I'm such a nerd. xD I read Vampire Academy FanFiction to get enough steam to write another chapter of my own FanFiction. I'm so weird, it's not even funny.
Speaking of which, if you're looking for a good VA FanFic to keep you occupied for a little while, Betrayed By Love, written by Imagination Goddess, is a good pick. I just finished what has been put up (it's not finished yet) and I love it.
On with my story.
Usual disclaimers apply.
I didn't get Lissa's fascination with this Greek place that was on the Court grounds, and I didn't think I ever would understand her liking it. All I knew was that I could barely have any choice on what I could eat when she dragged me along, because everything had feta cheese on it. On my first bite, I was repulsed by the crumbly cheese. It just tasted weird and the aftertaste, I had learned that night, was a bitch to get rid of later on.
So I subtlety grilled Fya on Dimitri over my nice big stacking heap of chicken fingers. The people working the restaurant - mostly Moroi - knew Fya, Lissa, and I well enough that they only cared to give us a menu when Lissa felt like splurging on dessert, and only had to see us to put our order in, every little detail memorized. Which meant along with my very nutritious diet of macaroni-and-cheese and Diet Coke, I also had chicken fingers and Diet Coke to add to it. I couldn't remember the last time I drank something other than Diet Coke.
"How did the meeting go?" Fya asked Lissa, her Russian accent still strong but hidden at the same time. Fya knew I could understand it, but Lissa wasn't around Dimitri every day, so Fya kept her accent the way she did so Lissa could understand what she saying.
"It was fine," Lissa said, setting her glass down. Peter, our waiter, came by and refilled it with more water. "It was filled with a lot of the same bull the Royals feel necessary to throw around all day every day."
"Did you actually get something done this time?" Fya asked politely. She had come along on our graduation trip to the Bahamas, and since I had hung out with her a good deal of the time, I knew Fya really well. It was times like right now that I had to stop myself from snorting when I heard the hidden emotions in her voice. This time it was sarcasm.
Lissa nodded, though not that enthusiastically. "We finally settled on a theme."
"Which would be?" Fya cut some more veal up. I was considering switching to being a vegetarian.
I just sat there eating my chicken fingers (hey, call it like it is) watching the exchange.
"White Wonderland," Lissa said simply. I snorted and thought of a bunch of snarky comments Christian would throw out had he been there and Lissa not within earshot. Lissa shot a look at me. I held up my hands.
"A little ironic, don't you think?" I shrugged with my hands still the air. "We're about to become the next Siberia at this point." I ignored the lump that formed in my throat and I swallowed it back down with a bite of chicken.
"At least we agreed on it," Lissa replied cooly. I flinched on the inside. I was going to have to watch my mouth from now on with the mood swings and sensitive feelings raging inside Lissa.
"Do you think everything will be ready in time?" Fya asked, playing mediator again.
"I think so." Lissa shrugged. "I've been put in charge of invitations, so I have a list of names and it's up to me to figure out what and how the invitations look like and get distributed."
"You should do a snowflake," Fya suggested, getting excited. I slumped in my chair slightly and looked around the restaurant, tuning them out.
The restaurant definitely had a Mediterranean feel to it. The walls were painted a slightly off-white and the tables and chairs were made out of wood. There were pictures of Greece hung up on the walls. It was strange; it felt warm and sea coast inside and then you stepped outside and it was like a slap in the face. A reminder that winter was here and you were in the mountains of Pennsylvania and not on the coast of some Greek island, the latter of which I would rather happily be sitting in.
"I'm going to the bathroom," Lissa muttered, and the scraping of her chair broke me out of my daydream wishes.
"Are you okay, Rose?" Fya asked, looking at me carefully. She had quickly learned that only Dimitri could call me "Roza" and get a positive reaction out of it.
"Yeah, I'm fine," I lied, and finished off my chicken fingers as I felt Lissa's knees hit the cool tile floor in front of the toilet, the entire lunch suddenly having been eaten in vain.
"Dimitri doesn't like liars," Fya said weirdly.
"I don't know what Dimitri likes anymore," I said, my voice angry and quiet.
"I knew something was wrong," Fya said. I could've sworn she was about to jump out of her chair and shout "Eureka!" at the top of her lungs.
"Fine," I admitted, "I assume you know the rumors and gossip about our 'abusive relationship', correct?" I mimed air quotes with my fingers in the air. I wasn't sure if that was the appropriate title.
"When did he start acting like this?" Fya asked, her wine glass paused halfway to her mouth.
"Around the time everyone got settled in here." I shrugged half-heartedly. Maybe there was something I was missing. And I was right; I knew from what came out of Fya's lips next.
"Did anything bad happen while you and Lissa were at Lehigh?" Fya questioned.
"Not that I know of," I whispered, suddenly scared.
"That has happened before," Fya said, putting her wine glass back down. She didn't drink out of it.
"What?" I asked. She was about to tell me another childhood story of Dimitri's, I just knew it.
"You know how Dimitri beat up his father when he was thirteen, right?" I nodded. "He had a girlfriend, by teenager standards, at the time. Stasha Sedova. Stasha was fourteen at the time, and, again, by teenager standards, their relationship was what you would call perfect. When the incident with his father occured, he shut down. He didn't talk to anybody, he kept to himself at school, he always had his nose in some American or British novel, he basically shut the world out. He started acting really cold and heartless, by the standards of his age, towards Stasha, and she freaked out, thinking it was something she did.
"He didn't beat her or anything; it was more vindictive. For some reason that still escapes me, he started spreading rumors and saying nasty things about her. Her mother's family is Royal, and she was sent out to Russia to live with her grandmother while her mother was in the hospital after nearly dying giving birth to one of Stasha's sisters. For somebody looking for revenge, that was perfect material. He took his anger and stress about the incident with Ivan out that way.
"Of course, she dropped him like a hot potato, and he never had a girlfriend after that. At least, until you came along. While the women in his family were always good to him since he was the only male around full-time, he was the kind of kid who would connect with his female teacher really well because she was a woman outside his family. He needed friends of the opposite gender, and after the Stasha incident, every girl would avoid him like he was the Bubonic Plague because Stasha ruined reputation. He had been quite the charmer and no doubt would have continued to be one had Ivan not set him off like Ivan always does," Fya finished.
I sat back in my chair. Fya had given me a lot to think about.
"Ivan was his dad," I guessed randomly and Fya nodded.
"Ivan Ozera. Second cousin, I believe, of Tasha Ozera," Fya said, drinking her wine until the glass was drained.
Dimitri was related to Christian. Which meant, should the occasion ever happen, if I were to marry Dimitri, I would be related by marriage to Christian. I shuddered. As much as Christian and I were Christian and I, I seriously was repulsed by the idea of even remotely being related to him.
On the flip side, through two marriages, I would be related to Lissa. And we literally would be one big happy family.
Lissa came back, and my head hurt with trying to process everything.
"I already paid the check," Lissa said, barely glancing at me.
"Well, let us brave the white stuff falling from the snow and get back to the apartment," Fya said, standing up and stretching like the conversation we just had never happened.
"Let's," Lissa agreed, and shrugged her silver and black coat on.
We trudged through the snow (we had boots on over our regular shoes) back to Lissa's place, when I felt somebody's breath on the back of my neck.
"Well, little dhampir, you look rather dashing with snow in your hair," Adrian whispered in my ear, and if I weren't taken, I would probably have giggled from the seductiveness in his tone. Instead, I opted for incredulous sarcasm.
"Would you please not stand so damn close to me?" I hissed, my headache ebbing and flowing with every step I took. I looked around and saw Dimitri and Adrian's other guardian, Andrew, walking not too far behind us. Lissa caught Adrian's eye despite the snow and he winked at her in a friendly manner.
"Someone is feisty today," Adrian noted, rubbing his bare hands together for some warmth.
"Someone's irritable," I muttered. "And she's not too happy about someone else making judgments about her," I added, hoping he'd get the message.
"Sorry little dhampir, but I'm allowed to make as many comments today as I want." That cocky grin was plastered on his face. Dimitri moved to walk next to me. I didn't know what to make of his silence.
"Would you fuck off already?" I asked, suddenly feeling weird next to Dimitri. Too many twists were suddenly happening and I needed to have a good hour or two to think about everything that had been going on and what Fya had just told me.
Adrian mimicked me. "No, I won't. Not unless Christian is..."
I didn't hear any more of what Adrian said because I was suddenly on the ground, puking my guts out. Somebody shrieked, and I could feel Dimitri's hands calmly pulling my hair away from my face.
The sudden sickness scared me as I kneeled there, my head pounding and my mouth and throat burning. I wasn't pregnant like Lissa and she felt fine through the bond - shock and fright were flowing steadily through it now - and I hadn't eaten anything weird lately. There weren't any Strigoi around; I could tell by feeling now. This was gross nauseous; my Strigoi alarms had a sense of dread to them. For now, as I finished showing everyone my lunch, I would blame it on my still present shock of Dimitri and Christian being related. Dimitri had mentioned a couple of times that his father was Royal, but it had to be the Ozera family.
I sat back, my eyes closed, my stomach clenching in protest that there was nothing left.
"Roza?" Dimitri whispered in my ear, and I felt like crying. He hadn't called me that in a long time. Tears were building up behind my eyelids as I answered him.
"I don't feel so good," I whispered, and I felt like a five-year-old complaining to her mother that her tummy hurt.
"I'm not surprised," Dimitri murmured, and one of his hands disappeared from my head. "You were bringing up blood at the end."
I groaned. The smell was also starting to get to me.
"Eat this," Dimitri said, and I opened my eyes to see his bare hand cupped with melting snow in it. I drank the melting snow from his hand, swished it around my mouth, and spit it back out near the vomit. I ate another handful, my own this time, and I swallowed.
He helped me up. "I'm taking you back to the apartment," he announced softly.
"But I can't and Sofya and-" I started rambling but Dimitri put a finger over my lips.
"It isn't the end of the world for Sofya, and you need to rest," Dimitri said quietly, just about reading my mind. "I'll let the Queen know what happened."
"Fine," I muttered unhappily, and allowed Dimitri to take me back to our shoe box of an apartment.
Dimitri still cares about Rose and her well being, so this is a sweet moment, despite what Rose found out about his father.
I have free creative license to Dimitri's dad and that whole aspect, so hey, if I want to make him half-Ozera, Dimitri will have Ozera blood in him. That and I didn't feel like coming up with yet another name. It'll be explained later on how despite Ozera being a Romanian surname, Dimitri still has all Russian blood and family roots.
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