Disclaimer: I don't own Vampire Academy. That genius Richelle Mead does. I do own Recluse though :)

Chapter 2: Confidential

The man who is Adrian and isn't at the same time walked into the room. His stride is straight and brisk, unlike the easygoing slouched stroll I remembered.

"Queen Vasilisa." he says as he bows.

"Lissa" she corrects. It annoyed her greatly when people called her "Your Highness" or "Queen Vasilisa." The bow must have really bothered her. Adrian of all people knows this very well.

"Adrian..." my voice comes out in a whisper. "What happened? Where have you been?"

Adrian looks at me with unreadable eyes.

"I'm here to explain that and more." he states in a flat and sober voice. From there, he launches a ton of information on us. We all gather around him like some children listening to a nursery rhyme.

"I have joined Recluse."

We all looked around confused. None of us had heard that term ever in our lives.

"Let me explain," Adrian says, sensing our confusion. "Recluse is a top secret organization. Only a handful of people outside of our agency has heard of us. We exist because of the army of Strigoi."

Everybody in the room turned 10 shades lighter.

"Army?" Lissa screeched. How could this possibly be?

Adrian nodded solemnly. "Do you remember the Badica attack and the attack on St. Vlad's?"

Who wouldn't? It was one of the most horrible attacks in the history of the Moroi world. One killed Arthur Shoenberg, the master of the guardians. The other turned my beloved Dimitri into a Strigoi.

Adrian continued on. "Well, the Strigoi have been cooperating together for years. In fact, they have built an army that stretches worldwide." He turned to Dimitri. "Belikov, you know this. You served in the Russian branch."

All eyes were focused on Dimitri. His face showed pain and regret for working with them.

"You're lying," I say with acid in my voice. "Dimitri would've told me this ages ago. He trusts me!"

"Roza..." Dimitri whispers barely audible. The pain in his eyes grew tenfold. "I didn't want to hurt you. The Strigoi would come after us if I told anyone anything about their inner workings."

How could he? Yes, I acknowledge his protectiveness, but he still could've trusted me and told me! As I start to unleash my anger, Lissa grabs my shoulders.

"Let Adrian finish." she says in a calm but pleading voice. "Dimitri has a good reason."

I try and settle down as Adrian continues telling us about this "Recluse."

"The Strigoi have also compelled humans, dhampirs, and Moroi into serving them. With the other 3 races in their hands, the Strigoi are unstoppable. Sunlight can't bother them anymore once they send a well- trained dhampir out to kidnap them a snack."

My heart sped up. The realization hit me that any random human, dhampir, or Moroi can kidnap Lissa at any second and I would be unable to save her because I would be too surprised to even move.

"What's their motive?" Christian asked.

"Blood and power," Adrian answered. "Mostly blood."

We all shivered.

"Recluse is an agency that was made to keep the Strigoi army at bay. Look at it this way: the guardians are the defensive side in this war, keeping the Moroi safe. Recluse is the offensive side, who go out and destroy the Strigoi."

A thought occurred to me. "Doesn't this make you just another vigilante group?" I asked. I remembered Artur, Lev, and the gang back at Novosibirsk.

Adrian shook his head. "We're an organized army of 10,000 Moroi, dhampirs, and humans that has been fighting for well over 500 years."

"So just a bigger and more glorified vigilante group," Christian responded with a snarky tone.

Adrian rolled his eyes. "No. We actually succeed at our job. We keep the army under wraps and out of reach of precious lives. We also have a rigorous training program that produces some of the best fighters in the world, and we don't just let some random strangers in. Recluse was founded by King Gregory Drozdov and has been approved by the Moroi monarchs ever since."

"Then how come I don't know about any of this?" Lissa shrieked.

"That's what I came here for. I was sent to get approval from you so that we can continue keeping the Strigoi army at bay."

"You didn't answer my question." Lissa said flatly.

Adrian sighed. "We can't really trust anyone these days. The last time we told a well- respected guardian that wasn't part of Recluse about us, he told part of the Badica family and ended up getting everyone who knew slaughtered."

Arthur Shoenberg. That's why he and the Badicas were killed.

"I suggest you all come with me to Recluse HQ. There's a lot more information that I cannot discuss with you here."

More? I needed to know. There's a whole army of Strigoi around us that could murder Lissa at any moment.

"Where is it?" Dimitri asked.

"I can't tell you, but it will take an awfully long flight to get there."

A thought hit me. "Liss, it's the first day of college tomorrow!" I said.

"Screw Lehigh!" she responded with immense passion. "I can come anytime I want, and I'm the queen. We need to know more about this!"

I smirked, wondering where this will all take us.