As the light was switched on, there was a sigh with relief as she stepped into her room. Her roommate, Meredith, was nowhere to be found. Chances were, she was still studying for the test in Modern Moroi History tomorrow. The young Dhampir shook her head, putting her backpack on the floor by the door, and putting her books on the nightstand by her bed.

Olena Wilder was only 17 years old. In just another year, she would be a Guardian; she'd be the best damn Guardian the Moroi world had ever seen.

Her dark hair, which curled at the ends, swayed as she moved across the room to her bed. She took off her shoes, and grabbed her pajamas from next to her pillow. She had folded them neatly that morning, so she wouldn't have to go digging around for them was she was too tired to do so. She and Meredith kept their room nice and neat, although Olena had a hard time finding things. For some reason she couldn't fathom, she easily found things when the room was slightly messy, but not overbearingly so. She shook her head again, thinking over the day's events.

She'd gotten out of bed at 7:30, just before the sun went down. This was so she'd have time to study for her test the next day. Her grades had been slipping, and she knew that was something that couldn't be tolerated. She excelled more in the training room, then in academics. Olena always had a hard time studying, since her friends easily distracted her; Aleksandyr would always say something that always started along the lines of "Hey, you know that one time when we..." and ended with some heinous juvenile crime that had the two of them laughing their asses off. This in turn would completely take her mind off her studies, hence the poor grades.

Olena took a nice warm shower and washed her hair, got dressed in a bright red V-neck and black skinny jeans with a vest and knee-high boots before leaving the dorm. She knew the library was open early, so she decided to take the time to actually get her grades up. Breakfast wasn't being served yet, so she'd have to wait to eat, which she hadn't minded.

That proved more difficult than she imagined. She'd completely not eaten a thing the night before due to mass studying, therefore skipping dinner. And this morning might not be any different, she thought.

With a routine sigh, she'd walked quietly into the building that held her favorite place on campus. Besides the cafeteria, her room, and the pool of course. She quickly lugged her backpack around her shoulder and sat down to work. The Moroi library attendant gave her a queer look when she walked in. Olena simply rolled her eyes and looked away.

Was it so odd to a Dhampir in the library, this early? Olena didn't think so, but she might have said otherwise if she hadn't been the Dhampir. She quietly put in her headphones to listen to music while she studied and got to work.

An hour later, the bell rang for breakfast, and she quickly left the library. She nearly sprinted across the quad and into the cafeteria, running into a wall.

In actuality, it wasn't a wall so much as a person. A tall person in fact. A male. In addition, a Dhampir. A tall, male Dhampir, which had apparently not felt the girl that just slammed into his back. Olena landed flat on her ass, which earned her a few snickers from the Moroi. She stood up in a huff, and rolled her eyes, gathering her books as she went.

"Dvigat'sya!" she said to whoever was still standing in front of her.

"Oh, I am sorry..." a deep voice said. She looked up, having not heard the voice before, but it was so familiar.

Olena furrowed her eyes. "Papa?" she said in surprise.

"What? Nyet.-" someone answered her.

"Aw, what are you doing here?" someone whined. It was Rose. Olena furrowed her brow. The man in front of her was definitely not a student.

"Oh, Guardian Belikov, I'm really sorry. I didn't see you..." she gave him a sheepish grin.

"Man, you're blind. Who's gonna take care of you when you're all old and baggy and wrinkled?" the voice behind her made her frown and Belikov cocked his head as if he was confused.

"You should not speak to Dhampir that way, Mr. Ozera." Belikov stated. "Much less a girl."

"Well, if it isn't the royal jackass?" Olena said.

Belikov gave her a stern, yet slightly appalled and amused look. Dhampir weren't supposed to speak to Moroi in such a manner, much less the royals.

Aleksandyr smiled wide, flashing his fangs, and laughed.

"Not only a jackass, but royal too. Has a nice ring to it." Olena shook her head. Guardian Belikov shook his head, and looked like he was getting ready to say something when Rose spoke up again.

"Come on, Olena. I'm starving."

"Me too," Aleksandyr put in. He and Rose each hooked an arm around Olena's before the trio moved around the Guardian to go find a table.

That entire day, Olena was steady through her classes. She did her best to pay attention, and not let her mind wander, or let Aleksandyr distract her from her work. The Russian Wilder gathered her things when school ended. She and Aleksandyr made a promise to meet up later to study, knowing training would end about three or four hours after school did. She didn't mind that training always took so damn long, seeing as how they needed to learn how to kill Strigoi. Little did the others know that Olena Wilder had killed a few things in her day, even before she transferred to St. Vladimir's Academy in Who-Knows-Where, Montana.

Olena smiled, thinking of her brothers. Jasha was at least 33 by now, and Rurik was a year behind. She was happy for her brother Jasha, happy that he'd gotten married to his pretty and reliable assistant Ann Smith. Rurik was off on another dig in Scotland somewhere from the last time they spoke over the phone..

Olena smiled to herself. Her family was very eccentric. Dimirtri Belikov reminded her of the way her father could reprimand his children and tell them he loved them in the same breath. Which wasn't hard for him to do when she was running around. Olena shook her head, smiling at good times, but trying to focus on the present. She had a test coming up, and thinking her crazy loving family would just make her miss them a hell of a lot more than she already did (which was saying a lot).

Konstantine always said Olena was his Printsessa Yekaterina, his pure princess. The young Dhampir smiled at the fond memory of her father, and moved on to the training gym.

As soon as she walked in, like every other day, she was let down. They still hadn't progressed to using stakes. Olena huffed out a sigh, seeing Rose and Mason sparing. She had him on his ass in three seconds. This made Olena laugh and Belikov appeared.

"You're late," he told her. She groaned. If any of them were ever late, they'd have to run laps around the track. And it felt like hell decided to freeze over outside. The devil figured he could take a day off, and not warm the ground the beneath their feet. Olena hadn't bothered switching into her gym clothes.

"How many?" she asked him, dropping her bag on the floor, and pushing it towards the others.

"Tridtsat'."

"What?! Thirty?! Are you serious?!"

"Tridtsat' pyat'." he answered simply. Thirty-five laps. She never had to run this many laps around her father's land. Moreover, the land the Wilders owned was nearly as large as the school's campus. Olena growled, and turned away.

"I'm going to change."

Olena groaned as she entered the changing room. She'd been out nearly half the night, and still went to the library to study. On the way there, she'd had an encounter with a group of Moroi.

They'd been out drinking; she'd smelled the booze a quarter of a mile off. The boys came out of the woods, whooping and hollering, like they'd been at a party. Olena had been trained to pay attention to her instincts, the way her father had taught her. If she sensed that something was wrong, she was to avoid the danger at any cost. There was no telling if the Varinski scum would find them or not, and Konstantine had made sure that Olena was never alone when she was younger. Now that she was older, she had been taught how to defend herself if she couldn't get out of a certain situation without being harmed. This was one of those situations.

Olena made a point to avoid the loud group, turning to her right, deciding it'd be safer to take the long route to the library. She'd have to walk around the dorm buildings and go through the quad, but she was fine with that. Having made sure she'd studied the school map; her father tested her on all the exits. She knew where she was going, and she knew how to get help quickly. The Dhampir dorm came into view. So did another shouting Moroi.

"Hey, sweetness!" he called to her. The others laughed; two of them were behind her- she didn't need to turn around to hear them or see them... or smell them.

"Listen, Zeklos-" she'd heard that drunken holler numerous times before. She knew where it came from- "I need to get the library. I have a test tomorrow. Let me pass." Olena didn't wait for an answer; she simply stepped around the boy, holding his arms out for her.

"Come on, Olena. Let's have some fun." The stench of the booze wafted around her, making her eyes water. Someone grabbed her ass, and it was game over. How anyone had gotten that close to her, she didn't know. Olena simply moved, using her animal instant as well as the instinct the Dhampir had taught her. She heard a thud, and a groan.

"Whoa, the bitch dropped him!" someone cried out. She heard movement to her left, and kicked out; her target was one point. That was two down, and two to go.

"Get away from me, Zeklos." she said. Jesse stepped back, not wanting to get hit. She heard another groan. It was Ralf. "Stay down, Voda. You don't want my foot up your ass again," Olena warned. She tried to sound tough, and she figured she did, since Jesse backed up even further, the buzz they had seemed to vanish.

"You're one crazy bitch," the Moroi next to him finally spoke up. Olena had never seen him before. His voice held a deep timbre too it. It was like her father's unmistakably thick with a Russian accent.

"The hell are you?" she growled. Olena could see them all well enough in the dark. He had blonde hair, and she though his eyes might be dark.

"An interested party in this conversation." He leered at her in the darkness, or at least that's what she felt like he was doing. Although, one could hardly say she was showing skin. Olena scoffed and rolled her eyes. Was this some kid of joke? She though. Could he really be that stupid?

"Look, I'm not in the mood for you and your horny bullshit. Go to your room, creep."

"Ah, I frighten you, yes?" She looked him up and down; he looked more like he was from the Ukraine instead.

"No, now leave me alone!" she shoved him away before he could make a grab for her, and she twisted around when Jesse stepped closer.

"Sorry, damn! Chill out." he told her. Olena simply turned and walked away.

She heard a deep laugh follow her across the quad. "YA uvizhu vas skoro, krasivaya devushka."

Those words made Olena's blood freeze, which made her move faster. She did not say anything; she just made an obscene gesture, which would have had Alto all over her ass if he had seen it. This got her another laugh.

Olena made it to the library without another mishap. She was a bit frazzled from the boy's words. I will see you very soon, pretty girl. His voice had drawled and he said the words slowly like his intentions were clear. Which they seemed to be. They instantly make her think of certain people who happened to obtain skills much like her own, but on a far deadlier scale.

"He couldn't be..." she said. Nevertheless, the way he'd looked at her... Like an animal watching its prey... She shook her head furiously. Olena turned her mind to the task at hand: studying for her Moroi History test. She never got why she was taking the class; she knew all there was to know about them in the basic sense. She flipped through the pages of her text book, located the designated chapters that needed looking over, put her headphones in her ears and stared down the book like it was the last thing was were ever going to see.

Olena turned on the light and sighed with relief as she stepped into her room. She noticed that Meredith wasn't in bed, or anywhere else in the room, which meant she was problem studying somewhere else. Olena checked the clock on the nightstand.

"Ugh..." she groaned. It was nearly seven o'clock in the morning! Everybody was probably into a deep sleep by now, and she was still wide awake! She pulled off her shoes and placed them at the end of the bed. She was probably going to wear them again to tomorrow, as cold as it was.

She still couldn't get that boy out of her head as she moved about the room. His voice was thick, like he had recently learned English, and still retained the thickness of his Ukrainian accent. Olena was the same way, only her Russian accent wasn't as thick around here as it would be if she were at home. That tended to happen when she was with her family; the Russian Wilder in her came out.

She furrowed her brow, thinking she heard a scuffle outside her door. She was silent for a while, unmoving. When the sound wasn't heard again, she lightly chuckled to herself. "You need some sleep," she told herself. In response to her own words, Olena yawned and stretched, and began pulling her shirt off to get in the shower.

Something was nagging her at the back on her mind, and she paused. Someone knocked on the door, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up. She sniffed the air, not smelling anything but her own scent, and a bit of Meredith's. Olena was silent, and it was as if the whole world stood still for the next few seconds.

Knock! Knock!

Maybe Meredith thought that the door was locked, since it was so late. However, Olena had a feeling... She opened the door, and the hallway was dark. She furrowed her brow, not liking the feeling she was getting. Olena stayed in the doorway, but leaned out far enough to look to either end. The Dhampir stationed at the end of the hallway was gone. She supposed it was his break, although it was a bit unusual to not see someone there. This probably usually happened; she had never stayed up this late before.

Olena shook her head, not knowing what phony excuse to chalk this up to, and closed the door. A chill ran down her spine and froze her blood. The hair on the back of her neck stood up on end, and the room suddenly held a slight stench in the air.

"I told you I would see you again, didn't I, Wilder bitch?" The voice crawled up her spine. She moved away from the door, launching herself toward her intruder. The blonde moved aside as if dodging her was easy. Someone landed a blow to her side, another to her legs, but she didn't go down.

Olena kept a stash of weapons hidden beneath a floorboard in the closet, and under her bed. Three teenagers stood between both her and them. One of them was a Moroi, Sergei Zeklos, if she remembered. He possessed the elemental magic for air.

Her worst fears had come true. Her father's worst fears had been realized. She'd been sent away so something like this wouldn't happen. Therefore, she wouldn't come face to face with the other side of her family, the family that she preferred to never talk about. Olena Ekaterina Wilder's eyes widened.

The blonde had dark brown eyes, dull compared to her slight amber-topaz orbs. Fear rolled off her in waves, and the boy in front of her smiled wide, showing slightly yellowed teeth. He laughed, and his brother and the Moroi joined in.

"I never knew I had such a pretty girl for a cousin. My father and brothers will be very pleased when I tell him that I found you. I will enjoy this. You however... It is safe to say that you will not..."

Olena couldn't seem to move as he stalked toward her.

"Varinski..." was the only thing she managed to say before everything went dark.