If you read, pretty please with sugar and a cherry on top, please please review. Haha, enough begging.
After returning from a two year absence, rumours started circulating about how my best friend, Moroi princess Lissa Dragomir had managed to survive outside of the school grounds. Her diet of blood meant that we couldn't exactly stroll down to the local Wal-Mart and pick up a pint of O-Negative blood. Sure it would have made life a little simpler but for the two years we stayed away from the academy I had been Lissa's personal blood donor and I never complained, not once, because I was doing my duty by protecting my charge, my best friend. In fact, I encouraged her, mostly because she needed to be strong but partly because I was hooked on the endorphins that are released through a vampires bite.
This was nothing like that.
The Strigois fangs ripped through the layers of thin flesh covering my neck before she bit down with extra force and began to suck the life from my body. I had been counting on the calvary in the form of an attractive, six foot seven dark haired dhamphir to come and save the day. It had been our routine; I get myself in life threatening dilemma and in he comes, like a bat out of hell to save the day. Struggling against the Strigoi's impenetrable hold, she pulled my body in closer to hers before slamming it back against the wall with as much force as she could, causing the wall to shake ever so slightly.
She watched over me expectantly as I tried to stand up right. It wasn't surprising that I was having balance issues, my head had hit the wall pretty damn hard not to mention I was currently running on empty in the blood stakes. A grin pressed her lips as clenched my fists together, getting ready once more to fight. "You're a fighter, I like that." With increasingly slowness she licked her bloodied lips. She took in a deep breath and lifted her pale wrist to her mouth and ruptured through her own skin with her teeth, her forehead rippling ever so slightly at the pain of her own actions.
This was so not good.
She took a step closer to me and held wrist out to me.
"Thanks, but I've already eaten!" Even on the brink of passing out from blood loss, I was hardly going to chow down on the skank's wrist. "Besides, a bitch like you might have rabies."
Her brow furrowed and she lunged for me once again, knocking me back into the same part of the wall she had thrown me into earlier. Surely one more blow to the wall like that and I would be saying hello to Lissa's next door neighbour. "Listen to me you stupid little girl, there is a war coming and you have to decide whose side you want to be on. The weak," She looked over her shoulder at my unconscious best friend who was sprawled out across her double bed, and then back to me. "Or the immortal…I'm offering you a once in a lifetime opportunity."
Strigoi weren't known for the compassion so why was this so called badass immortal offering me, a stupid little girl the opportunity of a lifetime? It was so hilarious that I actually laughed out loud in a very high pitched school girl way in her face.
If she had been mad before. She was livid now. Her hand whipped out and circled my throat as a low hiss escaped her lips. Apparently turning down the offer of immortal life was an insult to the living dead. As her other arm approached my lips, the arm which was currently leaking blood from two small puncture wounds, my mouth clamped down. She wasn't much taller than I was which was going to work to my advantage. My head swung forward, my forehead smashing hard into her chin making her lose her grip on me completely. Ouch. I had never head butted anyone in my life mostly because the majority of people I tended to train with were about a foot taller than I me. I staggered backward from the impact trying to steady myself against the wall. One, Two, Three; well at least I could still count that was something considering that I was ninety nine percent sure that I would pass out within the next two minutes.
I would have given anything to be holding that blunt rusty old sword that I had used while decapitating the only Strigoi I had ever killed before, though in my current state I probably wouldn't have even been able to lift the sword an inch from the ground. A silver stake would probably work better, especially with Demitri teaching me how to avoid the stupid ironclad ribcage which was blocking the easy access route to the heart.
The female Strigoi was suddenly on fire. Spontaneous combustion was also highly recommendable, though it wouldn't kill a Strigoi unfortunately.
My head turned to see Christian standing in the broken doorway, his flaming eyes concentrating on keeping the flames contained to one person in the room.
"Rose…"
Lissa muttered my name again. As I turned to see whether she had woken up from her unconscious state my eyes closed and my body free fell to the floor.
--
I woke up staring at the all too familiar white ceiling of the school's clinic, which in recent months had become a second home. A frown trailed across my face as my eyes adjusted to the filtered lighting, sure I had super enhanced senses but sometimes I missed the regular light bulb which would have undoubtedly snapped my focus back into place within a heartbeat. And then it hit me, why I was in here. My hand extended up to my neck, my fingers running over the broken but closed puncture wounds.
"Shit."
"Finally she wakes!" Christian let out a deep frustrated sigh.
I jerked upright so that I was sitting on the uncomfortable hospital like bed and took in my actual surroundings. I wasn't in the usual general clinic; I was in the one of the private rooms allocated to only the incredibly wealthy. Lissa and Christian were sat at the far end of the room, as close to the walls as they could be and as far away from me as possible. Standing guard in front of them were three guardians, their faces and body stances completely identical. Well almost, Dimitri was looking at me not with the cold eyes the others were but rather his bottomless dark eyes searching mine.
Lissa stared at me, half smiling, and half grimacing. She was trying her hardest to be cheerful but yet I could feel her horror.
"What?" My hands reached up searched my face and moved down my body, checking for something, anything that would make her feel that uneasy. "What's wrong?" I swung my legs around on the clinic bed and pressed my bare feet against the cold clinic floor. As I stood and stumbled slightly, two of the guardians stepped back to protect Lissa and Christian while Dimitri reached out and steadied me. His hand felt warm on my arm, it took a lot of self control not to instinctively reach up and touch his face in response. "Whoa, head rush." I pulled back from his touch and eyed the other guardians who were looking at the two of us with curious eyes. It wasn't that obvious, was it?
"You should be resting," He looked down into my eyes as his brow furrowed slightly, "The doctor will be here to check up on you again soon."
"Rose?" I turned almost unwillingly to look at my beautiful blonde haired best friend, her expression was mixed as were her emotions. "D-d-did…" She stuttered trying to find her words, which was so unlike Lissa. "Did she…"
"Bite me?" I flicked my hand across my neck like a game show host showing off a prize – only this wasn't a prize, it was anything but. "Yeah but I totally had the fight in hand before your psycho boyfriend showed up and tried to burn the skank alive." I looked over to Christian and smiled sheepishly at him, it was uncommon for me to show any kind of gratitude to him. We had a love hate relationship…well, actually it was purely hate but still, the boy had saved the day.
"No did she…" Lissa struggled again to find her words.
"Spit it out, Liss!"
"Did you drink her blood?" Lissa finally asked.
So that's why Beavis and Butthead were guarding the two of them, they were protecting them from me!
"No!" I shrieked loudly, unless..."Not unless she did it while I was unconscious but then Christian surely would have seen…" I turned to look at him and he shook his head, indicating that he hadn't the Strigoi vampire try to force feed me her baby formula.
"Miss Dragomir was coming around when you passed out on the floor, the boy was about to lose control," Rufus the usually silent guardian spoke directly to me, giving me a rundown on what had gone down. "Guardian Belikov entered the room, fought vampire and then proceeded to stake both the female and male vampire." I had completely forgotten about the slimy male Strigoi that I had rendered unconscious before my demise. He continued to babble on while my mind went back to Lissa's question.
Anger began to simmer under the surface, how could she have even asked me that. Like I would ever drink Strigoi blood? I would have thrown myself out of her two storey bedroom window and risk having one of the caretakers mop up my remains for a month than drink anything that skanky ass bitch had to offer.
Before I could say anything Dr Olendzki entered the room, a smile pressing at her lips. "Ah Rose, you're awake, wonderful." A small smile playing at her lips, "See now," She turned to the others in the room. "Your concerns were unwarranted, her features haven't paled, she appears to be unchanged and she still has a healthy heartbeat." It was only then I was conscious of the heart rate monitor beeping away at a steady pace. My eyes flickered down to the little plastic object wrapped around my index finger which was wired to the heart rate monitor. "But I'll still need to run some tests, which require all of your absences."
Her tone suggested that apparently my visitors weren't only annoying me.
"You have two minutes," She warned the others before disappearing back into the clinic hallway.
Hopping back onto the bed which I would probably call my own for the tonight and more than likely tomorrow too, I folded my arms across my chest and waited for them to leave.
"I'll come by in the morning," Lissa approached the bed without any obstruction from her body guard, which meant that they no longer considered me a hazard.
"Yeah, fine." My abrupt tone caught her off guard and her smile faltered slightly. She would undoubtedly put my pissed off mood down to having to be a lab rat for the next couple of hours.
Christian nodded to me before following Lissa out of the room. He was followed by Rufus and the other guardian, whose name escaped me. Only Dimitri remained. I stared at the door waiting to follow the others and leave, instead I was surprised when his warm hand brushed the side of my face. His touch sent an electric current through my veins.
My head turned slightly and my eyes locked onto his. This was the first contact he had given me willingly (aside from our training sessions and earlier, when he had steadied me on my feet) and I was only too aware of that. All thoughts of feeling annoyed and betrayed at Lissa's question were gone.
For now only we existed.
I sighed into his touch, "Is getting beat up the thing a girl has to do to get some attention from you?" I asked jokingly but he didn't smile. His eyes, his expression, his whole stance was hard and serious. "Joke…" I said trying to clarify my humour, something which he usually got but ignored.
Suddenly his lips were on mine and he kissed me. Not a peck on the lips to say goodbye but a deep, heady kiss which seemed to linger on forever. The heart rate monitor went wild as my heart rate increased considerably. If he didn't know the effect he had on me, he sure did now.
"Someone's coming," He whispered against my lips just before pulling back. "I'll see you in the morning, Roza." He smiled before leaving the room, walking past the Dr. Olendzki.
I was still in a daze from the unexpected kiss that I hadn't noticed her approach my bed. "Is something wrong, Rose?" She asked looking over the heart rate monitor read out.
"Yeah," I looked up to her a little irritated. "That wasn't two minutes," I said referring to her presence and the lack of Dimitri's.
