The one day I don't have training in the morning is the day I wake up early. Go figure. The one day I had to sleep in and be well rested for my guardian trials is the day I wake up early and find myself too keyed up and nervous to fall back asleep. What a joke!

I looked up at the ceiling. This time tomorrow I would have received my promise mark and would officially be Guardian Rosemarie Hathaway. This time tomorrow I would have finally reached the goal I had been striving for since I was born, almost what I was born to do. And hopefully with some luck and pulling the right strings, tomorrow I would be considered the best candidate to be my best friend, Vasilissa Dragomire's, guardian. With some luck.

It's crazy to think about how far I have come. From a car crash that literally ended my life and took away my almost 'foster' family to being the happiest girl in the world on the brink of everything she could have ever hoped for. An ideal job, the perfect boyfriend, the perfect best friend, the perfect friends and even a relationship with my real Mother and Father - even if that relationship is the furthest thing from perfect. Right now life was perfect and I was truly the happiest I had ever been in life ever since the car accident.

So lost in my thoughts, I almost missed the soft knock at my door. After my initial surprise and confusion as to what someone would be doing at my door this early in the morning, I gained enough willpower to get out of my comfy, warm bed and get the door. As soon as I opened the door I was hit with a wave of aftershave.

My mouth formed a small smile as I croaked out a soft 'hey' to my early visitor.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
He gently pushed me inside and closed the door behind him.
"Just thought I'd see how you were." Yeah, at this un-Godly hour, I think not.
"And you didn't think I was sleeping?" I asked, finally bringing myself to look at him.
I sighed. Dimitri. My Russian God. Standing in front of me with one of those rare smiles on his gorgeous face, light brown eyes following my every move - enough to make any girl swoon. But I am not just any girl, I'm Rose Hathaway and I must maintain my cool.

"Roza, you and I both know you weren't sleeping. Today's your big day, and you're too nervous to sleep in" - he held up a hand just as I was about to deny his claims and continued - "don't even bother lying to me."

Yeah, true, there was no point lying to him. He could read me like an open book. He thought he had me there, but he should of known that I can read him just as well.
"Okay, fair enough. So tell me why you're here, because we both know you didn't come here to 'see' how I was" I spoke softly, walking towards him.

He chuckled. "No of course not." My arms made their way to his neck, just as his found my hips and then continued. "I came to tell you you'd do fine today and to get some sleep, you know the pre-performance pep talk. As your mentor, you shouldn't have expected anything else."
I laughed as I pulled away and made my way to the bed, sitting with my legs under the blanket.

He followed suit sitting down so that he was facing me.

"Honest, I swear. I had no sordid plans" he said.
I smiled and brought my hands to his face, giving him a chaste kiss on the lips. "I know it's me that thinks that way, now let me catch some more beauty sleep before I kick butt in my trials."
"You'll be fine and I'll see you again before you go out and 'kick' butt", he made sure to make quotation marks with his fingers when he said kick.

I raised my eyebrows at him, only receiving a laugh for my efforts.

As if to say 'please leave now' I yawned. Truth be told I didn't want him to leave. "I'll go and let you sleep"
"You can stay with me if you like" I said, sounding hopeful.
"Only a few more days until you graduate, then I'm all yours," he said, as if that would make everything better. And it did.
"Please, you're all mine now," I shot back.
But his only response was to kiss me on my forehead leaving me to fall back asleep. And like always his calming presence erased all my nerves and allowed me to once again fall into a deep slumber. So deep that I ended up sleeping in and being just a tad bit late. True Rose Hathaway style.

After hastily getting dressed I launched open my door, grabbed my gear and slammed it shut again.
"Jesus Rose, no need to kill the door."
I turned around and was greeted by a hug from my best friend, Lissa.
"Hey Liss, kind of slept in." The look she gave me said she had gathered that much. "I was kind of nervous and couldn't go to sleep until Dimitri came and calmed me down a bit", I smiled.
"Of course he did." Did I mention I was regretting telling Lissa about my relationship with my mentor? If I knew I would receive countless snarky remarks from sweet angelic Vasilissa I would have kept my mouth shut. This is another instant when Christian Ozera, her boyfriend, is rubbing off on her, and that isn't in a good way.

"Where's your better half Lissy? Aw, couldn't poor Chrissie get his pasty, white arse out of bed this morning?" I teased.
And just as she was about to reply, she was interrupted by Stan Alto. One of the most horrid Guardians at Saint Vlad's, one who seemed to respect me but didn't know how to show it seeing as he acted like a jerk to most of his students all the time. The look on his face this morning signified I had done something wrong. But if you asked him, that wouldn't be anything out of the ordinary.
"You're late, people have started bets on whether you would show up or not," he chastised.

I rolled my eyes.

My reputation in this school isn't the best. After running out on school last month just to get away from all the drama and stress that had built up after the Strigoi attack I just needed to get away and indulge in some retail therapy. Unfortunately I didn't have the money for that and I still hadn't met my wealthy, mob-boss Father yet and as a result I found myself at Adrian Ivashkov's door. And that is the tale of my short vaccation with Adrian Ivashkov. Yeah, Dimitri wasn't too happy about that. Not only did I neglect to tell him I would be ditching school until I was ready to go back but I acted on impulse, the very thing he was trying to mentor out of me. But he was probably the most mad about me going with Adrian, just Adrian - the guy who was pretty cute and also had a crush on me. No matter how many times I told Dimitri there was nothing going on between us other than friendship he still couldn't shake his jealous side.

And of course, as a result of my 1 week getaway the school created numerous rumours about me dropping out of school because I was either pregnant or didn't want to be a guardian anymore. Yeah, fat chance of either of those being true.

What do you reckon they were betting on? Lissa asked me through the bond. I bet the majority of them placed more bets on you not not showing up.
I wrapped my arms around her, giving her a hug and whispered in her ear. "Well I refuse to bet anything on that because we both know that would be true."

I ran across the gym to where my mentor stood. As I hastily made my way over I couldn't help but notice all the students who had turned up to witness this event. Not so long ago it was me racing to get the best seat in the gym so that I could see such badass fights between the Novices and Guardians playing Strigoi.

Dimitri's face held no emotion as I finally reached where he stood behind the seating stands.

"If I knew telling you to go to sleep would have meant you came to your trials late I would have told you to stay awake" he said in a disinterested voice. A voice that seemed like it had no emotion in it but gave across feelings of disappointment but also amusement. Amusement? I guess he wasn't surprised but my lateness.
"Sorry Comrade, didn't know you cared. Remember you weren't really my mentor by choice were you."
"I took you in didn't I, be grateful" he laughed.

His laugh was cut off by Alberta Alberta calling my name, signalling that my trial was about to commence. Guess I just made it in the nick of time.
"True. But I'll pay you back for being my gallant knight in shinning amour in any way you want," I winked as a walked away.
But I didn't get far because his hand caught my wrist and pulled me towards him. With a quick kiss to my lips he whispered good luck. And as I turned my head around I realised my Mother, Janine Hathaway, had witnessed the whole thing.

After a few short seconds of shock, her face formed a smile and she mouthed the words 'you can do it.'

Somehow I knew, that I would ace this trial and then after that my life would be great. Why? Because I would spend it with the greatest people on Earth.

Bring it on.