I tapped my watch impatiently. Two more minutes and I'd have to bail on this stakeout in order to make my shift on time. To my relief, a door opened a short way down the hall, and six and a half feet of perfectly sculpted Russian turned toward me. For the first time, I gave thanks that guardian housing was equipped with shared rather than private baths.
"Howdy, cowboy," I drawled. All of the guardians had noticed the man's unusual leather duster. He wasn't wearing it now, of course. All he had on was a towel. I smirked, silently congratulating myself. My timing was perfect.
I openly admired his firm chest, chiseled abs, and oh those shoulders. Who knew there were so many muscles in just the shoulder? He tugged the towel a little tighter around his waist, and my eyes slid down to his legs. His thighs, sadly, were hidden underneath the towel, but even his calves were gorgeous.
He'd been walking toward me during my inspection, and now he stopped several feet away. "May I help you?"
I spared a quick glance at his damp shoulder-length brown hair and dark brown eyes before flashing my man-eater smile. "You already have. I needed a little pick-me-up before my shift. This view put me in such a good mood, it may last the rest of the night."
He didn't respond, just stood silently holding his ground. Not that he had much choice; I was leaning against the door to his room.
After satisfying myself with one last head-to-toe scan, I winked and strode quickly away. I felt sure that Celeste would forgive my lateness once I shared the reason.
I rushed out of guardian housing and jogged toward the front gate. In my jacket pocket, my phone started to ring. Jeez, I wasn't even five minutes late and they were hounding me. I slowed to a brisk walk and pulled out my phone, already preparing three different (bogus) arguments in my defense. My annoyance turned to worry when I saw the caller's name.
"Lissa? What's wrong?" Lissa, full name Vasilisa Dragomir, was my best friend. She always came to me with her problems.
"Nothing," the chipper voice on the line responded. "I just wanted to say hi."
I sighed in relief and exasperation. "You're not supposed to call while I'm working unless it's an emergency. That's why I sent you my schedule."
"I know. Your shift doesn't start for almost an hour." Lissa sounded unreasonably pleased with her ability to keep track of time.
"Montana is two hours behind Pennsylvania, Liss, not three," I reminded her. For someone supposedly brilliant, she could be a real birdbrain sometimes.
"Oops." Her tone dropped from proud to contrite in an instant.
I chuckled. "All right, so nothing's wrong, and I've got to go to work. We'll video chat later, yeah?"
"Yeah," she said brightly. I suspected that her enthusiasm was faked, but I didn't have time to get into it right now. We ended the call.
Lissa and I had been inseparable all throughout our school years. From the day we met at age six, I had been her guardian and she was my Moroi. We had planned to stay together after graduation, but Lissa began to suffer from severe bouts of depression during our senior year. Instead of going off to college like her brother, she moved back in with her parents. I knew she'd do better with me around, but the Guardian Council refused to waste resources by assigning her a guardian for "emotional support" when Lissa was fully protected by her parents' guardians. So she stewed idly at Court, which is why she called so often. Unlike her, I had a job to keep me busy. I would kick ass no matter what boring corner of the world I got shoved into.
As I expected, Celeste was already at the gate house when I arrived. "Hey. Sorry I'm late," I told her.
She waved away my apology. "Did you bring coffee?" The gate house had a coffee machine, but everyone said it was rubbish compared to the stuff on tap in the guardian lounge.
"Nope, I don't drink the stuff. I brought something better, though." I tossed a brown paper bag onto the desk in front of her. "Want one?"
She peered inside the bag, then looked back at me. "Just one? There are six donuts in here."
"You could have two, I guess," I said grudgingly.
Celeste chuckled. "Oh, to have the metabolism of a twenty-year-old dhampir."
I grinned and flopped into the chair next to hers. "You aren't so ancient."
"I'm old enough that I'm not willing to say how old I am," Celeste replied.
I nodded seriously. "So, what, thirty?"
She chucked a box of paperclips at my head. I dodged and the box popped open, spilling silver swirls all over the floor. Celeste groaned.
"I'll get it," I said quickly. "You rest those old bones."
She stuck her tongue out at me and attacked the donuts.
When I joined the staff of St. Vladimir's Academy in the spring, the head guardian Alberta had explained that she set the schedule so each of the few female guardians got a bit of "girl time" every week. With Celeste and I sharing overnight duty in the privacy of the gate house, this felt kind of like a slumber party. Except that it was full daylight outside, since the campus operated on a vampire schedule where dark was day and day was night. Being up while the sun was out was one of the main perks of the overnight shift. It almost made up for totally screwing with my sleep schedule. Almost.
Once I had gathered all the paper clips, I resumed my seat next to Celeste and grabbed one of the four remaining donuts. In true slumber party spirit, I dished on the hunk I had harassed in the hall on my way here.
"I met the new guardian earlier," I said casually.
"Dimitri Belikov?"
Mouth full, I nodded.
"Is he as perfect as everyone says?" Celeste asked.
"I can't speak to his attitude but physically, yes." I grinned evilly and proceeded to describe what I had seen in such detail that both Celeste and I were soon drooling, and not over the donuts.
"Too bad he won't be around after this year," Celeste sighed.
"What do you mean?"
"He's only here to guard the Dragomir girl," she explained.
"Jill? I thought she still went by Mastrano."
"Yeah, but everyone knows who she really is now." Over the summer, someone had leaked the fact that seventeen-year-old Jillian Mastrano was actually the illegitimate daughter of Emily Mastrano and Eric Dragomir, Lissa's father.
"Poor kid," I said. "Lissa refuses to speak to her father since the news broke about his affair. If today's students are anything like they were when I was in school, Jill is in for a rough senior year."
"We'll find out when classes start tomorrow," Celeste said. "Who knows, maybe everyone will crowd 'round to make friends with the newest member of the smallest royal family. If she plays her cards right, she could end up with a lot of pull for someone her age."
"Maybe."
Privately, I feared that Lissa and her mother would never accept Jill as a Dragomir. Rhea and Lissa were good-hearted people, but that didn't mean they'd be willing to condone Eric's adultery. Royals at Court were bound to pick up on that attitude and would warn their children at St. Vlad's to keep their distance from Jill. I just hoped the non-royals wouldn't shun her too.
"So, which ones should I look out for?" I asked, trying to lighten the mood. "Who is the Rose Hathaway of this year's senior class?"
Celeste laughed long and loud at that question. She and most of the guardians on staff here knew me from my own school days. "Oh, Rose," she said finally. "There's no comparison. You're the only troublemaker of your caliber this school has ever seen."
A/N: Short PSA - this story has a slow build and very little action. Still, I had fun writing it and hope you enjoy reading it. It's complete and not terribly long, which are two points in its favor, right?