I know an apology is pointless, because it's been MONTHS and that's just unacceptable, but I'll offer one anyway. I'm really sorry guys.

This is a shorter chapter than I would have liked to post, but it's a filler. We're going to Lehigh soon, so hopefully there will be more exciting things to come. :)

Please review. I know that I've lost credibility since it took so long since last time, but so far, WEF isn't getting the love I had been hoping for (unlike Black Rose, which was phenomenal) and my confidence and excitement is kind of taking a hit.


CHAPTER 3

I was glad to be back home.

Seeing Sydney again had been nice, and I was glad that she would be there to help out. She was a good influence—as long as she didn't revert back to her anti-vampire ways—and that would be good for Jill.

It had been tough to watch Jill fade into the background, when I was itching to stay by her side and help her adjust. Luckily, Eddie had volunteered to accompany her, and he was the next best guardian to stay with her, other than myself.

Being in such close proximity to Adrian had been uncomfortable to say the least, but it was unavoidable. He and Jill were now a package deal.

Being with Abe again was refreshing. As much as I hated to admit it, I missed the old man. He had business in Russia that was keeping him from permanently residing at Court, but he and I had agreed to keep in touch, and I knew he was never too far out of the loop, no matter how many miles away he was.

But as successful as my little trip had been, I had had a relentless yearning to get back to my loved ones.

So when I burst through the door, looking for my boyfriend, I was disappointed to see that he was absent. I only battled for a moment, trying to decide whether or not I should search him down, but then accepted that it was not the "guardian" thing to do, and that I had to resume my duty, first, and then obsess over my personal life. So instead, I went in search of my best friend.

She was in the courtyard, wearing a heavy sweater over her jeans. Her hair was pulled back into a sloppy ponytail and she was free of makeup. It was a very laid back look, one I hadn't seen in a long time. In a way, it was reassuring. Lissa had taken a break from Queen-duty and was comfortable again, at least for a moment.

"Miss me?"

She spun around, attacking me full-force without even thinking about it. Only when she pulled back a second later did she reply, "Miss you? It felt like the world was ending."

I laughed. "We're still rotating, I promise. So what did I miss?"

Lissa's face didn't change. "Nothing much. Christian and I had dinner with Dimitri one night, which was nice. Other than that, nothing special happened."

I pouted. "Oh come on, even I have better stories than that!"

Lissa smirked. "You were with Abe. Of course you have better stories."

"Probably none that you want to hear," I laughed. "Mob stories tend to be a bit depressing." A guardian standing a few feet away snickered under his breath. I quickly changed the subject. "So, we're leaving soon, huh? What's the countdown at?"

Lissa sighed. "Two days."

"You don't sound as gung-ho as you did last month."

Lissa was quiet. "It's just now hitting me, I guess. All the changes. Everything that has happened, everything that will. I'm leaving Christian and all that I'm familiar with."

"Not me!" I chirped. "I'll be right by your side."

A smile cracked over her face. "Thank God for that." She hesitated, and then asked, "How did Jill seem?"

I bit my lip. Lissa seemed fragile right now. Was it the time to be honest with her, or sugarcoat it?

"It's a beautiful campus," I said. "And she's in good hands. She's got Sydney, and Eddie, and Adrian is there with her." Without thinking, I threw in brashly, "It could be a hell of a lot worse."

Lissa grimaced. Her look of disapproval turned into one of glee, however, when a shadow appeared behind me.

"Well, well, well," Christian snickered, moving to put his arm around Lissa. "Welcome home."

Christian's guardian came to stand beside me. We could have greeted each other the way we were both yearning to, but a simple brush of our fingers would suffice for now. Dimitri's shadow loomed over mine.

"I know Sparky missed me," I commented. "It's written all over his face."

"The royal meetings definitely weren't the same without your snickering every five seconds," he said. "Lissa actually got things done."

I stuck my tongue out at him. The guardian standing a few feet away from Lissa approached her, leaned in, and quietly whispered something to her. She nodded once, and then her eyes quickly darted to me. Never before had I wanted to badly to know what was going through her head.

"What's up?" I asked her as the guardian resumed his post. Lissa shrugged nonchalantly and said, "Just an appointment reminder."

I frowned. "Since when are the guardians your personal assistants?"

Christian interjected, "Oh please, you're just jealous."

I glared at him, mostly because he had nailed it right on the head, and now I had lost any footing in the battle.

Lissa stepped in to play mediator. "Relax, Rose. It's not a big deal. Guardian Ledovskoy is going to take me to the meeting so you can resettle. Consider today your day off."

"That's hardly fair," I said. "I've already spent some of it working." I bit back the worry that was nagging in my gut. Was I being paranoid, or was Lissa hiding something?

Lissa grinned. "Get packing. If I know you, you'll want to take your whole closet."

I stuck my chin up. "That was the old Rose. Guardian Rose knows how to pack accordingly."

Christian snorted. Lissa cracked a small smile, and said, "Well I like the old Rose better, so get moving. I'll see you tomorrow morning?"

"Bright and early," I agreed and stepped aside as Lissa and Christian started back inside. Dimitri began to follow, his fingers brushing mine again longingly, but Christian said, "Smooch and gush already. Lissa and I will stand right inside the glass doors so you can see us. Just stop trying to be all covert about it."

I glanced at the other guardian, not daring to do as Christian said. Lissa took control and snapped her fingers, demanding, "Everyone out." At least three veiled guardians quickly evacuated the garden. Then Dimitri's and my charges slid the glass door shut and turned their backs to us, though they never left our peripheral vision.

I grinned as I stood on my tiptoes to touch his lips. "They try so hard."

Dimitri smiled back, running his fingers through my hair. "I missed you."

He seemed too serious for joking. Instead, I winked and said, "Wanna reconnect tonight over dinner?"

Dimitri's grin widened. "I'll cook."

My stomach growled in anticipation. "I'm holding you to that."

Dimitri's face looked shadowed. I began to ask him what was wrong when my cell phone chirped in my pocket. I groaned, but paused when I saw it was my a Pennsylvania area code. Lehigh. This couldn't be good.

"Guardian Hathaway, this is Guardian Locke from Lehigh University. You and the Queen will be arriving in a few days, and we still haven't had a chance to talk security measures."

I bid a silent farewell to Dimitri and then stepped aside to carry on the conversation with Guardian Locke. I had read about her during my study of Lehigh University. She was the head of the Moroi community on campus, keeping track of who enrolled, where they resided, and what classes they took. She organized a place for feedings and kept a Moroi doctor on call in case of emergencies. So far, she had successfully kept Moroi out of danger there and had kept their true beings hidden from the humans.

We eventually sorted everything out. Lissa and I would room together, and then we would have four more guardians rooming on either side of us. We would all be enrolled in the same classes, except for one class a week when Lissa's regular six guardians (myself included) would be temporarily replaced so that we can get to the gym to keep up with our training. There would be more guardians posted around campus to ensure no surprise attacks, and Lissa would have no choice but to be accompanied by at least one guardian at all times. (We agreed that nine times out of ten, that would be me.) Lissa was allowed 24/7 transportation to the nearest private helipad where her private copter would wait for whenever she needed to get back to Court, be it for a meeting, a speech, or anything else that may come up. Guardian Locke and I ended the conversation with an agreement to meet in person as soon as Lissa and I arrived on campus.

When I turned around, I was alone in the garden. After traipsing through the manor, I saw that Christian and Dimitri had disappeared, and Lissa was deep in a meeting, so I took her advice and went back to my wing. I changed into gym clothes and ran there, eager to start kicking again.

The other guardians there didn't go out of their ways to welcome me back from California. I wasn't unaware of my unpopular status—half of the guardians still thought I killed Tatiana, and the other half thought that I was an ungrateful brat who didn't deserve to bear a promise mark. The bitter half of me wanted to rub my tattooed neck in their faces—I bet not one of them had as many molnija marks as I bore.

But the responsible guardian in me decided to turn the other cheek and ignore them just as studiously as they ignored me.

As I assaulted the punching bag, I felt a small ache in my chest as I realized that Eddie would no longer be here with me to train or joke around or play anymore. Lissa was right—everything was changing.

Soon she and I would be on our way to college, while Dimitri and Christian held down the fort at Court, and Eddie was across the country with Lissa's newly discovered half-sister and Adrian, who had gone from being almost inseparable from me to avoiding me as meticulously as these damned guardians did.

I delivered one last punch, breathless, and then took off the gloves and retreated to the track out back. I did a quick stretch and then started my forty laps.

Forty-five minutes later, I stretched and then greeted my shower, washing off sweat and grime and stress. By the time I was out of the shower, the smell of something absolutely delicious wafted up to meet me.

"You're home early," I greeted Dimitri, who was standing at the island, chopping vegetables. I leaned in to kiss him, and then asked, "Whatcha cooking?"

"Homemade pizza," he said.

My stomach growled. "How long until it's ready?" I couldn't resist demanding. As much as I longed to reconnect with Dimitri in the way we both yearned for, I was just as desperate to eat his food.

Dimitri laughed, a sound caught somewhere between amusement, exasperation, and a growl, but said, "Probably another hour at least."

I gnawed on my lower lip, wondering if we could last that long. Then I decided that we could, it would just be challenging. But that pizza sounded delectable.

"So tell me about the last two days. Lissa's description was boring as hell."

Dimitri was quiet, suddenly absorbed in chopping.

"Comrade?" I prompted.

"What the Queen said was true," he said quietly. "Nothing noteworthy happened."

I narrowed my eyes. "Are you all lying to me?"

Dimitri brought his depthless eyes to mine. "No." He said, his voice flat but firm. With that, I dropped the subject and moved onto something else.

"Well, you may have had a boring time, but I certainly didn't at Palm Springs. It was a crazy gathering, and there couldn't have been a more awkward mix of people there."

As I launched into details of my trip, Dimitri slowly started grinning and laughing again. I kept my stories going until the pizza was ready, and then we ate together (more like we scarfed our food down)…and then we were upstairs and reconnecting. For the rest of the night.


CPOV

Lissa and I sat across the table from each other, silently munching on food that wasn't actually satisfying our cravings for blood. We were scheduled to visit the feeders tomorrow, but stress had made us need it sooner.

Things were tense between Liss and me. We had a silent agreement not to bring up the other night, even though a million questions and concerns burned on my tongue. The most important, however, the one question that I was willing to disregard our silent agreement for, was why Lissa refused to tell Rose.

The smart part of me knew that telling Rose was the only way to keep Lissa safe—both physically and mentally. If nothing else, Rose knew how to talk Lissa through the darkness. And I knew that Dimitri was right; Rose had a right to know. Keeping her in the dark about Lissa's relapses put her in just as much danger as it did my girlfriend.

But the loyal part of me wanted to stand by Lissa and respect her decisions. If she believed that she could work through this on her own, I wanted to support her rather than convince her that I didn't believe she was strong enough. I still wanted to believe that she could handle this.

I was torn.

Lissa was the one to break the tense silence. Her voice was bright, though I could hear how forced it was. She was nervous. As though she had read my thoughts, she said, "I pulled through the darkness today."

I cut my eyes to her, more sharply than I had meant to. She flinched, but went on, "It was during the meeting I was in this afternoon. I was getting so stressed and so frustrated—they were just so stubborn and rude!—and I could feel it starting to manifest. My head started aching and my vision started blurring and I could feel the blood pounding—" She choked, gauging my reaction, which I had kept carefully blank, and then slowly concluded, "I excused myself, took a few deep breaths, and talked myself through it."

I looked down at her wrists. They were still bandaged, but at least there were no blood stains anymore. I resisted the urge to demand that she take off the bandages to prove to me that she hadn't resorted to drastic measures.

"Christian," she pleaded, anguish plain in her voice. "Please don't be angry anymore. You acted normal around me for the first time since…then…when we saw Rose in the garden today."

I couldn't hold it back any longer. "Lissa, I'm not angry. I want to know why you're so against telling Rose that the darkness is so bad."

Lissa seemed to struggle with the words. "I don't want her to worry. She's already stressed enough."

"She's your guardian," I snapped. "She's supposed to be worried about you."

Lissa flinched again, so I finally softened my tone. "I love you, Lissa. I worry about you. I just wish you would trust Rose again…she knows how to help you through this. It would be better for everyone if you lifted this ban you put on me and Dimitri from telling Rose. You should tell her yourself."

Lissa's face hardened. She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. "I can do this, Christian. I proved it today, and I'll keep working on it. If it gets worse, I'll go to Rose. But right now I need to learn how to handle this on my own, and I can. I just need the chance."

With a sigh, I realized I was fighting a losing battle. At least I could convince myself at this point that she wasn't completely wrong. If she had pulled through it today, like she had said, maybe there really was hope for her.

I couldn't be the one to hinder her. I would agree with her to her face, but I would keep an eye on her…and if things got worse, I would go to Rose.

No matter what.


Hmm. So Rose is still in the dark. Don't think that's a good thing for when the two of them are stuck together at Lehigh... Is it going to have the dire consequences that everyone is afraid of?