A/N:
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Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Richelle Mead, except the story line or any new character(s) introduced.

As I sat on the plane headed to Montana I stared at the piece of paper clutched in my right hand and let my mind wonder back to a scene that had taken place earlier in the day.

I zipped my luggage and took one last glance around the room I considered mine for the past seventeen years. The curtains, bed spread, and floor pattern that used to remind me of home now only served to reinforce my out-of-placeness. While my room had been splashed in color every other bedroom in the house was dull: white walls, white carpet, white curtains, white everything. Everything and everyone in the house had been so different from me, and now I understood why. I had never been a part of this family, at least not in the bi—

A knock at my door interrupted my mental ramblings. For a second I had the urge to not let whoever wanted entrance in, but before I had the opportunity to act on that thought the person strolled into my room. I mentally chastised myself for not locking the door.

"If you were just going to walk in there was no need to knock," I said in a detached voice. There was no hello; no how are you, no hi because honestly I didn't feel as though anyone in this house deserved my salutations.

Sydney cut a glance to the bags I had packed before her gaze finally rested upon my face. "It was just a formality. I thought it would be best to alert you to my presence and not catch you unaware."

I kept my voice level as not to let my anger show. "Either way it's unwelcome." I paused for just a second before I continued. "Your presence that is." Just in case she needed clarification.

"I figured that," she said.

I had to fight to hold back any further comment. Sydney had come to me, which meant she had something she wanted to say. I planned to let her speak her mind. The less I had to say the better. It's not as if I had anything I wanted to say to my so called family anyway.

"Well, this is better than I expected," she finally said, breaking the silence.

My narrowed eyes hastened her next statement. "I was just…that is…I expected you to fly off the handle when I walked in your room. I thought you would have kicked me out by now."Her eyes had darted around the room as she spoke as not to look at me full in the face.

"It's a possibility," I replied coolly. "Now get on with it."

Before she spoke she straightened her back and took a deep breath. "I can't imagine how you must feel and the level of betrayal you are trying to cope with, but I want you to know that no matter what, you are still part of this family. You will always have a place in it, just as you always have."

That statement set me off.

"Always have! Always have!" I didn't know whether I was yelling, screaming, or shouting or a combination of the three. At this point I didn't really give a damn. "You and I both know that's a lie." I pulled the piece of paper I had taken from Alberta in her office out of my pocket and thrust it at Sydney. "Read it! Read that and look me in my eyes and honestly tell me I have always been a part of this family."

Her eyes scanned the unfolded piece of paper. "Rose, I know this is hard—"

I cut her off. "Hard! Sydney this is more than just hard!" I gave her an incredulous look. "Damn it, Sydney. That's my birth certificate. My real birth certificate, not some made up one 'our parents' had forged." By now my voice had risen to such heights that I was shocked no one had come to find out what was going on. "It all but comes out and states I'm not a part of this family. Unless you've forgotten how to read," the look on Sydney's face told me I had cut her deep, but honestly I was too keyed up to care, "it says my name is Rosemarie Hathaway, not Rosemarie Sage. It says my mother's last name is Hathaway and my father is unknown. So don't stand there with you righteous act and spew some bullshit about me always being a part of this family because I'm not and I never was."

Sydney's eyes began to grow glossy, which is how I knew my words had really hurt her. My sister never cried. "Rose, don't say that. We love you. We always have. I love you. You're my sister."

I could hear the sincerity in my sister's voice. As I spoke I lessened the harshness of my tone, but my anger still had not subsided. "Syd, I'm not your sister. I don't even know what the hell I am." I gestured to the paper Sydney had crumpled up in her hands. "It has my race listed as dhampir." I saw her visibly flinch at my words. "I don't even know what the fuck a dhampir is!"

She touched the cheek I knew harbored the golden lily tattoo. It was hidden from sight at the moment due to the poor lighting in my room. "I do," she whispered.

I visibly blanched. I hadn't been expecting that. It was probably the only thing Sydney could have said at this point that would have completely shocked me. "I thought you said you didn't know anything." I knew that wasn't a fair point because Sydney had never come out and said she was ignorant of the situation. I had based that statement off her reaction in Alberta's office.

"I didn't know anything. I promise you that, Rose," she said. Once again I could tell she was being nothing but honest with me. "I would have never kept something like this from you, but I did have my suspicions."

"Okay, I believe you. Start explaining." I knew Alberta said she would clue me in on the plane ride to Montana, but here Sydney was with valuable information and willing to explain. Of course I couldn't turn my back on that, especially since the information pertained to me.

"You remember when you first noticed my tattoo, don't you?"

A nod of my head was my only reply.

"Well, you continuously asked me about it, but I was reluctant to give you an explanation. However, that reluctance wasn't born from the magical properties of the tattoo."

I gave her a blank look. When my science loving, there's a viable explanation for everything, sister began to talk about magic as if it really existed I began to question her sanity.

"Rose, I'm not joking and I'm not crazy."

I gave her a look that said I believed otherwise.

She let out a lengthy sigh. "You better sit down. This might take a while."

Once we were both seated, Sydney began to enlighten me. She received few interruptions from me, but when she mentioned the existence of vampires—good and bad, like there was really a difference—and how it was her job to keep their race a secret from the mass society I outright laughed. It was a few minutes before I was calm enough to gather my bearing and listen to the rest of what Sydney had to say, but at this point I was so skeptical I wasn't really taking anything she had to say seriously. I preferred to think—as unreasonable as it was—that my sister was on some really bad drugs.

When she finally finished, she gave me leave to speak. "So you're telling me that I'm some half human half vampire hybrid called a dhampir. Most of whom go to some academy to learn martial arts and become guardians so that they can spend the rest of their lives protecting Moroi, 'the good magic wielding living vampires', from the Strigoi, 'the undead bad vampires', who need to kill their victims for sustenance." I looked at Sydney to make sure I had summed everything up properly.

She nodded her head. "And it's not really martial arts. It's more like combat."

"So you mean to tell me there are two races of vampires who are essentially at war with one another, and your job as an alchemist is to ensure humans don't find out about vampires and dhampirs."

She gave me a small smile. "Yes, and the tattoo on my cheek prevents me from speaking about this to anyone who doesn't already know."

I gave her a dubious look. "Or in my case, should know."

"Yes, but I have my suspicions about that," she said.

"You have your suspicions about everything," I joked.

She gave me another small smile. "Yeah, well if I hadn't had my suspicions I wouldn't have thought something was up with our parents when it came to you."

"Well, if what you told me was true it was your magical tattoo that alerted you to the fact that something was amiss. You said the magical properties, or compulsion as you called it, in the tattoo keep you from talking about vampires to people who don't know, so when the tattoo wasn't keeping you from telling me you thought something was wrong."

"Yes." Sydney gave me a meaningful look. "So you do believe me, right? Because you are about to be thrust into that world of your own volition in a matter of hours."

The opportunity to reply was taken from me when the woman I had considered my mother walked into my room. Her timing was impeccable considering I had no answer to the question Sydney posed. However, I didn't want to see her so honestly the cons outweighed the pros.

My tone of voice when I delivered my statement left no room for uncertainty about how I felt about 'my mother'. "Haven't you ever heard of knocking?" Those words wiped the smile that formed when she walked in my room and saw me talking to Sydney off her face. There will be no room for reconciliation here.

She looked from me to Sydney. When she found no sympathy from me or my sister she tried to appeal to our rational sides. "Your father and I only did what we thought was best for you, Rose. You don't know the entirety of the situation. Neither of you."

I cut off any response Sydney would have made. "What I do know is that you guys are not my parents. What I also know is that if Alberta hadn't waltzed into my life then I would still be living in ignorance! How is that best for me? How is letting me live a lie best for me!" I paused, but not long enough to let anyone get out a response. "Did you think about what the truth would do to me when I found out? Or did you not expect me to ever know? If you didn't, you should have known better because dirty little secrets always have a way of coming out, especially the gut wrenching life shattering kind!"

She let out a sob to let me know I was breaking her heart. "Rose, I'm sorry. I'm sorry you're hurt. I am! If I could go back in time to lessen the blow of you finding out this way then I would, but I can't. You're my daughter and I don't want you angry with me forever. Rose, I lov—"

"Rose, it's time to go." Alberta's voice came from the hallway outside my room.

I hopped off my bed and grabbed my bags, but not before giving the girl I had always thought of as my twin a hug. I extended the embrace longer than was normal glad that I was at least leaving the place I had considered home with one relationship still intact.

We said our I love yous, and I promised to call Sydney, although I wasn't too sure I would be able to keep up that end of the bargain.

I strolled past my mother as if I hadn't a care in the world, and I saw more tears slide down her already wet cheeks.

Alberta took one of my bags when I reached her, and I stole one last glance at the place I used to call home and the people I used to call my family.

As I trekked down the hall to the stairs to exit the house, the last thing I saw was the cold disapproving glare of my father.

Shaking and the sound of my name brought me out of my reverie.

I looked up into Alberta's weathered face and realized we were still on the plane.

The look on her face was one of concern. "Rose, are you okay," she asked.

Shifting myself in my seat, I gave my head a slight shake to rid myself of the memory I had been reliving. "I'm fine, Alberta. What's up? Are we close to landing yet? I think I have jet lag."

She gave her head a shake. "Rose, you only get jet lag when you cross multiple time zones."

I gave a shrug by way of saying, "what's your point?"

When she spoke again her eyes were trained on something outside my window. "We're almost there." She inclined her head to the vast wilderness beneath us.

"Great. I bet they don't even have plumbing," I mumbled.

A small smirk graced Alberta's face. It had been so slight that at first I hadn't been sure I had really seen it. "Rose, I think it's time we had that talk."

By the time we had landed, driven to St. Vladimir's Academy, and entered the gates, Alberta had made a believer out of me.

Seeing her in action also went a long way to validate her argument. She personified everything she said a guardian was. She may be up there in age, but she moved with dexterity and lethalness that she said was unique to guardians. She also had a way of incessantly keeping surveillance of a room without being obvious to someone with an untrained eye.

When I confessed I noticed this trait in her, she chalked it up to me differentiating from my kind—dhampirs—and humans. She said I would have to notice small things like that since the two races so closely resembled one another.

After a while I had found myself deftly surveying a room searching for anything that seemed out of place or amiss. I fell into the habit as if it was something I had always done. It felt comfortable to me; it felt natural.

As Alberta and I walked through St. Vladimir's Academy I took everything in. The campus had an upscale cosmopolitan feel to it. Of course the buildings were on the gothic side, but they had just enough tough of modernism to belong in today's world of technological advancement. The campus was huge and well spread out with the wild forests of Montana circumventing the entire school, making it difficult for humans to stumble into a world they didn't belong in. To be honest, I was in awe of my new home. Back in New Orleans I had gone to a rich private school, but it didn't even compare to St. Vladimir's, not by a long shot.

The only thing missing was actual people. "Hey, Alberta." I waited for her to acknowledge me before I continued. "Why aren't there any people wondering about the campus. It feels like a ghost town."

"Because students don't want to face punishment before the school year even starts. The teachers and guardians are monitoring dorms."

My eyes widened in horror. It was a beautiful day and these people were keeping the students housed in dorms like prisoners. I was beginning to rethink my decision to come here, and I said as much to Alberta.

"The sun is up. It's night time for us. Any students roaming around campus at this time of night would be breaking curfew." She had delivered that with a straight face, which is how I knew she was serious.

I completely stopped walking when she said that.

She turned her head in my direction but didn't break stride. "Rose, keep up or I'll leave you."

Hurrying back to her side I made my thoughts known. "You conveniently left that out of your description of what my new life comprised of."

Alberta spared me a look before she opened a door to a building that looked like it housed administration. "I thought that went without saying. I apologize for my negligence. I've never had to explain our world to anyone before, so the things I consider normal and trivial might not be that way for you. My apologies for not taking your circumstances into consideration."

"Alberta, that really sounded like a half assed apology to my ears."

A small smile ghosted her face at my insubordination. She was used to it. After all she had been my P.E. instructor at my human school in New Orleans. "Rose, watch your language. And it's Guardian Petrov."

I scoffed at that. "Anything you say Ms. P."

She shook her head at my use of her pseudonym. "I don't assume asking you to change your core values, beliefs, and biological clock is going to assist in an attitude adjustment."

"Not on your life," I said, giving her a rueful smile, letting her know exactly how much I planned to undergo a complete personality change.

Alberta opened another door. This time it led to an office. "Well, you said you had jet lag. That should help you adjust to your new schedule."

Before I had the chance to retort, Alberta was speaking again. "Time to meet your first vampire," she said as she ushered me into the office.

A rather pallid looking woman was standing behind a desk with a frown plastered on her face. She was tall and had a slim build. Seeing as her eyes weren't rimmed in red I took it this woman was a Moroi.

"Ms. Hathaway," her casual use of my newfound last name rattled me a bit, "I am headmistress here at St. Vladimir's Academy. I took the liberty to look through your files from your previous schools, and needless to say I am not impressed." Immediately my defenses went up. This woman sure knew how to roll out the welcome committee. "Your grades were below average. The only things your records show you excelled in were Physical Education and getting into trouble. Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

Absolutely, and none of them were pleasant. However, I bit my tongue. "Yes, I do actually." Out of the corner of my eyes I say Alberta standing against the wall as stoic as a statue, but I swore I saw her telling me with her eyes not to do or say anything egregious. I took that into consideration as I spoke. "From what I've been told, a guardian's main duty is to protect his or her Moroi from harm. Excuse me if I am overstepping, but based on that knowledge I don't see what use obtaining sufficient—at least by your definition because the last time I checked Cs were passing—grades in my core classes has to do with keeping my Moroi alive and well. The only classes I really need to pass are my combat classes, so I don't see the problem. And if you don't mind could you give me your name. It's only fair considering you know mine. Plus I'm growing tired of mentally calling you that bitc—"

For the first time during this meeting Alberta spoke up. It was no doubt to keep me from calling the headmistress a bitch to her face, but in my defense she was totally asking for it. "Rose, you will address Headmistress Kirova with respect."

Kirova showed her approval of Alberta's stepping in and diffusing the situation by way of a nod. When she spoke she didn't give the slightest hint that she knew I had been about to call her a bitch. "Ms. Hathaway." Apparently she was going to begin all her sentences that way. I could already feel the burgeoning of a wonderful relationship between the two of us. "While you bring up a valid point, you fail to take into account that your poor grades, which were much closer to Ds than Cs if you want to be technical, were earned while you were still unaware of your duty to those of us in this world. You had no way of knowing you needed to do exceedingly well in your physical classes, and counter to what you believe it is of the upmost importance to achieve good grades in your classes where your physical prowess is not instrumental to your success. If the Moroi you are assigned to goes off to college and your overall grades are subpar and you are barred enrollment, what will your Moroi do for protection?"

I honestly didn't have an answer for that, so I slumped in my seat and cleared my face of any emotion. If Alberta was going to stand against the wall like a statue then I could very well do the same thing in my seat.

Kirova was none-to-pleased with my reaction. "Ms. Hathaway, you need to learn a great deal of discipline before you are ready to graduate. When the school year begins you will be classified as a senior, but I'm not sure if you are ready to handle the responsibilities a senior novice is expected to take on."

I knew Kirova hadn't finished speaking, but I couldn't resist the urge to butt in. "I guess I'll just have to prove you wrong then, won't I Kirova?"

She let out an exasperated sigh. "Ms. Hathaway, I guess you will. School begins in one week. Get settled. Do not get into any trouble. I don't want to see you in my office again anytime soon." Well that made two of us. "I have already seen to it that your records have been put on file. You will receive a copy of your course schedule sometime during the day. Alberta will show you to your dorm room. You are dismissed." She gave a wave of her left hand to finalize her words, but I could tell there was a lot she left unsaid.

I rose from my seat and began to follow Alberta out of Kirova's office. Her voice halted my progress. "And Ms. Hathaway, you will address me as Headmistress Kirova, not Kirova. Also, the next time you are in my office, because I am sure there will be a next time, refrain from using profane language. Whether it is directed at me or not it is nonetheless disrespectful. Remember that or our next visit won't end this pleasantly. That is all. Alberta, take her away." Kirova turned her back on us in favor of staring out her office window.

I bit back my comment about being treated like a prisoner because I knew as soon as we were out of earshot of Kirova; I was going to feel the wrath of an angry guardian.

Sure enough Alberta came through, and the only thing that can be said is that I never want to incur her wrath again. Hell hath no furry like an angry guardian.

Once I was shown to my room and given the key I walked to my bed in a trance. Overall it had been a horrible day. As soon as my head hit the pillow I was out like a light. I hadn't even taken in my surroundings before I went to sleep. It looked as though I wasn't going to have any problem adjusting to vampire time.

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As always I apologize for any mistakes you may have come across during your reading.