This is not a romitri tale (sorry), but Dimitri/Rose, Lissa/Christian & Sonya/Mikhail all make appearances during the story. Special dedication to Lea0014!

If you haven't read my other story here's what you need to know...

*Don = Mikhail Tanner's best mate - dhampir, guardian, loyal friend & smart arse.

*Karin = Sonya Karp's best friend - moroi, independent young professional & very, very single.

*These characters are a naughtier, bolder and smuttier than my Sonya/Mikhail in my previous story. Enjoy the lemons!

Finally - Please feel free to review/PM so I know what you think - positive feedback makes my day & I reply to every post :-)


1. Introductions

(Karin POV)

Ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain speaking. I'd like to welcome you aboard American Airlines flight AA1935 traveling from Detroit to Pittsburgh. Today's flight will take three hours fifty-one minutes, with a one hour layover in Philadelphia. The skies are looking clear and our estimated arrival time is 3.16pm. Please sit back and enjoy your flight.

I rested back against the seat, wrinkling my nose in annoyance as the large woman sitting next to me spread herself out, hogging the armrest between us and turning to her equally ample friend across the aisle to begin a loud conversation - their high-pitched, nasal voices carrying across the whole cabin.

Humans! I cursed to myself. I lived among them and worked among them happily enough, but sometimes they just pissed me off. Leaning forward, I selected a music channel on the entertainment screen and shifted closer to the window, lifting the blind to watch Detroit grow smaller and smaller as our plane banked sharply and set a course for Pennsylvania.

I was no stranger to flying but my stomach lurched slightly as we rose above a thick bank of cloud and passed through a small pocket of turbulence. Maybe a drink might steady my nerves? I thought, seeing the stewardess approaching with her trolley of refreshments.

'I'll get a can of Canadian Club and dry ginger ale please,' I placed my order, being careful to hide my fangs as I smiled gratefully to the stewardess. A minute later I'd poured the bubbling amber liquid into the glass provided and took a refreshing gulp, enjoying the cold sting as it trickled down my throat before resting the glass on the tray in front of me and closing my eyes with a sigh. If only the woman next to me would shut up for five minutes I might actually be able to catch a nap.

The gods must have heard me because the nasal voice stopped suddenly, and I felt the armrest sag dangerously as the woman leant on it to stand up. I figured she was probably going to the toilet but a few seconds later somebody else sat down in the seat beside me and I could tell from the overpowering waft of aftershave that it was a man. My eyes flashed open and I turned to see a fit looking guy in his mid-thirties settling himself into the chair, placing a bottle of heineken on his own tray along with a paperback novel – some crime thriller, judging by the cover. His sandy brown hair was short at the back and sides but longer and slightly mussy on top, and there was a faint dusting of freckles over his finely chiselled nose.

'Hi,' he mouthed, his eyebrows quirking up over intense hazel eyes, and my heart skipped a beat as I realised who – or what – he was.

I slid the headphones down around my neck and turned to him. 'Saved by a guardian already, and I haven't even gotten to Court yet,' I quipped, secretly admiring the man's athletic dhampir frame. 'Any particular reason for this honour?' I asked, taking another sip of my drink.

He fixed me with a solemn gaze. 'I'm bound by oath to protect moroi from harm and I take my job very seriously,' he explained. 'I was sitting just across the aisle and couldn't help noticing that those women were annoying you - when I saw the look of intense suffering on your face I asked your elephant if she'd like to sit next to my hippo.'

I didn't mean to laugh but his earnest expression was so funny I couldn't help it. Whisky and soda sprayed out over the seat in front of me as I struggled to contain myself. It was like he was offering to save me from a strigoi attack, not relieving me from a few hours of having a stranger encroaching on my personal space.

'Well, I'm grateful for your assistance,' I gasped, finally calming down, 'but I didn't think that kind of problem warranted guardian attention.'

The dhampir flashed me a roughish smile. 'Oh no,' he replied. 'You'd warrant my attention any day.'

I rolled my eyes at the bad pick up line. A dhampir guardian might seem appealing to a single moroi girl like me but I was wise enough to keep a level head. Guardians had a reputation of playing the field – most of them were married to their work and didn't really have any time for proper relationships. If I was younger I might have taken the bait, but I was thirty-two and my body clock was ticking. I couldn't let myself be swayed by the tempting combination of good looks and flattery.

'How sweet,' I grinned, brushing off the suggestive comment and sticking my arm out to shake his hand. 'I'm Karin by the way.'

'Don,' he eyed me approvingly, gripping my hand. 'So what business have you got at Court, Karin?' he asked, settling back in his seat.

I sighed, maybe a little too obviously. 'My best friend is getting married and I'm the maid of honour, so I'm on my way to help her with the final preparations.'

Don cocked his head to one side, picking up on the undercurrent of tension in my voice. 'Your best friend's wedding? That's a good thing right?' he clarified.

'Of course,' I answered hastily. 'Don't get me wrong – I'm over the moon for my friend. She deserves all the happiness in the world and so does her fiancée.' Ouch. Thinking about Mikhail sent a familiar sting of remorse through my heart.

'But…?' he prompted.

I downed the rest of my drink then turned to face the dhampir. 'I'm not sure I should talk about it. It's kind of personal…'

'Well, it's up to you, hon, but it seems to me like you need to get something off your chest,' Don replied, more genuinely this time. 'Think about it this way – we're just two people on a plane who probably won't ever see one-another again. I can't put any expectations or judgements on you, and seeing as I don't know anybody you know, whatever you choose to tell me will remain a secret forever. What have you got to lose?'

I hesitated a while longer. 'Fair enough,' I replied. 'But prepare yourself – it's going to get pretty weird.

'I can do weird,' he grinned, grabbing the stewardess' attention as she wheeled her trolley back to the galley, buying each of us a fresh drink. 'Now, where do you want to begin?'


(Don POV)

I sat in the airport lounge waiting for my flight back home to Court. I'd just spent three days visiting my kid brother in Jackson, Michigan. Well, by kid brother I mean I was thirty-five and he was only twenty-six, and technically we were half-brothers (having different dads wasn't a big deal among dhampir families).

Sean and I got on well enough but we didn't have a lot in common. While I followed the typical dhampir career path, working my way up the ranks to become a Court guardian, my brother Sean was the prodigal son of the family. He decided at a very young age that he didn't owe anything to the moroi cause – you couldn't blame him considering what a douchebag his father was – and decided he'd rather spend his time helping our own people. Now, after a five year law degree and two years interning with a law firm in Detroit, he'd just started up his own small firm in Jackson, defending dhampirs who had been incarcerated in the human prison system. He was even drawing up a class action case on behalf of dhampirs who felt they were being harassed by the Michigan branch of alchemists.

I understood why Sean felt he needed to fight the system, but at the same time I would never trade my guardian job for that kind of trouble. My work might be tiring and dangerous, with little free time and essentially no chance at a personal life, but at least I knew exactly what I was in for every day. Serve. Protect. Kill the bad guys.

Only things weren't quite as simple as that anymore. Until recently, everybody thought of strigoi as 'the bad guys' and a guardian's main purpose was to eliminate the growing strigoi threat by any means possible. But then Dimitri Belikov was miraculously restored back to his dhampir state by Queen Vasilisa, and suddenly we all had to consider the possibility that mindless vampire staking might not be the only answer to our strigoi problems.

The bigwigs at Court were scrambling to come up with answers – trying to decide if Dimitri's case was a one-off, freak event or maybe it was a viable option to restore strigoi instead of killing them – when another strigoi restoration hit the headlines. This time it was my best friend Mikhail's partner, Sonya Karp, and she was doing so well since the change that the happy couple were planning to get married in a few weeks' time. They were even talking about having children in the near future.

While most people viewed the idea of restoring strigoi as either an impossible dream or a smart battle strategy, I'd had an epiphany of my own: approximately half of the strigoi out there were girls.

I may be a guardian first and foremost but I was still a man with certain needs, and due to the constraints of my job I was essentially starved of female companionship. Being a dhampir was a cruel lot; most moroi women wouldn't come near us because of the social expectation to settle down with men of their own kind, and most dhampir girls didn't bother with us either because we had no way of giving them babies. Humans were a little docile for my taste, and getting kinky with a strigoi wasn't an option either as I enjoyed being alive. But now I had a brilliant idea… if we could somehow restore the strigoi females instead of killing them, that would open up a whole new demographic of potential romantic partners for poor dhampir men like me.

Yes, I was lonely and horny, and seeing Mikhail and Sonya so happy didn't make things any easier. I was so desperate I'd even invented a new game (that I privately referred to as 'catch, kill, kiss') which I played anytime I was bored in a public place – like right now in the airport departures lounge...

My eyes roamed over the passengers in the waiting room, coming to rest on a bitchy, thin-lipped woman in her late forties currently demanding an upgrade to business class because her meal was cold on the previous leg of her journey. This one was an easy choice. If you were strigoi I'd kill you… Whingy, no stamina, not worth the time and effort to save.

Nearby, a determined looking woman in her early thirties was chasing after a toddler who had made a sudden dash for the travelator (for the third time in five minutes). If you were strigoi I'd capture you... Definitely feisty enough to make a good asset in one of Hans Croft's guardian retrieval teams.

Over by the newsstand at the entrance, a slim, busty twenty-something year old was preening in front of a mirror, trying on a pair of sunglasses and admiring herself from different angles. If you were strigoi I'd kiss you – then kill you… Screwable, but too vapid to be of much benefit in the long term.

It was a fun game.

And then I saw her. She was sitting at a table near the edge of the room, one slender leg tucked up under the other as she alternated between sipping at her coffee cup and sketching something on the back of a napkin. A short shock of dark, wavy hair swept down to brush the woman's jawline, hiding her face, but when she turned to check the departure screen I was blown away by her stunning appearance; dusky skin; big almond eyes; full, soft lips, and a beauty spot high on her cheekbone. She was completely unconcerned by her surroundings – confident and serene – and I had a feeling she would be intelligent as she was beautiful.

This one was special – I'd have to make a new category for her. If you were strigoi I'd kiss you – then keep you… Why should Mikhail and Sonya have all the fun?!

When we'd boarded the plane half an hour later I was delighted to discover that my mystery moroi was seated in the same row as me, and I jumped at the chance to switch places with another passenger in order to go and sit beside her. Sure, Karin might have rebuffed one of my best pick-up lines to start with, but we were soon laughing like old friends, and the longer I kept her talking the more I wanted to hear what she had to say.

Later, when she told me she had a weird story about her best friend's upcoming wedding, I didn't bother sharing the fact that my best friend was also getting married soon. It was probably a coincidence anyway, right? And if not, it couldn't hurt to get a bit of juicy intel to use in my best man's speech. I just hoped whatever she had to say was going to be good.


Author's Note:

* About Karin: Karin is a completely original moroi character who I introduced back in Undying Love. I'm visualising Karin as Shannyn Sossamon - the main actress in A Knight's Tale & also the CBS supernatural drama Moonlight (which really should have had more than one season!) About as opposite to Sonya as I could get!

* About Don: In the VA books he's basically just a blank character who works at the front desk of Guardian HQ. In my interpretation he is a bit of a loveable rogue (think... annoying big brother/player/sensitive soul on the inside). My visual reference is Jensen Ackles (Dean from Supernatural) but of course, choose your own muse if that doesn't work for you!

* Other Stuff: Don's brother Sean is an original character I've created to give him some context. Don's strigoi game is loosely based on the UK TV show Snog/Marry/Avoid :-)

* Finally: A guest reviewer was concerned at Don's insensitive comments earlier in this chapter. Yep, he's certainly not as gentlemanly as Mikhail or Dimitri, and I intended him to be a more flawed/raw character than the standard romantic lead. I hope you'll give him another chance as he really is a good guy once you get to know him! :-)