my embarrassment at being caught admiring a seventeen year old girl, pretending to flip through the pages. "Yes, those looks got her a lot of attention here at school. As well as her mother."

I glanced up at that. "Guardian Hathaway?" I asked. I'd never met her, but she was very well known in the guardian world. She was one of the best.

"Yes. She was very beautiful back in her day," she replied. "That's where Rose gets her looks from. Though she gets those locks from her father."

I wanted to talk more about Rosemarie, but I needed to know more about the assignment.

"How do these two teenage girls call for a dozen highly trained guardians?" I'd asked.

"Well-"

My memory was interrupted by the sound of screaming.

"What is it? What's wrong?" I asked.

"We don't know. They were just sleeping and-" Whoever it was didn't get to finish, because a second voice started screaming. After a few moments I decided to see what was happening. I took a few steps forward, putting me where I could just see into the room, but it put me in the streetlight. The second voice stopped screaming and I could see the figure of a girl abruptly shoot up and out of the bed closest to the window. She approached the other bed where another girl seemed to be thrashing as well as screaming. Nightmares? Both of them? I was barely close enough to hear with my heightened dhampir senses, but it sounded as though the girl standing were trying to calm the sleeping one down.

"Liss! Liss, wake up," she said. The thrashing girl, which I'd now deemed the princess, slowly calmed down and started moaning too quietly for me to hear. I could see the whites of her eyes as she opened them. She and Rosemarie had a hushed conversation while they rocked together, hugging like sisters. A cat leapt onto the windowsill as Rosemarie switched on the lamp and I could see much better. First thing I noticed was what she waswearing. A tank top. And underwear. I looked away, glad that no one could see me blushing, but kept listening in on them. I had to look up when Rosemarie said something quite strange and confusing to Vasilisa.

"When did we last do a feeding?" she asked. A feeding? I thought. Well, of course Vasilisa needed blood, but did they have a feeder in the house with them? How'd they manage that?

"It's been like… more than two days, hasn't it? Three? Why didn't you say anything?" she asked the princess, who shrugged.

"You were busy. I didn't want to…" she began.

"Screw that," Rose said, shifting her position on the bed. "Come on, Let's do this." Do what? I wondered.

"Rose…"

"Come on, it'll make you feel better."

It dawned on me then as she tilted her head and moved the hair back from her neck. She was the feeder. This was unbelievable. Dhampirs feeding moroi was worse than human and moroi relationships. So many female dhampirs threw their lives away because they became addicted to the feel of the endorphins released when bit by a vampire. Most went even further and were bit during intercourse. They were known as blood whores. Vampires needed daily feedings, and if Rose was the feeder every time and they were gone for two years… then she'd been bit over seven hundred times.

She had to be addicted.

I wanted to look away as Vasilisa's fangs neared Rose's neck, but I couldn't. She tried not to show it, but Rose's face betrayed her. She wanted this. Anticipated it. Even craved it.

Definitely addicted. And so young.

Rose cried out at the brief pain of being bit, and at first I was disgusted; then her face changed completely. She looked as though she were in pure ecstasy, the happiest person in the world. I'd never been bitten before and couldn't say but some claimed it was better than sex. And seeing Rose's face, it was very believable. Looking at her like that made my heart beat faster and my breathing quicken. It made me shiver. I couldn't understand what was happening to me, and I finally, and regretfully, tore my eyes away from the intimate scene. I tried to get a hold of myself as I looked around to see if any other guardians had witnessed what I had. Catching my lapse in composure and seeing me look around, one of my comrades, Garrett, spoke to me.

"What? What's happening up there?" he asked. Knowing that whatever we said could be heard by everyone else with a headset, I opted for a shake of my head. I was pretty sure that wasn't the end of it, considering I still wore the shocked and embarrassed look on my face. I was right.

"What? You look pretty bad," Garrett said.

"Nothing!" I snarled into the headpiece. If anyone found out about this, not only will people be disgusted by the princess, but Rosemarie's reputation will change from rebel to blood whore. I couldn't let either of those happen. I felt strangely protective of the two girls. Rose, I figured it was just physical attraction. But I found myself wanting to like Vasilisa, as well. Not in the same way, of course, but I wanted to be closer to her. I wanted to be her friend. Strange.

"You okay?" Vasilisa and Garrett said at the same time. I held up my hand to silence him as I looked to the window again. The princess was wiping her hand across her lips, removing the blood. I shuddered.

"I… Yeah," Rose said, partially incoherent from the endorphins. She lay back on the bed. "I just need to sleep it off. I'm fine."

"I'm going to get you something to eat," Vasilisa said as she stood up. After she left, Rose smiled a big, goofy grin. She glanced at the cat sitting on the windowsill.

"You don't know what you're missing," she told it, but its attention was on something else, its jet black fur puffed up, tail twitching. Me, I realized as Rose got up and stumbled to the open window. Great, now every guardian on this side of the house could see her in her underwear. The cat scooted away from her, animals aren't partial to dhampirs, and an unreasonably warm breeze for Portland fall ruffled her hair as she leaned out. She scanned the yard and I prayed the flickering streetlight and her buzz prevented her from seeing me.

Too late.

She jerked back when she spotted me. Since she'd already seen me, I stepped back into the shadows. Garrett stepped up beside me, covering his mouthpiece to speak privately.

"Well, screwed that one up… What now?" he asked.

I could no longer see well into the room, but I saw her back away.

"Now, we grab them," I replied, not only to him, but all the other guardians waiting as well. "They know were here, so they'll most likely try to run. They won't get very far with Hathaway… the way she is. So we'll cut them off a couple blocks down. All right, head out." Garrett threw me a confused look when I commented on Hathaway, but I shook my head to keep him from asking questions. He nodded and took off.

I heard the front door of the house open and close as I turned. I was glad to see that Rose had thrown on a pair of jeans, but was disappointed when I saw the princess's bare feet. You'd think a guardian would take better care of their charge. I easily ran faster than them and made it to the corner much sooner than they did. They were muttering as they ran and screeched to a halt when I stepped in their path, ten feet from them. I could see Rose studying me as I studied her. She was even more beautiful in reality, even after going through what she has.

The other guardians caught up and circled us. Rose and Vasilisa took in the others and you could plainly see the shock register on their faces. Rose pressed up against the princess, keeping her behind her and away from me.

"Leave her alone," Rose snarled. "Don't touch her."

I was surprised at her viciousness. Why would we want to hurt the last living Dragomir? The last of a royal bloodline? I held my hands out in a calming gesture.

"I'm not going to-" I took a step forward which was apparently the wrong choice. She attacked me, using an offensive move she probably learned years ago. On instinct, my hands slammed into her, propelling her backward toward the sidewalk at a twisted angle. My hand snaked out and caught her arm, keeping her upright. I planned to look her in the face but her bite mark was exposed and it made me realize, she wasn't feeding the princess because she was addicted, but because she would do anything to protect her. She was so young, where did that intense determination come from? As I looked at her neck, I realized some other guardians could see it, too.

"Shit," breathed Garrett, so softly, only those with headsets could hear him.

"Oh, God," someone else said, just as quiet.

"With Hathaway the way she is, huh?" Garrett said, recalling my earlier comment.

Rose saw me looking at her neck and she reached up with the hand I wasn't holding. It came away red and slick with blood. She shook her hair forward to cover the wound, embarrassed. My eyes lingered where the bite was a few moments more, then I met her gaze. She glared back defiantly and jerked her arm out of my grasp. I let her go. She backed towards Vasilisa again, bracing herself for another attack. But the princess caught her hand and said,"Rose, don't."

Rose ignored her at first, but as Vasilisa stared intently at her, she sagged in defeat. What convinced her? The princess only said two words. Or could it be…? I stepped forward, dismissing the idea. I turned my attention to the princess and bowed to her.

"My name is Dimitri Belikov," I told her. "I've come to take you back to St. Vladimir's Academy, Princess."